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It starts out in well-trod territory, full of ruts by all those who've traveled this route before.

A young man with a task. Strange signs of impending doom. The disbelief of elders. The young man sets off on a difficult quest that may determine the balance between Good and Evil.

A loving husband makes an ill-fated bargain to save his wife from a terrible disease. His wife his saved, but the small print contains hidden contractual obligations for rendering payment due.

A hearty band of misfits, including a maimed warrior and a woman with nascent magical talent, put all their cunning to use in fending off a massive onslaught by the forces of Darkness in search of a coveted Key that is the source of all power. Just as the mortals are about to be overpowered, as a last desperate effort they each accept a ring that bestows a unique power to counter evil forces, but at great pain and price to the bearer.

And this is just Book One.

Been there, done that, right?

Not quite.

As might be expected from the author Nick Gevers once described as "flamboyantly erudite," John C. Wright is not interested in mere "fantasy by the numbers" in The Last Guardian of Everness; in fact, he frequently pokes fun at the genre, even as he pulls you into a gripping tale told with all the tropes slightly twisted in compelling ways. Here, for example, is young and naïve Galen Waylock, last watchman of the dream-gate, recounting to Wendy (a name obviously intended to invoke Peter Pan's more practical love interest and the aforementioned spouse saved in the classic ill-fated deal with the devil) how he came to his current incorporeal state as a result of his encounter with Azrael, the imprisoned first Guardian long fallen from grace:

Wendy, listening to the story with great interest, rattled her bed sheets in a gesture of impatience, saying, "But why did you trust him?... I would have asked him a lot more questions about who this Dylan was. I would have asked him who betrayed Vindyamar (I love that name!). Well? Didn't you ask him anything about any of this?"

"Well, I tried to ask, but the moment he handed me the glowing marble, he kind of fell over and collapsed against the bottom of the cage. Also, he said the dawn was going to come, so I should go immediately. I had to jump."

"Off the end of the world?"

"Off the end of the world."

"And---?" prompted Wendy.

"And, what?" asked Galen, blinking.

"And why didn't you tell him no?

"Well, I didn't. I mean -- I need to prove myself. And he was unconscious."

"Jumping off worlds cannot be good for your health. No wonder you're a ghost!"

"It wasn't like that!"

Wendy raised one eyebrow with an intensely skeptical look. (She had practiced this look in front of a mirror after she had seen Vivian Leigh in Gone With the Wind look that way at a Union soldier before shooting him. It was one of her favorite expressions.) "Well, I guess you're pretty young and trusting. Oh! Don't get that look on your face; you'd think you'd swallowed a frog!"

David Soyka is a former journalist and college teacher who writes the occasional short story and freelance article. He makes a living writing corporate marketing communications, which is a kind of fiction without the art.