A review by seandelliot
Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Erica Johansen establishes herself as a bright light in fantasy fiction with her Tearling saga and Beneath the Keep is a most-worthy addition to that universe. There was no doubt, from the opening chapters of Queen of the Tearling that the land of William Tear's failed "better world" is an elegant and well-crafted mythology, with a clear connection to our contemporary societal challenges. Johansen dangled before the readers for most of the original trilogy the question of exactly what was "the crossing", how did it come about and where did Tear and his pilgrims actually land. By the end of Fate of the Tearling nearly all the pre, and early post-crossing tale had been told. In Beneath the Keep we go to the interim times, well after the early-Tearling times told in the flashback/time-travel chapters of Fate, and to the origin stories of several of the key players in the trilogy. Johansen is a talented writer and puts some fine twists on some of the classic concepts of high fantasy. The land of the Tearling is an entirely human land, no magical monsters or fairy creatures, but there is mysterious magic that weaves in and out of the tales. This readers was actually initially reluctant to visit the timeframe of this novel. With the happy ending of the epilogue of Fate, going back to a very dark time felt, well, regressive. But Johansen does a masterful job of building the stories of these characters, even as the times in which they live as so much darker and terrible that the times of Queen Kelsey's brief reign in the trilogy. There may be some questions, for those who spend the time worrying about the questions of time-travel, butterfly effects, and which of the many concepts of those that play out across the genres of fantasy and science fiction, is most at play here. The epilogue of Fate essentially erases everything that takes place in the confines of this novel, but just because someone goes back and changes the timeline, does what was erased therefore never exist? Or, do the timelines split, and Queen Kelsey's happy ending, no longer as queen, exist separately from the timeline that existed before her magical foray into time meddling? Several of the chapters open with introductory text, accounts form historical texts if you will, that recount tales of the Glynn Queen (Kelsey's informal title during her reign) as if her reign continued on well past the time it ended in the trilogy. These are all fascinating things to consider, and with Erickson proclaiming to be writing more stories of The Tearling, one must conclude that we may yet learn if she plans to write in one timeline, the other, or both, or a new one altogether. I hardly matters, as the writing will likely be worth it regardless of the branch of the multiverse traveled.