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glenn_blake's review
5.0
I am not really sure what to call this, maybe a dark fantasy. But the story concerns a man who had lost the love of his life, and in death her soul has been taken to the Castle of the King, an inner region within the Realm of the Dead. In his grief the man while still in his mortal coil, with unwavering determination ventures into this realm where no living being is meant to tread.
It is a bleak, dark journey and Bram Stoker with great literary skill perfectly conveyed the sheer desolation and horror of what it is like to exist in such a place.
This is the second short story that I've read by Stoker that feels like early fantasy. He never seems to get a mention about this, you only hear about Dunsany and Tolkien, but Stoker was writing before either of those two. This story made me think of Frodo and his venturing forth to Mount Doom.
I liked this tale very much. It certainly is dark, but that darkness is conveyed with great beauty.
It is a bleak, dark journey and Bram Stoker with great literary skill perfectly conveyed the sheer desolation and horror of what it is like to exist in such a place.
This is the second short story that I've read by Stoker that feels like early fantasy. He never seems to get a mention about this, you only hear about Dunsany and Tolkien, but Stoker was writing before either of those two. This story made me think of Frodo and his venturing forth to Mount Doom.
I liked this tale very much. It certainly is dark, but that darkness is conveyed with great beauty.
bigbookslilreads's review
3.0
A gothic and beautifully well-written tale. I just wish there had been some sort of confrontation, because as it is it is a very passively written story.
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