Besides being a novel written by a storyteller, like The Thousand and One Nights, The Arkadians is a story about storytelling and storytellers. Lucian, an honest young accountant on the run from crooked, power-hungry palace officials, himself a storyteller of some exaggerative power, ends up travelling with Joy-in-the-Dance, a Pythoness soothsayer in hiding, Ops a true scapegoat who took on the sins of his village, and an opinionated poet, Fronto, who has been transformed into an ass. Lucian also gets to meet a famous retired mariner, Oudeis (a word play on Odysseus and the Greek word for "nobody"), who has a few stories of his own to tell. Thrown in are the unglamorous real stories behind the story of the Minotaur, of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest of the Golden Fleece, and the Trojan horse. While it is not clear which of the characters will be the future Homer, it is clear that just a smidgen of enhancement and poetic license here and there will produce The Iliad and The Odyssey.

As with several of Alexander's more recent novels The Arkadians (1995) has a strong-willed young woman involved in the story. When Joy-in-the-Dance defies her mother, the Lady of Wild Things, to follow her love of Lucian, a member of the Bear tribe, whose leader, King Bromius, is dedicated to exterminating the worship of the Lady of Wild Things, we are given a good lesson in tolerance and the avoidance of prejudice, though without a lot of preachiness. Even Bromius, who originally decrees the destruction of the Pythoness and her associates comes around and realizes the nefarious influence of his crooked advisers.

As with many recent novels with a historical setting in the Ancient or prehistoric world, the theme presented is one of the conflict between matriarchy and expanding patriarchy, and ultimately between women's and men's views of Nature around them, how they should interact with it, and between themselves in a societal structure. However, Alexander, as the many great storytellers from Homer to the Brothers Grimm, does not go on in a long tedious philosophical discourse, but uses the tools of the storyteller to present ideas and values through interesting characters whose adventures and interactions entertain while edifying us.

So if you want the scoop on why the Trojans were offered a giant wooden horse, rather than, say, a giant wooden lion, or if you have children you want to introduce to Greek mythology The Arkadians is for you. Even if you are past the age of fairy tales and ancient mythologies, remember that without storytellers you wouldn't have anything to read, no songs to listen to, no tradition for your favourite author/musician to follow in, and ultimately a very boring, stagnant society.