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The Fallen Moon #1
The Dark Griffin
Being chosen as a griffin's companion has allowed Arren Cardockson to gain a place of status within the land of Cymria. But Arren can never escape the prejudice that comes with his Northerner slave origins. For chained within the Arena where rogue griffins battle to entertain the crowds, there lies another soul crying out to be freed-a kindred spirit that will allow Arren to fulfill his destiny and release the darkness in his heart.
386 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 2009
21 people are currently reading
1290 people want to read
About the author
K.J. Taylor
27 books91 followersK.J.Taylor was born in Australia in 1986 and plans to stay alive for as long as possible. She went to Radford College and achieved a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications at the University of Canberra, where she is currently studying for a Master’s Degree in Information Studies.
She published her first work, The Land of Bad Fantasy through Scholastic when she was just 18, and went on to publish The Dark Griffin in Australia and New Zealand five years later. The Griffin’s Flight and The Griffin’s War followed in the same year, and were released in America and Canada in 2011. At the moment, she is working on the third set of books in the series, while publishing the second.
K.J.Taylor’s real first name is Katie, but not many people know what the J stands for. She collects movie soundtracks and keeps pet rats, and isn’t quite as angst-ridden as her books might suggest.
Find her on Facebook
She published her first work, The Land of Bad Fantasy through Scholastic when she was just 18, and went on to publish The Dark Griffin in Australia and New Zealand five years later. The Griffin’s Flight and The Griffin’s War followed in the same year, and were released in America and Canada in 2011. At the moment, she is working on the third set of books in the series, while publishing the second.
K.J.Taylor’s real first name is Katie, but not many people know what the J stands for. She collects movie soundtracks and keeps pet rats, and isn’t quite as angst-ridden as her books might suggest.
Find her on Facebook
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 133 reviews
February 10, 2017
I really wanted to like this. It's so frustrating that I don't like this. The groundwork for a great novel was all there, hopelessly out of reach! Griffins are an underutilized fantasy creature that the genre has not tapped into that much, especially compared to their bigger, scaly cousins. And when I heard there was a series that featured a world where griffins had a kinmanship with humans and set up a society where they were almost equals, I immediately asked my library to ship me a copy. Whoo, griffins!
And the first couple of chapters, even if the writing in them was kind of choppy (and there is a weird bout of griffin sex), were delightful. When I read the first chapters of this, which details a wild mother griffin that lays a clutch of eggs, a solid black chick is born, and how the chick ends up becoming the lone survivor of his family after his parent is killed by hunters, I was thinking to myself that this was going to be an excellent novel and I was going to have a new series to put on my bookshelf.
Alas, it was not to be. Here's how it all falls apart.
Arren, our main lead, shows up after the extended prologue and is a Griffiner who is assigned to stop the dark griffin, now grown up into a savage man-eater, in order to pay off a debt caused by a botched raid of griffin chick thieves. He's a Northerner, but since he bonded with a griffin, things are good and he believes himself to be above his marked heritage. Tragedy strikes in the form of Arren losing his griffin partner in the resulting fight, but he gets his mark. When the book was at the part where he was watching this drugged up griffin with a weapon in his hand, debating with himself whether or not to act upon his rage, I could not stop turning the pages. I was engrossed, eager to see how he would go from hating this griffin to, if the cover and the summary blurb were any indication, becoming partners with it.
And then Arren returns back to the city without his griffin. And that's when we get over 200 pages of Arren being everybody's punching bag on account of his race.
And it goes on forever .
Even though this book is called "The Dark Griffin" and shows a boy triumphantly riding the back of a griffin, the actual griffins and the world-building takes a back-seat for most of the book in favor of an extended metaphor on slavery and the injustices of racism, complete with fun little racial slurs (they drop the word "Blackrobe" a lot like its one) and hate violence. People spit on him, break into his house and break all of his prized possessions, stab him, shoot him with arrows, chain him up like an animal, push him around, degrade him, strip him of his rank, turn on him after being friends for years, fit him with a slave collar that has spikes on the inside so that he is always feeling physical agony...I ended up having flashbacks to the Mord-Sith from Wizard's First Rule.
Thank you, author. I didn't really want to read a book about griffins. I really wanted to read a story that asks the question "what if society was racist against white people?".
Perhaps the constant abuse on Arren would have been more bearable if we actually got his inner thoughts and struggles. Instead, it follows a clear pattern. Injustice to Arren happens. Arren is shocked. Arren reacts in anger. More injustice happens. Arren is shocked. Lather, rinse, repeat. I can describe the events of Arren's torture in detail but could not give you a personality trait to pin on him, and after he showed so much promise in the opening chapters.
By the time he bonds with the black griffin and gets to the sequence of events in the summary blurb (minor pet peeve: perhaps the blurb gave too much away and might have contributed to why the Arren torture dragged for so long), the book is almost over and the rest of the series of events afterwards, where Arren confronts one of the main people who wronged him, almost feel sped up and glossed over. Why have a more fleshed out climactic fight against the man who is our main villain (and, let's be honest, doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's evil) when you can have entire chapters devoted to Arren wallowing in his own grief because he's a filthy Blackrobe? Blackrobe Blackrobe Blackrobe hey readers doesn't this remind you of something?
As Arren had more and more terrible stuff happen to him and his friends are completely and utterly useless despite their government jobs that could provide some use to Arren's problems (one of this friends hilariously dies off-screen by slipping and falling just to generate more Arren angst; that's how much dignity Arren's friends get) and his story dissolved into an overly extended metaphor on the horrors of slavery and hating someone of a different race, I soon found myself skimming Arren's massive humiliation conga and focusing more on the parts where the POV to return back to the Dark Griffin and how it copes with life in the Arena. After all, the griffin has way more personality than Arren and his scenes are faster-paced since he doesn't need to mope about his race.
By the way, the griffin sports the name "Darkheart" at one point in the novel. You know, the name stolen from a Care Bear villain really accentuates the racial profiling in this book, don't you think?
Most of all, I'm really sad that this book is like this, really. Anything to do with the griffins is very strong. The world-building, especially the design of the main city and how society is different with these griffin riders and bonded griffins, was fun to read and painted a clear picture in my head. I think if Arren somehow ceased to exist in this book and took his bloated character arc of racism with him, this book would be a clear winner.
Just...I hope you like clumsy writing of a fantasy race that's supposed to both symbolize the horrors caused to indigenous peoples and the horrendous atrocity of the slave trade while at the same time being the most lily white race in this world because we get way more of that than development of griffin culture and society.
And the first couple of chapters, even if the writing in them was kind of choppy (and there is a weird bout of griffin sex), were delightful. When I read the first chapters of this, which details a wild mother griffin that lays a clutch of eggs, a solid black chick is born, and how the chick ends up becoming the lone survivor of his family after his parent is killed by hunters, I was thinking to myself that this was going to be an excellent novel and I was going to have a new series to put on my bookshelf.
Alas, it was not to be. Here's how it all falls apart.
Arren, our main lead, shows up after the extended prologue and is a Griffiner who is assigned to stop the dark griffin, now grown up into a savage man-eater, in order to pay off a debt caused by a botched raid of griffin chick thieves. He's a Northerner, but since he bonded with a griffin, things are good and he believes himself to be above his marked heritage. Tragedy strikes in the form of Arren losing his griffin partner in the resulting fight, but he gets his mark. When the book was at the part where he was watching this drugged up griffin with a weapon in his hand, debating with himself whether or not to act upon his rage, I could not stop turning the pages. I was engrossed, eager to see how he would go from hating this griffin to, if the cover and the summary blurb were any indication, becoming partners with it.
And then Arren returns back to the city without his griffin. And that's when we get over 200 pages of Arren being everybody's punching bag on account of his race.
And it goes on forever .
