Jeff Kirby • Author

The Font of Power

Jasper is a hermit living deep in the woods, weary and resentful of others and trapped in the monotony of a solitary existence. Once-peaceful kingdoms have crumbled into violent anarchy, and the powerful mages who heralded an age of prosperity have abandoned humanity. After an accident leaves Jasper bleeding to death in his cabin, he strikes a deal with a wild dog named Mearl who has come to devour him. Jasper pledges his life to Mearl and his pack in exchange for aid, and together they embark on a journey to fight a supernatural apex predator that has been terrorizing the forest for generations. The keys to unlocking Jasper’s past, his enemy, and the collapse of civilization all revolve around a mysterious spring guarded by the spirit of the forest. To succeed in his quest, Jasper must build meaningful relationships for the first time and expand his understanding of the world and his place within it.

The Font of Power explores ideas of improving life for both individuals and communities through knowledge, education, and cooperation. Equally humorous, action-packed, and thoughtful, it delivers classic fantasy adventure while using the genre as a lens to examine larger issues of social imbalance and the importance of working together to achieve common goals. It is a story of overcoming the vacancy of an isolated life by finding a community that accepts you as you are, and the redemptive power of friendship that comes when you open yourself up to others. It examines untapped powers great and small, and the process of learning how to use that power in a way that not only reflects who you are as person, but makes life better for everyone around you.

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Malcolm Gladwell is well-known for propagating the idea that in order to become successful at any task you need to put in at least 10,000 hours of practice. I’m not sure exactly how many hours I’ve racked up writing copy, but after 10 years of describing products for big companies it became clear that a) I deeply longed to write things I cared about personally, and b) I had been describing things for other people for so long that I was now adept at describing anything I wanted for myself.

Reading through Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series, I realized this was the sort of fantasy story I would want to write, and began to think seriously about trying my hand at fiction. In particular, what I love about Le Guin’s books is her ability to focus on the story without getting mired in minute details. A Wizard of Earthsea weaves a grander tale in 200 pages than many fantasy books can wring out in three times that length. She was a master of providing a sparse but solid framework that allows the reader’s imagination to do the brunt of the legwork, letting her concentrate on propelling the story while making the world and its characters unique to each individual’s interpretation. At the heart of all of her science fiction and fantasy books, Le Guin used fictitious worlds to teach vital lessons about the realities of human nature and society that still resonate decades after they were written.

My aim in writing The Font of Power was to create a fantasy story that can be thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated by people who “don’t read fantasy.” These are the people who are entranced by Hayao Miyazaki movies, become obsessed watching series like Game of Thrones without feeling like fantasy is their go-to genre, or listen compulsively to the McElroy Brothers’ podcast The Adventure Zone without ever having played a game of Dungeons & Dragons. To do this, I focused on creating pure, likable characters who are forced to make relatable decisions in a fantastic setting, presented in a way that allows the reader’s imagination to color between the lines so that it feels more personal. Though the story follows the Hero’s Journey archetype, the hero aims to never solve problems by himself with violence, prioritizing empathy over bravado and acting as a facilitator to help others solve problems for themselves.