The Keeper of Tales is a 2021 fantasy novel by independent author Jonathon Mast.

I’m not a person who keeps up with books.

Movies? I’m all in. As you can probably see from my archive, I keep up with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, Super Mario Bros. Movie, John Wick 4, and more. TV shows, I’m usually a couple years behind (unless it’s The Chosen!) But books? I know nothing. I’m still trying to read Dune.

But eventually, I come around. And this time, I came around to the world of indie publishing. In this case, indie fantasy publishing.

It was fun. I’ve researched a fair bit about this author, and now that I follow him on Facebook and WordPress (follow him here!), it’s fun to read this and see a little success story in action. A man switching careers halfway through life, publishing his first book two years ago and now working on various publishing projects. It’s fun to follow the ride.

And that, I think, is a little bit essential to reading this book. I think there is something to be said of knowing the background to the story to appreciate the story. The story does stand on its own, though, and that’s mainly what I’m here to talk about today.

Summary

The Keeper of Tales follows Adal, an elderly king of the North in the Storied Lands. He must ally with the other races, elves and dwarves, humans and white goblins, in order to save the Storied Lands from the plots of the legendary Dark Lord Garathen.

In the Storied Lands, magic is tales. Magic is stories. Telling stories about events that happened in the world allows you to shape reality in the present, while wild tales alter the perceptions and experiences of wayward travelers. An elf can tell of how life grows and bodies heal in nature, and a boy’s arm will heal. A forest where a child got lost and went wild traps those who come in even now in a wild frenzy unless the traveler respects and tells the wild tale.

In order to go on the quest, Adam must satisfy the tale of the journey of the hero. His fellowship needs a representative from each race, a young prince, a hero. They go through the arc of the journey of the hero, losing friends along the way just in the way the tale says. They’re bound to the tale.

The story is very meta driven. Even the four “books” within the novel are titled after four act story structure. While you don’t need to know about fantasy stories to appreciate what Mast is doing here, it’s fun that a debut novel from author in the middle of his life is a commentary on stories and how culture, people, and writers are influenced by them.

Playing with Tropes

While the setup would be interesting in it of itself, and playing with the tropes of fantasy stories in a way that makes sense within the story itself is cool, there’s meat on these bones. This especially comes in Adal and Garathen’s parallel arcs. I won’t spoil the details of Garathen, but of all the tropes this book plays with, Garathen is my favorite.

But what deserves special mention is Adal’s arc. I will spoil a bit here, but it’s worth it for this review. Adal begins an old man, a king of a small kingdom. He loves reminisce about classic stories and knows more of them than anyone. He loves them. But he can’t love himself. Over the course of the journey, the stories force sacrifices from Adal and his fellowship. Adal comes to hate stories. He comes to hate how they bind people, control people, for how they fail people just like he has in his past. He hates how they frame the world, and wants to change the frame. He wants to change the story. He needs to change his own story, but instead he pursues to change the world. Perhaps in that way, he isn’t much different from his enemies.

This connects with what I believe is a weakness of this book, however. The other members of the quest all play with fantasy tropes, dwarves and elves and heroes and more. However, in filling the roster with many characters, the fellowship didn’t stand out as too deep to me. Each character has their moment, their scenario or chapter where their trope either plays out or is subverted. Then, they often don’t have as much to do for the rest of the story besides pulling out their unique weapon or skill in a battle, and maybe encouraging Adal or helping plan in a battle. The play is interesting, but their depth pales in comparison to what Garathen or Adal gets. Adal, as the first person narrator, is definitely the focus of the story. But I wish the others could get more than their scene.

Yet there is still lots of creativity here. The world, the plot, the climax, the multiple fights before the climax, there’s a lot going on here and it’s fun to see a writer flex his muscles that you might not expect a new writer to have. I especially found a couple of the combat scenarios fun, ones against creatures with unique abilities, like the Jezebel, or ones where stories force characters to fight in certain ways, or not fight at all. Those stories are alluded to before hand, and so those moments don’t feel like deus ex machina. The dark creatures that are Garathen’s newest minions are also original, especially with their meta commentary on the nature of stories that you’ll have to discover for yourself. There is a lot of creativity woven in here.

There’s other meta allusions beyond the fantasy genre. As a Christian, I noticed lots of allusions to both the Old and New Testament as well as Christian doctrine. It felt like The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings in that way, which might be another meta commentary on the origins of the fantasy genre too. There are more layers here.

Perhaps this is a good complaint to have, but I wish we got to see more of the world. The glimpses we get are cool, especially when the world interacts with stories. There’s a really fun wedding scene between people of two different cultures where they both share stories from their cultures within the wedding. They’re very fun and believable cultural traditions, and I wish we got to see more of that throughout the book. The history of the Storied Lands is very intriguing, too, and I ate up all the stories we got of the past and how the world became the way it was. Perhaps that’s good, though. The story left me wanting more of this world, the Storied Lands.

Yet don’t let that keep you away from The Keeper of Tales. It’s a fun fantasy adventure, full of meta-commentary on the genre it’s a part of. It’s got creative action, intelligent worldbuilding, and interesting characters. It’s got a fun story behind the story to boot. What are you waiting for?

Conclusion

The Go To Guru loves talking about what makes stories, stories. And at its core, that’s what this novel is about. Its meta involves a man who’s switching to a new career and doing an amazing job doing it. The novel also dances with the meta of its fantasy genre. But above all, it’s a good story about an old man who needs to move on from his own story and write a new chapter in it.