Even though this book is called "The Dark Griffin" and shows a boy triumphantly riding the back of a griffin, the actual griffins and the world-building takes a back-seat for most of the book in favor of an extended metaphor on slavery and the injustices of racism, complete with fun little racial slurs (they drop the word "Blackrobe" a lot like its one) and hate violence. People spit on him, break into his house and break all of his prized possessions, stab him, shoot him with arrows, chain him up like an animal, push him around, degrade him, strip him of his rank, turn on him after being friends for years, fit him with a slave collar that has spikes on the inside so that he is always feeling physical agony...I ended up having flashbacks to the Mord-Sith from Wizard's First Rule.
Thank you, author. I didn't really want to read a book about griffins. I really wanted to read a story that asks the question "what if society was racist against white people?".
Perhaps the constant abuse on Arren would have been more bearable if we actually got his inner thoughts and struggles. Instead, it follows a clear pattern. Injustice to Arren happens. Arren is shocked. Arren reacts in anger. More injustice happens. Arren is shocked. Lather, rinse, repeat. I can describe the events of Arren's torture in detail but could not give you a personality trait to pin on him, and after he showed so much promise in the opening chapters.
By the time he bonds with the black griffin and gets to the sequence of events in the summary blurb (minor pet peeve: perhaps the blurb gave too much away and might have contributed to why the Arren torture dragged for so long), the book is almost over and the rest of the series of events afterwards, where Arren confronts one of the main people who wronged him, almost feel sped up and glossed over. Why have a more fleshed out climactic fight against the man who is our main villain (and, let's be honest, doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's evil) when you can have entire chapters devoted to Arren wallowing in his own grief because he's a filthy Blackrobe? Blackrobe Blackrobe Blackrobe hey readers doesn't this remind you of something?
As Arren had more and more terrible stuff happen to him and his friends are completely and utterly useless despite their government jobs that could provide some use to Arren's problems (one of this friends hilariously dies off-screen by slipping and falling just to generate more Arren angst; that's how much dignity Arren's friends get) and his story dissolved into an overly extended metaphor on the horrors of slavery and hating someone of a different race, I soon found myself skimming Arren's massive humiliation conga and focusing more on the parts where the POV to return back to the Dark Griffin and how it copes with life in the Arena. After all, the griffin has way more personality than Arren and his scenes are faster-paced since he doesn't need to mope about his race.
By the way, the griffin sports the name "Darkheart" at one point in the novel. You know, the name stolen from a Care Bear villain really accentuates the racial profiling in this book, don't you think?
Most of all, I'm really sad that this book is like this, really. Anything to do with the griffins is very strong. The world-building, especially the design of the main city and how society is different with these griffin riders and bonded griffins, was fun to read and painted a clear picture in my head. I think if Arren somehow ceased to exist in this book and took his bloated character arc of racism with him, this book would be a clear winner.
Just...I hope you like clumsy writing of a fantasy race that's supposed to both symbolize the horrors caused to indigenous peoples and the horrendous atrocity of the slave trade while at the same time being the most lily white race in this world because we get way more of that than development of griffin culture and society.
May 31, 2011
Dark and unsophisticated: not a winning combination.
The book begins with a mother griffin tending to her chicks. In the wilderness. During dire times. Related in short sentences. This gets better, but those first three sentences were not promising, and in retrospect I wish I'd stopped there. The story progresses rather like a nature documentary until one chick triumphantly reaches adulthood.
Then we get introduced to Arren, a human of a traditionally enslaved race, who nonetheless has garnered some respect as a (domesticated, speech-capable) griffin's companion and with some commercial authority. He turns out to need some money, the local lord suggests that he capture a wild griffin for the bounty, and Arren sets off with a special griffin sleeping potion. You guessed it, the griffin at large is none other than the one we watched grow up into a fierce and dangerous beast. This felt a bit computer game-like to me, where you get ushered into a custom-fitted adventure.
From there, though, Arren falls upon tragedy after tragedy, and frankly, I never felt compelled to sympathize with him all that much. I'm sure he was your generic stalwart goodfellow before all the betrayals and bad times ensued, but I never really was moved by his grief or terror. He was just a guy I happened to be reading about between scenes from a griffin point of view. And the way stuff piled up on him was just depressing, with the loss of loved ones and title and safety and dignity, and people turning on him and refusing to believe him when he defended himself. Basically, anything that could make him more miserable happened. I don't blame him for his reactions of stupid anger, but it didn't really give him much agency, and just gave other characters justification to consider him the wretched villain he was accused of being. He doesn't really fight his way through it, just stumbles into another horrific situation that happens to let him out of a previous one, and oh, by the way, at the end of it manages to bond with that griffin.
To be fair, the paths converge decently, but I'm still shaking my head over the grim indignities that Arren suffered. The two getting together was insufficient resolution to make up for all that. And the worldbuilding felt sparse in places; the role of the griffins (besides making their human companions seem cool) and of this other human race seemed convenient rather than integrated and fully explained.
I'm skipping the rest of these.
(ETA: I know now that this is meant to be an origin story for a villain. That makes sense. However, there is a reason people like to read about heroes...)
The book begins with a mother griffin tending to her chicks. In the wilderness. During dire times. Related in short sentences. This gets better, but those first three sentences were not promising, and in retrospect I wish I'd stopped there. The story progresses rather like a nature documentary until one chick triumphantly reaches adulthood.
Then we get introduced to Arren, a human of a traditionally enslaved race, who nonetheless has garnered some respect as a (domesticated, speech-capable) griffin's companion and with some commercial authority. He turns out to need some money, the local lord suggests that he capture a wild griffin for the bounty, and Arren sets off with a special griffin sleeping potion. You guessed it, the griffin at large is none other than the one we watched grow up into a fierce and dangerous beast. This felt a bit computer game-like to me, where you get ushered into a custom-fitted adventure.
From there, though, Arren falls upon tragedy after tragedy, and frankly, I never felt compelled to sympathize with him all that much. I'm sure he was your generic stalwart goodfellow before all the betrayals and bad times ensued, but I never really was moved by his grief or terror. He was just a guy I happened to be reading about between scenes from a griffin point of view. And the way stuff piled up on him was just depressing, with the loss of loved ones and title and safety and dignity, and people turning on him and refusing to believe him when he defended himself. Basically, anything that could make him more miserable happened. I don't blame him for his reactions of stupid anger, but it didn't really give him much agency, and just gave other characters justification to consider him the wretched villain he was accused of being. He doesn't really fight his way through it, just stumbles into another horrific situation that happens to let him out of a previous one, and oh, by the way, at the end of it manages to bond with that griffin.
To be fair, the paths converge decently, but I'm still shaking my head over the grim indignities that Arren suffered. The two getting together was insufficient resolution to make up for all that. And the worldbuilding felt sparse in places; the role of the griffins (besides making their human companions seem cool) and of this other human race seemed convenient rather than integrated and fully explained.
I'm skipping the rest of these.
(ETA: I know now that this is meant to be an origin story for a villain. That makes sense. However, there is a reason people like to read about heroes...)
April 28, 2022
This story is dark and gloomy but at the same time it is so good and powerful too. It's about so many things but at the top of the list is prejudice against those who are seen as different, freedom and slavery. And revenge.
Arren starts out honest and trusting. He is unsure of himself and he trusts his elders. But being the only griffener of northern blood he doesn't really fit in. And he knows it too. But he trusts the leader of the griffin riders until things start going wrong. Horribly wrong. It was actually shocking how bad things got in here. In fact it was disturbing! But I guess it's like a train wreck: you just can't help looking at at so you keep reading. And the plot just continues on and you hope that something will change for poor Arren. Because he must have the worst luck ever. The book talks about the moon but I swear that Arren must have been born under the most unlucky star ever! Lots of action, despair, plot twists, crooked characters and one lone man learning a very hard lesson.
And of course there are griffins in here. Several of them. And they are not just mounts. Many have high positions of authority too. Plus some have magic as well. But poor Darkheart, like Arren, feels lost and confused. All he wants is to be free and to fly. Having been raised as a wild griffin he is unfamiliar with human ways.
Maybe the two can save each other.
Great story!
Will definitely read the two sequels.
