Apropos, the crippled bastard son of a prostitute, begins his journey when his mother is killed by a customer-knight, her money stolen, and then robbed of his own savings by Astela, his mother’s friend (using his mother’s funeral urn as a weapon). He seeks justice from the king, whose agents attempt to pay him off instead. Through a combination of quick wit, bravado, luck, and the use of a hidden knife of staff, he becomes a squire. As a squire he seeks to learn combat skills to seek out the knight who killed his mother but is assigned to the old Sir Umbrage who sleeps all day. To win a bet forced upon him he rigs a joust and the kingdom discovers that Sir Umbrage is not as old and incompetent as appearances. As a result of quick witted action resulting from a discovered tryst, Umbrage and Apropos are set on an honored mission, to retrieve the King’s daughter, Entipy from her tutilage by the Faith Women. In addition, Apropos was to attempt to gain her friendship, a difficult task as Entipy was as bitter and cynical as Apropos was and not interested in friendship.

During the return trip the band is attacked, the princess kidnapped, and Apropos, who is fleeing, comes upon his only enemy-friend Tacit, who had befriended him, taught him woodcraft, and designed his staff, in the woods planning to be the heor of the story and rescue the princess with a newly reborn phoenix. Apropos steals the phoenix and procures the princess, but the phonix flies them to a bordering land of a ruthless warlord who is hostile to their kingdom. Apropos and the princess work as hired help in the local tavern until the warlord has a wedding feast and they are offered a large sum of money for their service as hired help. Apropos discovers that the wife-to-be is none other than Astela so he blackmails her and relieves her of a large quantity of her ill-gotten wealth. Newly rich, they can now afford to send a message to the king (via a messenger witch) who arranges a rendezvous. During the course of the trip they are beset by Tacit, who is shot by the kings men before he can complete Apropos’ death.

All is not well at the rendezvous, for one of King Runcible’s knights betrays him to the itinerate king Meander. Apropos attempts a hair-brained scheme initially concocted for his escape and succeeds by his wit and by Sharee, a woman magician whom he had saved much earlier in his life, who vouches for him. Meander sees through the scheme anyway, but chooses to let Runcible go. So Apropos goes back to the castle, where a feast awaits him and he is knighted Sir Apropos of Nothing. Unhappily, he discovers that he is engaged to the princess (whom he likes but does not trust) and an evening tryst with her accidentally reveals that she is his half-sister. He refuses to marry the princess (but does not reveal the queen’s affair with the jester, who is apparently his father) and is thrown into a dungeon by the king, where is rescued by the jester. So, leaving the castle with nothing, just as he had entered it so long ago, he wanders off to (possibly) become the prophesied hero with Sharee.

Davis has written the post-modern fairy tale. The tale is set in the usual fantasy kingdom, complete with honorable knights, the phoenix, Harpies (their sons, actually), magicians (weavers), thieves (Tacit and Apropos), heros (Tacit), and princesses. However, the knights are, in fact, not terribly honorable—his mother was raped by several—and some Apropos’ fellow squires are quite mean spirited. Tacit, who began as a Robin Hood character, becomes a Hero, and then falls to unheroic bitterness and revenge after Apropos steals his route to Heroism. The princess is hardly a sweet character, a girl who is disenchanted with the fraudulence of the accident of birth and resentful of her parents’ arranging her life for her. Apropos, the ultimate hero of the story (if that title can belong to any character), displays no heroic qualities whatsoever, just a selfish devotion to saving his skin and advancing his own welfare.

Far from the fairy tale ending, Apropos rises from beggardom to prominence and in a few short hours back to beggardom. The hero and the princess do not live happily ever after, as she is not only his half-sister, but turns out have mixed desire for acquisition with love. (Although it does appear that Apropos and Sharee might live happily ever after.)  Unlike the fairy tales where the hero largely does not change, Apropos starts off as a vengeful beggar, cynical about noble princples and concerned only for himself. He becomes, however, someone who sees the hypocrisy and is determined not to live it.

Destiny is often referred to by Apropos, as his mother had seen a phoenix being born shortly before he was conceived and had known that he had a destiny. And indeed, phoenixes do appear with surprising frequency in his life: the castle has a tapestry depicting the prophesied great hero riding a phoenix, and he steals one from Tacit (who was attempting to fulfill the prophesy). Davis’ destiny is post-modern in the sense that one makes one’s own destiny, yet almost more like Oedipus’ destiny—unavoidable. Nowhere is this more apparent than when Apropos hears Tacit singing a ballad to the phoenix. Hitherto Tacit has been the obvious hero: raised by unicorns, befriending the poor, and doing great deeds. And Apropos realizes that Tacit truly is the hero of the tapestry, that Apropos is unimportant, and he refuses to accept that. Standing at the nexus of the future, Apropos decides to take Tacit’s future for himself, or at least destroy Tacit’s role in it. Yet, he later discovers that his father the jester has forseen the great hero and that the hero looks like Apropos (only without an ear). Destiny, changeable yet unavoidable.

An interesting fairy-tale set in a post-modern fairy-tale kingdom inhabited by people as they really are (or would have been), Sir Apropos of Nothing is a book that starts off fairly slowly but becomes increasingly engaging as the themes begin to develop. The conclusion is foreseeably satisfying, even though after 500 pages Apropos is still a beggar after having had many unexploitable chances to escape it, and leaves the reader with a disturbing ambiguity about their own life. How much of us acts as selfishly as Apropos? Have we had opportunities that we didn’t seize upon (for good or bad reasons)? Are we directing our own destiny? While Davis fails to make his world convincing—it is a little too arbitrary (perhaps by design)and has little depth—his characters are often disturbingly believable, covering the cynic within us, the youthful bully, the deceiver, and the politics of the authorities. In short, a thoughtful and interesting book that is well worth reading.