The Wolf and Wheel
The sacred burden of the innkeeper: listen to the patron’s stories, empathize with them, never tell anyone else. The innkeeper in this story goes deeper than most. He enters into the stories and somehow changes them.
Great setup for questions about choice and free will, the purpose of life and the nature of evil. The philosophy is a bit heavyhanded sometimes. Answering a question about the value of life by choosing from a list of choices feels forced.
The stories have a folklore quality. Powerful symbols and a magic-realist feel. The background world is intruiging: somehow the sun has stopped rising, leaving the people in constant night…
While I liked the content of the tales, the writing (choice of words, sentence structure,…) feels off sometimes, jagged and not fluent.
The artwork is very beautiful. I wanted more of it. I am not fond of the choice of letter type however, it doesn’t mesh well with the dreamy content. Maybe something more rounded or resembling handwriting would work better?
A good read which could be polished and edited some more.
Next up: Fairest.