Arren starts out honest and trusting. He is unsure of himself and he trusts his elders. But being the only griffener of northern blood he doesn't really fit in. And he knows it too. But he trusts the leader of the griffin riders until things start going wrong. Horribly wrong. It was actually shocking how bad things got in here. In fact it was disturbing! But I guess it's like a train wreck: you just can't help looking at at so you keep reading. And the plot just continues on and you hope that something will change for poor Arren. Because he must have the worst luck ever. The book talks about the moon but I swear that Arren must have been born under the most unlucky star ever! Lots of action, despair, plot twists, crooked characters and one lone man learning a very hard lesson.
And of course there are griffins in here. Several of them. And they are not just mounts. Many have high positions of authority too. Plus some have magic as well. But poor Darkheart, like Arren, feels lost and confused. All he wants is to be free and to fly. Having been raised as a wild griffin he is unfamiliar with human ways.
Maybe the two can save each other.
Great story!
Will definitely read the two sequels.
January 6, 2013
The Dark Griffin is a story about a griffin and a human. The griffin has an unfortunately difficult life, fighting to survive from the time it's born. I was a bit surprised when I started reading, actually, that the first two chapters are told entirely from the point of view of griffins with humans barely featuring on the periphery. Taylor pulled it off, however. In a section that had the potential to feel like a drawn-out prologue, I was captivated the entire time.
In Taylor's world, griffins are as intelligent as humans, have varying magical powers and can talk. The humans that ride them are called griffiners and learn to speak the language of the griffins. Arren is a griffiner, despite being of Northern descent. His people were, until recently, slaves in his city and he looks a bit different to the Southerners he lives among. The only reason he's allowed to be a griffiner is because his griffin bonded to him when they were both and there was nothing to be done about it.
Arren's story is very much one of racism and ostracism. Once Arren's position in society becomes slightly less assured, he quickly finds out how thin the veneer protecting him was. A lot of bad things happen to Arren and almost all of them are thanks to racism against his people. After a comfortable life as a respected citizen with some status, denying his heritage out of shame, it all comes as a bit of a shock to him when he loses (ostensibly only some of) that status. Suddenly people no longer respect him and constantly use dismissive language against him ("Oh, but he's only a member of the slave-race"). (Possibly not a book to read if you're particularly sensitive of/triggered by racism and oppression generally.) In the end, Arren's actions, taken out of a desperation the reader can entirely understand, appear to be increasingly erratic to the people around him, giving them more ammunition to use against him. There were some gut-wrenchingly tragic moments.
I also liked how the racism was not based on skin colour. The small world Taylor created was based loosely on Britain and so there wasn't room, geographically, for wildly different ethnic characteristics. It's nice to be reminded that an ethnic group doesn't have to look completely different to be oppressed. And of course, the themes of racism/oppression explored in the novel are widely relevant to modern culture.
The Dark Griffin is a compelling novel. Both the griffin and Arren suffer due to unfair circumstances they cannot be blamed for, and their parallel stories intertwine to powerful effect. Another brilliant fantasy read by a brilliant Australian author. I have read few run-of-the-mill fantasy novels (particularly BFF — big fat fantasy) by Australians, and The Dark Griffin certainly doesn't buck that trend.
I highly recommend The Dark Griffin to all fantasy fans. In particular fans of any or some of Jennifer Fallon, Glenda Larke, Rowena Cory Daniells or Naomi Novik's Temeraire books will probably probably enjoy this book. Having foreseen a burning desire to read the whole series, I already have the rest of the trilogy on my TBR shelf and intend to pick up book two straight away.
5 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
In Taylor's world, griffins are as intelligent as humans, have varying magical powers and can talk. The humans that ride them are called griffiners and learn to speak the language of the griffins. Arren is a griffiner, despite being of Northern descent. His people were, until recently, slaves in his city and he looks a bit different to the Southerners he lives among. The only reason he's allowed to be a griffiner is because his griffin bonded to him when they were both and there was nothing to be done about it.
Arren's story is very much one of racism and ostracism. Once Arren's position in society becomes slightly less assured, he quickly finds out how thin the veneer protecting him was. A lot of bad things happen to Arren and almost all of them are thanks to racism against his people. After a comfortable life as a respected citizen with some status, denying his heritage out of shame, it all comes as a bit of a shock to him when he loses (ostensibly only some of) that status. Suddenly people no longer respect him and constantly use dismissive language against him ("Oh, but he's only a member of the slave-race"). (Possibly not a book to read if you're particularly sensitive of/triggered by racism and oppression generally.) In the end, Arren's actions, taken out of a desperation the reader can entirely understand, appear to be increasingly erratic to the people around him, giving them more ammunition to use against him. There were some gut-wrenchingly tragic moments.
I also liked how the racism was not based on skin colour. The small world Taylor created was based loosely on Britain and so there wasn't room, geographically, for wildly different ethnic characteristics. It's nice to be reminded that an ethnic group doesn't have to look completely different to be oppressed. And of course, the themes of racism/oppression explored in the novel are widely relevant to modern culture.
The Dark Griffin is a compelling novel. Both the griffin and Arren suffer due to unfair circumstances they cannot be blamed for, and their parallel stories intertwine to powerful effect. Another brilliant fantasy read by a brilliant Australian author. I have read few run-of-the-mill fantasy novels (particularly BFF — big fat fantasy) by Australians, and The Dark Griffin certainly doesn't buck that trend.
I highly recommend The Dark Griffin to all fantasy fans. In particular fans of any or some of Jennifer Fallon, Glenda Larke, Rowena Cory Daniells or Naomi Novik's Temeraire books will probably probably enjoy this book. Having foreseen a burning desire to read the whole series, I already have the rest of the trilogy on my TBR shelf and intend to pick up book two straight away.
5 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
August 15, 2012
If you, like me, gobbled up Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels like they were crack, then you’re probably going to enjoy The Dark Griffin. And I really, really enjoyed this story, even though the novel is a bit rough around the edges.
First off, there were definite viewpoint issues. I felt as though the author couldn’t decide whether to run with a third-person omniscient or a deep third. As it stands, the narrative exists in a funny kind of limbo, with authorial voice intruding from time to time to offer readers glimpses into stuff that happens that the characters are not privy to. This is a bit jarring at times.
Hand in hand with this issue was the fact that Taylor could have laid on a bit more layering with regard to boosting characters’ motivations, and would definitely have helped to create more complexity in Arren. Often the main character does stuff and it’s not immediately clear as to *why* he acts. Granted, I was too absorbed in the story so it didn’t completely ruin it for me, but there were moments where I was jerked into editor mode and found myself absently casting about for my red pen.
Then, dialogue. Sometimes it felt as though Taylor was spending too much time conveying exposition using the dialogue as the vehicle, so things sometimes didn’t flow as they should. There were occasions where dialogue could’ve flowed more naturally but as stated earlier, I was too invested in the story to want to hurl the book across the room.
But despite these flaws, storytelling and world-building are Taylor’s strong points. I really enjoyed Mercedes Lackey’s griffins back in the day, so to have a new author invest so much love into creating a setting containing griffins thrilled me. Also the concept, of the main character’s fall from grace due to racial prejudices, really struck a chord with me. And that twist she offers near the end, of almost a “dark knight” rising, that also gave me wriggles of delight.
This is not a work of literary greatness, but it’s a fantastic story with a main character I ached for. Taylor succeeds in telling a powerful tale that had me teary-eyed at times, or sitting with my heart in my throat at others. Her world is bloody and violent, and I love the fact that she’s subverted my loyalties from supposed “good” guys to “bad” guys. And, without giving too much of a hint at a spoiler, if you loved Eric Draven as The Crow, then you’re going to absolutely adore Arren. Yes, this story is a big dramarama, but hell, it’s a rousing read and a perfect escape from Mundania.
First off, there were definite viewpoint issues. I felt as though the author couldn’t decide whether to run with a third-person omniscient or a deep third. As it stands, the narrative exists in a funny kind of limbo, with authorial voice intruding from time to time to offer readers glimpses into stuff that happens that the characters are not privy to. This is a bit jarring at times.
Hand in hand with this issue was the fact that Taylor could have laid on a bit more layering with regard to boosting characters’ motivations, and would definitely have helped to create more complexity in Arren. Often the main character does stuff and it’s not immediately clear as to *why* he acts. Granted, I was too absorbed in the story so it didn’t completely ruin it for me, but there were moments where I was jerked into editor mode and found myself absently casting about for my red pen.
Then, dialogue. Sometimes it felt as though Taylor was spending too much time conveying exposition using the dialogue as the vehicle, so things sometimes didn’t flow as they should. There were occasions where dialogue could’ve flowed more naturally but as stated earlier, I was too invested in the story to want to hurl the book across the room.
But despite these flaws, storytelling and world-building are Taylor’s strong points. I really enjoyed Mercedes Lackey’s griffins back in the day, so to have a new author invest so much love into creating a setting containing griffins thrilled me. Also the concept, of the main character’s fall from grace due to racial prejudices, really struck a chord with me. And that twist she offers near the end, of almost a “dark knight” rising, that also gave me wriggles of delight.
This is not a work of literary greatness, but it’s a fantastic story with a main character I ached for. Taylor succeeds in telling a powerful tale that had me teary-eyed at times, or sitting with my heart in my throat at others. Her world is bloody and violent, and I love the fact that she’s subverted my loyalties from supposed “good” guys to “bad” guys. And, without giving too much of a hint at a spoiler, if you loved Eric Draven as The Crow, then you’re going to absolutely adore Arren. Yes, this story is a big dramarama, but hell, it’s a rousing read and a perfect escape from Mundania.
February 9, 2011
To start off, here is the summary, straight from the back:
Being chosen as a griffen's companion has allowed Arren Cardockson to gain a place of status within the land of Cymria. But even with his griffin by his side, Arren can never escape the prejudice that comes with his Northerner slave origins. After an unfortunate incident leaves him in debt, Arren accepts the well-paying task of capturing a wild griffin, ignorant of the trials about to befall him.
Betrayed by those he trusted and forced to fight for his life, Arren has nothing left besides the hatred growing inside him. But chained within the Arena, where rogue griffins battle to entertain the crowds, there lies another soul crying out to be freed--a kindred spirit who will allow Arren to fulfill his destiny and release the darkness in his heart.
Spoiler alert! That blub up there? That is the first 290 pages of the 369 page paperback edition. This made for a very slow, very tedious read as I waited for the plot to finally catch up to where I was told it was going to go. Once it finally, finally got there, the last 80 or so pages rolled on by at a more interesting pace.
With the exception of the black griffin, the characterizations left much to be desired. The main character, Arren, completely owns the Woobie/Butt Monkey trope. Taken straight from TV Tropes: It's like this guy is walking around with a permanent 'Kick Me' sign on his back which is invisible to him, but all too visible to the rest of the world.
Everything bad which happens to him is stemmed from the fact that he is of a different race than those around him. (They have brown hair, and he has black hair. No really.) The weird thing was that it's implied he was allowed to become a griffiner with some trouble, but not much, and was even given a fairly cushy job in the city. It's only when the plot starts going that people all of a sudden decide his 'Northern Blood' is showing too much and he is subsequently stabbed, shot with arrows, pushed around, spit on, degraded, fitted with a collar that has spikes on the inside constantly pushing into his neck and windpipe (btw, they never really give a reason for this last bit. He just comes home one day, is beaten and fitted with this slave collar... event though he's not a slave, and the act of wearing the collar itself does not make him a slave. It's like these characters are doing it for the lols, and, needless to say, he cannot take it off and must suffer gallantly with it for most of the book).
The entire first 280 or so pages of the works in a pattern roughly like this:
Character A: *Does something which degrades Arren physically or emotionally.*
Arren: How can you!? I thought you were my friend/lover/mentor figure!
Character A: It doesn't matter because you're a Northerner and you can't be trusted.
Arren: I am shocked and appalled. Now I'm going to confide in my very best friend, Character B.
Character B: *Does something which degrades Arren physically or emotionally.*
Arren: How can you!? I thought you were my friend/lover/mentor figure!
And it just goes on and on...
Now normally this wouldn't be such a problem. This plot is about a fall from grace, after all, and the author manages to provide it in a way that Shakespeare probably would have stood up and clapped for. (Arren and Hamlet have much in common). No, that's not the real issue. The issue comes down the characterization; specifically, aside from being the metaphorical and literal whipping boy, Arren has none.
For all that Arren goes through, I have no idea what's going on in his head. The author hardly shows us. She writes this novel from an outsider's POV, watching people treat Arren badly and Arren reacting to his sudden (and many) cruel turns of fortune without hardly a glimpse to Arren's inner motivations.
There is a point towards the very end where Arren finally snaps a little and decides to steal a griffin chick of his own to raise. We are treated to how he does it, when he does it... but not really why. It's a powerful moment, and utterly ruined because I as the reader was completely left in the dark... for awhile there I was thinking that he did it specifically in order to get caught and have the opportunity to face his tormentors in a public trial. However, there was none of that. Arren sort of explains his reasoning in a bit of uninspired dialog a few chapters later, but by then the incident has long passed and it hardly matters.
The one thing the author gets right is the dark griffin, himself. The reader is allowed to see inside his head and understand his motivations -- as a result I felt connected to this character as I didn't with any other in the book. I cared what happened to him. Unfortunately, he was saddled with a name worthy of a Care Bears villain. This brings me to my final point.
The names are God Awful.
The dark griffin's name is... Darkheart.
I guess it's supposed to be intimidating, but comes off as the dark purple pony from My Little Ponies with a picture of a bleeding heart on its rump instead of a star, or whatever. The reveal of the name announced with a lot of narrative fanfare within the book, which just makes it so much worse.
Also, just for the hell of it, say Arren's name out loud. If you're like me, it came out as Aaron (or Erin.) How about another important character in the book, Erian. Fairly similar, no? Confusing, yes?
Here's a fun fact: Arren's true name is Arenadd. But unless you read the author's note in the beginning (Which I didn't. My bad.) it's actually Welsh or something so it's pronounced Arrenath.
This final point a nitpick because it just happens to hit a squick of mine, but the author also dedicates the book to "Bran" and lo and behold, the one character who pretty much doesn't turn completely against Arren's name is (you guessed it) also Bran. Things like this always make me wonder what other characters she based off of people in real life, and what personal demons she's exorcising by having them all beat up on her main character. Ugh, I hate that. (Again, it's a personal squick.)
I could go on and say that some of the plot points don't quite jell up -- I could never really tell what time period this world was based in. They seemed to have modern plumbing in the city, but no electricity. And the main event which send Arren out on his ill-fated journey felt contrived in more ways than one -- but... at the end of it, if you don't have characterization it doesn't really matter. This book doesn't have it.
However, Arren/Arenadd/Arrenath does finally get hit with a clue-bat and goes through a complete personality overhaul starting with page 332. (He becomes a dark avenger, ala Batman.) So, if you're willing to take a chance, the next book may be promising. Personally, I already wasted 8 bucks on this, and the hour it took me to write up this review. Maybe I'll check it out if I see it in a used book store. Or not.
Being chosen as a griffen's companion has allowed Arren Cardockson to gain a place of status within the land of Cymria. But even with his griffin by his side, Arren can never escape the prejudice that comes with his Northerner slave origins. After an unfortunate incident leaves him in debt, Arren accepts the well-paying task of capturing a wild griffin, ignorant of the trials about to befall him.
Betrayed by those he trusted and forced to fight for his life, Arren has nothing left besides the hatred growing inside him. But chained within the Arena, where rogue griffins battle to entertain the crowds, there lies another soul crying out to be freed--a kindred spirit who will allow Arren to fulfill his destiny and release the darkness in his heart.
Spoiler alert! That blub up there? That is the first 290 pages of the 369 page paperback edition. This made for a very slow, very tedious read as I waited for the plot to finally catch up to where I was told it was going to go. Once it finally, finally got there, the last 80 or so pages rolled on by at a more interesting pace.
With the exception of the black griffin, the characterizations left much to be desired. The main character, Arren, completely owns the Woobie/Butt Monkey trope. Taken straight from TV Tropes: It's like this guy is walking around with a permanent 'Kick Me' sign on his back which is invisible to him, but all too visible to the rest of the world.
Everything bad which happens to him is stemmed from the fact that he is of a different race than those around him. (They have brown hair, and he has black hair. No really.) The weird thing was that it's implied he was allowed to become a griffiner with some trouble, but not much, and was even given a fairly cushy job in the city. It's only when the plot starts going that people all of a sudden decide his 'Northern Blood' is showing too much and he is subsequently stabbed, shot with arrows, pushed around, spit on, degraded, fitted with a collar that has spikes on the inside constantly pushing into his neck and windpipe (btw, they never really give a reason for this last bit. He just comes home one day, is beaten and fitted with this slave collar... event though he's not a slave, and the act of wearing the collar itself does not make him a slave. It's like these characters are doing it for the lols, and, needless to say, he cannot take it off and must suffer gallantly with it for most of the book).
The entire first 280 or so pages of the works in a pattern roughly like this:
Character A: *Does something which degrades Arren physically or emotionally.*
Arren: How can you!? I thought you were my friend/lover/mentor figure!
Character A: It doesn't matter because you're a Northerner and you can't be trusted.
Arren: I am shocked and appalled. Now I'm going to confide in my very best friend, Character B.
Character B: *Does something which degrades Arren physically or emotionally.*
Arren: How can you!? I thought you were my friend/lover/mentor figure!
And it just goes on and on...
Now normally this wouldn't be such a problem. This plot is about a fall from grace, after all, and the author manages to provide it in a way that Shakespeare probably would have stood up and clapped for. (Arren and Hamlet have much in common). No, that's not the real issue. The issue comes down the characterization; specifically, aside from being the metaphorical and literal whipping boy, Arren has none.
For all that Arren goes through, I have no idea what's going on in his head. The author hardly shows us. She writes this novel from an outsider's POV, watching people treat Arren badly and Arren reacting to his sudden (and many) cruel turns of fortune without hardly a glimpse to Arren's inner motivations.
There is a point towards the very end where Arren finally snaps a little and decides to steal a griffin chick of his own to raise. We are treated to how he does it, when he does it... but not really why. It's a powerful moment, and utterly ruined because I as the reader was completely left in the dark... for awhile there I was thinking that he did it specifically in order to get caught and have the opportunity to face his tormentors in a public trial. However, there was none of that. Arren sort of explains his reasoning in a bit of uninspired dialog a few chapters later, but by then the incident has long passed and it hardly matters.
The one thing the author gets right is the dark griffin, himself. The reader is allowed to see inside his head and understand his motivations -- as a result I felt connected to this character as I didn't with any other in the book. I cared what happened to him. Unfortunately, he was saddled with a name worthy of a Care Bears villain. This brings me to my final point.
The names are God Awful.
The dark griffin's name is... Darkheart.
I guess it's supposed to be intimidating, but comes off as the dark purple pony from My Little Ponies with a picture of a bleeding heart on its rump instead of a star, or whatever. The reveal of the name announced with a lot of narrative fanfare within the book, which just makes it so much worse.
Also, just for the hell of it, say Arren's name out loud. If you're like me, it came out as Aaron (or Erin.) How about another important character in the book, Erian. Fairly similar, no? Confusing, yes?
Here's a fun fact: Arren's true name is Arenadd. But unless you read the author's note in the beginning (Which I didn't. My bad.) it's actually Welsh or something so it's pronounced Arrenath.
This final point a nitpick because it just happens to hit a squick of mine, but the author also dedicates the book to "Bran" and lo and behold, the one character who pretty much doesn't turn completely against Arren's name is (you guessed it) also Bran. Things like this always make me wonder what other characters she based off of people in real life, and what personal demons she's exorcising by having them all beat up on her main character. Ugh, I hate that. (Again, it's a personal squick.)
I could go on and say that some of the plot points don't quite jell up -- I could never really tell what time period this world was based in. They seemed to have modern plumbing in the city, but no electricity. And the main event which send Arren out on his ill-fated journey felt contrived in more ways than one -- but... at the end of it, if you don't have characterization it doesn't really matter. This book doesn't have it.
However, Arren/Arenadd/Arrenath does finally get hit with a clue-bat and goes through a complete personality overhaul starting with page 332. (He becomes a dark avenger, ala Batman.) So, if you're willing to take a chance, the next book may be promising. Personally, I already wasted 8 bucks on this, and the hour it took me to write up this review. Maybe I'll check it out if I see it in a used book store. Or not.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2011
Like Nita, below, I have difficulty summing up my reactions to this book.
I love griffins, and I love fantasy stories where the nonhuman race(s) are not just humans in another shape; and this is probably the best feature of the book. The griffins have their own language, culture (a simplistic one, but it includes an origin myth and some cultural norms that are quite different from any human group's). I wish there'd been some more exploration of this, and some further explanation of how griffins' unique magic works, along with their history of association with humans.
Most of the book, in fact, could do with some more exploration, explanation, and complication. The main character was dully predictable and one-dimensional, especially as the plot progressed. I kept waiting for him to recognise the campaign against him and begin planning a counterattack with the few loyal friends he had -- why else had the author included a city guard and a councilman's daughter among them? Instead, Arren behaved like an idiot all the way through, bottling up his anger until he exploded in rash violence, and then getting angry again because exploding made the situation worse; repeat through the entire book. If anyone had sat on him till he spilled the whole story and called in his friends, the entire plot would have been dead in the water.
The dialogue and narration are simple (which sometimes makes it feel juvenile, or just unconvincing), and the plot likewise; the villain stood out from a mile away, and everything he did was predictable, adding to the frustration when Arren never saw it coming, not even once.
The simplicity isn't helped by Darkheart's inclusion; large parts of the novel are "narrated" from the perspective of a griffin whose grasp on language and reason are on the level of a five-year-old child, because he grew up without any exposure to his own species. Giving parts of the story from a griffin's perspective was a prime chance to fill readers in on griffin history and society, but the author has thrown it away and slowed down the novel with sections of laughably stereotypical "animalistic" narration. If the novel had been more structured, with some plot twists and character development, this would have made for a nice contrast, but with the human cast coming across so flat and simple, it just highlighted the blandness.
I've not quite decided yet whether to pick up the next book, or just let it go the way of other generic fantasy novels I've read, fading into the background of my memory.
I love griffins, and I love fantasy stories where the nonhuman race(s) are not just humans in another shape; and this is probably the best feature of the book. The griffins have their own language, culture (a simplistic one, but it includes an origin myth and some cultural norms that are quite different from any human group's). I wish there'd been some more exploration of this, and some further explanation of how griffins' unique magic works, along with their history of association with humans.
Most of the book, in fact, could do with some more exploration, explanation, and complication. The main character was dully predictable and one-dimensional, especially as the plot progressed. I kept waiting for him to recognise the campaign against him and begin planning a counterattack with the few loyal friends he had -- why else had the author included a city guard and a councilman's daughter among them? Instead, Arren behaved like an idiot all the way through, bottling up his anger until he exploded in rash violence, and then getting angry again because exploding made the situation worse; repeat through the entire book. If anyone had sat on him till he spilled the whole story and called in his friends, the entire plot would have been dead in the water.
The dialogue and narration are simple (which sometimes makes it feel juvenile, or just unconvincing), and the plot likewise; the villain stood out from a mile away, and everything he did was predictable, adding to the frustration when Arren never saw it coming, not even once.
The simplicity isn't helped by Darkheart's inclusion; large parts of the novel are "narrated" from the perspective of a griffin whose grasp on language and reason are on the level of a five-year-old child, because he grew up without any exposure to his own species. Giving parts of the story from a griffin's perspective was a prime chance to fill readers in on griffin history and society, but the author has thrown it away and slowed down the novel with sections of laughably stereotypical "animalistic" narration. If the novel had been more structured, with some plot twists and character development, this would have made for a nice contrast, but with the human cast coming across so flat and simple, it just highlighted the blandness.
I've not quite decided yet whether to pick up the next book, or just let it go the way of other generic fantasy novels I've read, fading into the background of my memory.
January 9, 2019
An underrated star of thr dark fantasy genre
In short, if you're looking for a captivating, well-written dark fantasy series with a deep and unique anti-hero protagonist, this is a book for you. While it may initially come across as a typical, airy idealistic fantasy series with heroic griffin riders paired with intelligent steeds, things take an awful turn. This is no children's book. (Unless you like to traumatize children)
SPOILERS AHEAD:
The most captivating part of this book is the protagonist's slow, awful descent from a relatively average, well-adjusted member of society into a condemned criminal, driven mad, or close to madness by the a series of ill-advised decisions and accelerated by conspiracy.
What I love most is how accurately this descent is portrayed. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion - it's as horrifying as it is entrancing. Arren's fall from grace is stunning in a way that is incredibly realistic. The process of grieving for his fallen griffon, the way stress and anxiety break him apart until you start to question his sanity along with other concerned parties in the book. Arren's situation builds to a complete mental breakdown, complete with depression, paranoia, self-isolation, increasingly desperate and poorly made decisions. Personally, I've witnessed mental breakdowns and I was stunned to see the parallels in this book.
Dark fantasy is an increasingly popular genre and anti-heros are all the rage, and I've read many attempts to depict it, some of which have fallen comically short of the mark. K.J. Taylor has drawn an excellent example of how that genre should be written; a deep, complex protagonist trying to make the best decisions amidst turmoil and suffering, despair without melodramatics or over-the-top edginess.
In short, if you're looking for a captivating, well-written dark fantasy series with a deep and unique anti-hero protagonist, this is a book for you. While it may initially come across as a typical, airy idealistic fantasy series with heroic griffin riders paired with intelligent steeds, things take an awful turn. This is no children's book. (Unless you like to traumatize children)
SPOILERS AHEAD:
The most captivating part of this book is the protagonist's slow, awful descent from a relatively average, well-adjusted member of society into a condemned criminal, driven mad, or close to madness by the a series of ill-advised decisions and accelerated by conspiracy.
What I love most is how accurately this descent is portrayed. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion - it's as horrifying as it is entrancing. Arren's fall from grace is stunning in a way that is incredibly realistic. The process of grieving for his fallen griffon, the way stress and anxiety break him apart until you start to question his sanity along with other concerned parties in the book. Arren's situation builds to a complete mental breakdown, complete with depression, paranoia, self-isolation, increasingly desperate and poorly made decisions. Personally, I've witnessed mental breakdowns and I was stunned to see the parallels in this book.
Dark fantasy is an increasingly popular genre and anti-heros are all the rage, and I've read many attempts to depict it, some of which have fallen comically short of the mark. K.J. Taylor has drawn an excellent example of how that genre should be written; a deep, complex protagonist trying to make the best decisions amidst turmoil and suffering, despair without melodramatics or over-the-top edginess.
September 13, 2012
This was a nice, good book. It was horribly slow starting up and it really needed some polish, but yeah, I liked it. Every time (every 25 pages or so) things got boring, the plot picked up a bit to keep me reading it.
The griffins were cool, albeit a bit . . . convenient. I could have done without their magic, and the fact that they can speak human languages. And I actually liked Eluna, but of course (this is a sore spot with me--my favorite character in a book will die 34 out of 35 times) the author immediately killed her.
Skandar has a good personality in there, but he'd have been better if someone taught him language skills in the middle of the book. Arenadd was too whiny and shallow, but his line at the end--"Revenge" redeemed a lot of that.
Yes, the villain did indeed wear a sign around his neck that said in huge flashing neon letters, "I am the bad guy. I shall continue plotting against you while you flounder in helpless self-pity! The next time, you shall be dead. Bwahahahaha!"
Sorry. But it's true. Still, I liked this book.
Um. A note to anyone looking forward to the second book? Don't. It's long and boring and everything that put you off about this one, will make you want to burn that one. The third book is really good, though.
The griffins were cool, albeit a bit . . . convenient. I could have done without their magic, and the fact that they can speak human languages. And I actually liked Eluna, but of course (this is a sore spot with me--my favorite character in a book will die 34 out of 35 times) the author immediately killed her.
Skandar has a good personality in there, but he'd have been better if someone taught him language skills in the middle of the book. Arenadd was too whiny and shallow, but his line at the end--"Revenge" redeemed a lot of that.
Yes, the villain did indeed wear a sign around his neck that said in huge flashing neon letters, "I am the bad guy. I shall continue plotting against you while you flounder in helpless self-pity! The next time, you shall be dead. Bwahahahaha!"
Sorry. But it's true. Still, I liked this book.
Um. A note to anyone looking forward to the second book? Don't. It's long and boring and everything that put you off about this one, will make you want to burn that one. The third book is really good, though.
May 29, 2015
Temný gryf mi na poličce ležel už pár let a teď se akorát cítím trapně, že jsem se k němu dostal až nyní. I když kniha asi nepřekvapí ničím světovým, má jednu výbornou vlastnost - není to žádné klišé. Hlavní postava má už od začátku knihy smůlu a kvůli svému vzhledu - černý, jak ho všichni nazývají - to jednoduše nemá lehké. A tak to platí po celou dobu. Všechno by mohlo vypadat dobře, ale autorka prostě s takovýmto koncem není spokojená a proto děj odebírá tou nejtěžší a nejnebezpečnější cestou, při které umřelo i několik důležitých postav. Z mé strany se jedná rozhodně o překvapení, které sice nenadchne, ale rozhodně udiví svým zpracováním. :3 :)
December 30, 2019
My rating would be more like 4.5 out of 5, but I'm rounding up because grimdark isn't my usual genre and I'm not necessarily aware of how it fits in there. First, the awesome.
This book is subversive. It takes every dragon rider trope and subverts or outright destroys them one by one. I didn't even realize I had tropes and expectations from dragon rider fiction, but... I did. And just as I realized I was expecting something, KJ Taylor subverted my expectations. I say "dragon rider" tropes and not "gryphon rider" tropes because I feel like Anne McCaffrey, movies, and video games set those expectations with dragons. Taylor subverts several gryphon tropes, too, but the rider-specific tropes felt dragon-y to me.
Here's my problem. I can't really talk about what tropes were subverted because... well, if I listed the tropes, that would just tell you exactly what you were about to read, wouldn't it? This is my first attempt to use a spoiler tag, but here we go, 'cause I think there are definitely some readers who would only consider reading this book with that knowledge.
List of tropes subverted by Dark Griffin:
That's a short list of some of the big ones. A lot of other things that surprised me were probably fairly obvious to a grimdark reader who knew where the book would have to go, but as this was my first grimdark experience, the... well, darkness of what happens still caught me off guard.
So in terms of being a new take on dragon riders that destroys the old tropes... Taylor does an amazing job. Here were my drawbacks, though they would only have cost the book about half a star.
-Head-hopping (changing the point of view mid-scene instead of at a scene break or a chapter break). There are amazing writers who use third person omniscienct or straight-up head-hopping in their works, so I wouldn't say it's an automatic no for me. And about 90% of the time, it was fine. It didn't add anything, but it didn't take anything away, either. The other 5% of the time it caught me off guard as the entire novel codes as third person limited. The last 5%, it's so confusing that in a major fight between two important characters the head-hopping made it so I didn't know who had died until the next chapter.
-There wasn't enough setup that for several aspects of the world building, such as gryphons having magic. The world is a magic-free world with hints of fantasy religion, but around the 1/3rd mark someone comments that all gryphons have magic spells, and you see one somewhere after the halfway point for the first time in a small moment. Our protagonists are a gryphon rider and a gryphon, so as a reader, it was surprising to not really be aware of how magical the world would be. I'd still count this as low fantasy and not high fantasy, but this was one of several times where I needed a little more setup for the magic being used to solve problems later on.
-While this feels like the backdrop of a British vs. Welsh conflict, the way the Welsh are described when they're slaves could have used a sensitivity pass because the language harkened back to American slavery. I believe the book came out in Australia and KJ Taylor may be Australian, but reading the US edition, there were moments where slight changes would have made a big difference. "Darkmen" and "dark griffin, dark man," code differently in the US for slavery issues, making it easy to overlook that it refers to eye/hair color of very pale characters.
I'll add one more here, but if you're not a grimdark reader, this book is a punch in the face. It starts with child murder and sex and about every 25% you can expect to be horrified Game-of-Thrones style. I think the author bio says that where some fantasy readers grew up on hobbits and Mr. Tumnus, KJ Taylor was raised on a steady diet of George RR Martin and Finnish death metal.... and that sounds about right.
Having listed the downsides, however, I think it's a good book. I'm actually surprised that I haven't heard of KJ Taylor before the 100 Gryphon Book Reading Challenge. I'm writing this review having read several books further in the series, so I know that the series generally gets better as you go. I suppose that's the downside of the first book in a 9 book series: it's always going to be the weakest one. I don't know if KJ Taylor is a household name in the grimdark world, but if she isn't, I'd be left feeling like one strong developmental editor is all that kept Dark Griffin from being a perfect grimdark novel.
I heard Dark Griffin called one of the three pillars of gryphon fantasy from the '90s (along with The Black Gryphon and The Griffin Mage series), but it released in 2009. As such, it doesn't have '90s fantasy pacing issues. In a way, The Dark Griffin feels like someone held up a dark mirror to The Black Gryphon and The Dragon Riders of Pern... though it doesn't feel derivative, just as though it's playing in the same sandbox.
My verdict is somewhere between 4/5 and 5/5 stars, so I rounded up. Grimdark is definitely NOT my thing, but gryphons are, so I plan to read all nine books (as of 2019).
This book is subversive. It takes every dragon rider trope and subverts or outright destroys them one by one. I didn't even realize I had tropes and expectations from dragon rider fiction, but... I did. And just as I realized I was expecting something, KJ Taylor subverted my expectations. I say "dragon rider" tropes and not "gryphon rider" tropes because I feel like Anne McCaffrey, movies, and video games set those expectations with dragons. Taylor subverts several gryphon tropes, too, but the rider-specific tropes felt dragon-y to me.
Here's my problem. I can't really talk about what tropes were subverted because... well, if I listed the tropes, that would just tell you exactly what you were about to read, wouldn't it? This is my first attempt to use a spoiler tag, but here we go, 'cause I think there are definitely some readers who would only consider reading this book with that knowledge.
List of tropes subverted by Dark Griffin:
That's a short list of some of the big ones. A lot of other things that surprised me were probably fairly obvious to a grimdark reader who knew where the book would have to go, but as this was my first grimdark experience, the... well, darkness of what happens still caught me off guard.
So in terms of being a new take on dragon riders that destroys the old tropes... Taylor does an amazing job. Here were my drawbacks, though they would only have cost the book about half a star.
-Head-hopping (changing the point of view mid-scene instead of at a scene break or a chapter break). There are amazing writers who use third person omniscienct or straight-up head-hopping in their works, so I wouldn't say it's an automatic no for me. And about 90% of the time, it was fine. It didn't add anything, but it didn't take anything away, either. The other 5% of the time it caught me off guard as the entire novel codes as third person limited. The last 5%, it's so confusing that in a major fight between two important characters the head-hopping made it so I didn't know who had died until the next chapter.
-There wasn't enough setup that for several aspects of the world building, such as gryphons having magic. The world is a magic-free world with hints of fantasy religion, but around the 1/3rd mark someone comments that all gryphons have magic spells, and you see one somewhere after the halfway point for the first time in a small moment. Our protagonists are a gryphon rider and a gryphon, so as a reader, it was surprising to not really be aware of how magical the world would be. I'd still count this as low fantasy and not high fantasy, but this was one of several times where I needed a little more setup for the magic being used to solve problems later on.
-While this feels like the backdrop of a British vs. Welsh conflict, the way the Welsh are described when they're slaves could have used a sensitivity pass because the language harkened back to American slavery. I believe the book came out in Australia and KJ Taylor may be Australian, but reading the US edition, there were moments where slight changes would have made a big difference. "Darkmen" and "dark griffin, dark man," code differently in the US for slavery issues, making it easy to overlook that it refers to eye/hair color of very pale characters.
I'll add one more here, but if you're not a grimdark reader, this book is a punch in the face. It starts with child murder and sex and about every 25% you can expect to be horrified Game-of-Thrones style. I think the author bio says that where some fantasy readers grew up on hobbits and Mr. Tumnus, KJ Taylor was raised on a steady diet of George RR Martin and Finnish death metal.... and that sounds about right.
Having listed the downsides, however, I think it's a good book. I'm actually surprised that I haven't heard of KJ Taylor before the 100 Gryphon Book Reading Challenge. I'm writing this review having read several books further in the series, so I know that the series generally gets better as you go. I suppose that's the downside of the first book in a 9 book series: it's always going to be the weakest one. I don't know if KJ Taylor is a household name in the grimdark world, but if she isn't, I'd be left feeling like one strong developmental editor is all that kept Dark Griffin from being a perfect grimdark novel.
I heard Dark Griffin called one of the three pillars of gryphon fantasy from the '90s (along with The Black Gryphon and The Griffin Mage series), but it released in 2009. As such, it doesn't have '90s fantasy pacing issues. In a way, The Dark Griffin feels like someone held up a dark mirror to The Black Gryphon and The Dragon Riders of Pern... though it doesn't feel derivative, just as though it's playing in the same sandbox.
My verdict is somewhere between 4/5 and 5/5 stars, so I rounded up. Grimdark is definitely NOT my thing, but gryphons are, so I plan to read all nine books (as of 2019).
October 11, 2010
This book is a masterpiece of Dark Fantasy, mocking the cut-and-dry morality of High Fantasy and exposing the self-righteous xenophobia often displayed by High Fantasy protagonists. The characters are compelling, the setting gritty, the prose brilliant and the plot pure genius.
July 3, 2017
Torture fest for a hapless pair of protagonists, as the author destroys their lives piece at a time.
A dark bit of reading.
A dark bit of reading.
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January 21, 2012„Před dávnými časy,“ začala mírným, ale jasným hlasem, „byli orel a lev nepřátelé. Žili na zemi společně, ale oba jí chtěli vládnout. Neustále spolu bojovali, ale žádný z nich nemohl zvítězit. Orel měl výborný zrak a ostrý zobák a spáry, ale lev dokázal šplhat a sám měl silné zuby a drápy. Jednoho dne se orel snesl na lva a odnesl ho pryč. Chtěl ho utopit v moři, ale to bylo daleko a orlu brzy došly síly.
Začal padat z oblohy dolů, ale nemohl lva pustit, protože se drápy zamotal do jeho hřívy. Padali z velké výšky, protože tehdy orli dokázali doletět až ke slunci. Během pádu spolu zápasili, snažili se jeden druhého zabít, a když se orel pokusil uletět, lev se mu zakousl do ocasu a držel se ho. Spadli do obrovské díry v zemi. Díra byla hluboká, tak hluboká, že neměla dno.
Lev a orel dopadli do stínu, přežívali v něm a oba se báli, jako se ještě nebáli ničeho na světě.
Schoulili se k sobě jako mláďata v hnízdě. Neviděli ani jeden druhého, ani nebe či slunce na obloze. Padali roky a roky a nezastavili se, dokud nedoletěli ke světlu, které bylo na druhé straně temné díry. Pohltilo je a rozprostřelo se kolem nich, až se jím oba rozzářili. Když společně vylétli z díry a rozletěli se k obloze, viděli, že už nejsou jako dřív. Stali se jedním. Křídla a spáry orla a tlapy a ocas lva. Jeden tvor se silou obou. Tak se z nich zrodil první gryf a oni se rozletěli a vykřikli orlím hlasem, aby oznámili světu, že nyní jsou pány země a zůstane to tak navždy, protože světlo jim dalo magii a moudrost a žádný tvor nikdy nebude silnější a moudřejší než oni.“
Podíváme se do země zvané Cymrie, kde spolu žijí lidé a mocní gryfové pohromadě. Hlavním hrdinou je Arren, seveřan, který se shodou okolností stal gryfmistrem. Společnost mu dělá gryfí samička Eluna, která si ho vybrala ještě jako malé dítě. Arren se za docela podivných okolností vydá s Elunou chytit černého lidožravého gryfa, který terorizuje malou vesnici asi dva dny od Orlína. Jenže když se ho Eluna snaží před temným gryfem chránit, sama přijde o život a od té doby je Arren velmi zdrcený. Všichni jdou najednou proti němu a hodně rasisticky ho napadají, protože seveřané dříve sloužili jako otroci jižanům. Musí snášet všelijaké posměšky a dokonce i fyzické napadání. Jenže pak ho jedna událost zavede rovnou do spárů polapeného temného gryfa a začne tak jejich společné dobrodružství.
Ústřední postavou celé knihy je seveřan Arren, který je správcem trhu v Orlíně a také gryfmistrem. Do té doby, než přijdou o svou gryfku Elunu je velmi spořádaným člověkem, dbá o sebe a všichni ho berou s úctou, jakou si gryfmistr může jen zasloužit. Jenže pořád se někde najdou lidé, co mu potají nadávají do černého a nejraději by ho viděli otročit. Arren má však svoje dobré kamarády, ti si z něj neutahují. Jakmile ale přijde o svou společnici, změní se jeho chování i vzhled o stoosmdesát stupňů. A i přístup ostatních k němu se hodně změní. Postupně se v něm začíná objevovat jeho seveřanská stránka a on tomu neustále odmítá uvěřit. Stává se z něho vrah a zloděj. Na této postavě je skvěle vidět, jak se člověk po smrti milovaného dokáže změnit naprosto k nepoznání. Dokud to člověk sám nezažije, tak tomu jen těžko uvěří.
Bran, Gern a Flell jsou Arrenovi přátelé, kteří se snaží za každou cenu držet s ním. Ale i je zažene jeho seveřanská stránka, která se v něm pomalu ale jistě probouzí. Bran, jako strážník, ho dokonce musí hlídat ve vězení. Pomalu ale jistě mu přestávají věřit a myslí si, že se dočista zbláznil.
Do té doby, co byl Arren gryfmistrem, se k němu všichni chovali s velkou úctou a říkali mu pane, ale poté, co zemřela Eluna a neměl už tak po svém boku mocného gryfa se začala projevovat nenávist ostatních vůči seveřanům - černým. Hlavně vůči Arrenovi. Jsou to přesně takový lidé, kteří vám pochlebují jen do té doby, dokud máte moc, pak na vás vytáhnou nože a snaží se vás zbavit.
V knize jsou samozřejmě dalšími významnými postavami mocní gryfové. Kolem nich se točí celé město a každý z nich má patřičný respekt. Většina lidí, co něco znamená, má svého věrného gryfa. Ale gryf, který nás zajímá, nemá žádného svého člověka - je to lidožrout. Lidé v Orlíně ho přezdívají Temné srdce a chodí se na něj dívat do arény, jak vraždí a rozsápává zločince. Tento gryf je svým způsobem stejný jako Arren, nikdy ho nikdo patřičně neuznával a jen si z něj dělali legraci, nebo chodí na jeho show.
Než jsem se do knihy pustila, neměla jsem na ní nijak zvlášť valný názor. Ale jak jsem se začala začítat, čím dál tím víc mě to pohltilo. Hodně mě překvapil ten, jak bych to řekla, rasismus, který se v knize vyskytoval vůči Arrenovi, čas od času mi ho bylo až líto a dokázala jsem chápat jeho pocity.
Kdykoliv se v knize objevilo nějaké trhání lidských končetin, okamžitě mě zabolela ruka nebo noha, někdy dokonce i hlava. Někteří gryfové byli prostě až moc krutí, ale to k téhle knize tak nějak patří, vždyť je to přeci Temný gryf.
Kniha splnila moje očekávání. Chtěla jsem nějaké tajemné fantasy a to se mi vyplnilo. Asi jediný chlup na knize (pro mě) byla většina jmen postav nebo gryfů. Gryfí jména bych ještě pochopila, jsou to přeci jen starobylá a mocná zvířata, takže musí mít divně znějící jméno ale dívčí jméno jako je Flell jsem vážně trošku nedokázala přenést přes pusu. Ale příběhu to samozřejmě nijak neškodí. Také bych ráda vyzdvihla sécnu, kdy jedna gryfka vypráví Temnému srdci jak jejich druh vlastně vznikl, to se mi moc líbilo (nahoře máte ukázku). Velkým plusem knihy jsou také nádherné černobílé ilustrace. Není jich tam sice nějak hodně, ale není to žádná knížka pro malé děti, aby na každé stránce musel být obrázek. Každopádně jsou hodně vyvedené a líbí se mi. Jako poslední bych řekla, že se mi kniha moc líbila a bylo to něco naprosto jiného, než co většinou čtu, a jsem za to ráda, těším se na další díl.
Začal padat z oblohy dolů, ale nemohl lva pustit, protože se drápy zamotal do jeho hřívy. Padali z velké výšky, protože tehdy orli dokázali doletět až ke slunci. Během pádu spolu zápasili, snažili se jeden druhého zabít, a když se orel pokusil uletět, lev se mu zakousl do ocasu a držel se ho. Spadli do obrovské díry v zemi. Díra byla hluboká, tak hluboká, že neměla dno.
Lev a orel dopadli do stínu, přežívali v něm a oba se báli, jako se ještě nebáli ničeho na světě.
Schoulili se k sobě jako mláďata v hnízdě. Neviděli ani jeden druhého, ani nebe či slunce na obloze. Padali roky a roky a nezastavili se, dokud nedoletěli ke světlu, které bylo na druhé straně temné díry. Pohltilo je a rozprostřelo se kolem nich, až se jím oba rozzářili. Když společně vylétli z díry a rozletěli se k obloze, viděli, že už nejsou jako dřív. Stali se jedním. Křídla a spáry orla a tlapy a ocas lva. Jeden tvor se silou obou. Tak se z nich zrodil první gryf a oni se rozletěli a vykřikli orlím hlasem, aby oznámili světu, že nyní jsou pány země a zůstane to tak navždy, protože světlo jim dalo magii a moudrost a žádný tvor nikdy nebude silnější a moudřejší než oni.“
Podíváme se do země zvané Cymrie, kde spolu žijí lidé a mocní gryfové pohromadě. Hlavním hrdinou je Arren, seveřan, který se shodou okolností stal gryfmistrem. Společnost mu dělá gryfí samička Eluna, která si ho vybrala ještě jako malé dítě. Arren se za docela podivných okolností vydá s Elunou chytit černého lidožravého gryfa, který terorizuje malou vesnici asi dva dny od Orlína. Jenže když se ho Eluna snaží před temným gryfem chránit, sama přijde o život a od té doby je Arren velmi zdrcený. Všichni jdou najednou proti němu a hodně rasisticky ho napadají, protože seveřané dříve sloužili jako otroci jižanům. Musí snášet všelijaké posměšky a dokonce i fyzické napadání. Jenže pak ho jedna událost zavede rovnou do spárů polapeného temného gryfa a začne tak jejich společné dobrodružství.
Ústřední postavou celé knihy je seveřan Arren, který je správcem trhu v Orlíně a také gryfmistrem. Do té doby, než přijdou o svou gryfku Elunu je velmi spořádaným člověkem, dbá o sebe a všichni ho berou s úctou, jakou si gryfmistr může jen zasloužit. Jenže pořád se někde najdou lidé, co mu potají nadávají do černého a nejraději by ho viděli otročit. Arren má však svoje dobré kamarády, ti si z něj neutahují. Jakmile ale přijde o svou společnici, změní se jeho chování i vzhled o stoosmdesát stupňů. A i přístup ostatních k němu se hodně změní. Postupně se v něm začíná objevovat jeho seveřanská stránka a on tomu neustále odmítá uvěřit. Stává se z něho vrah a zloděj. Na této postavě je skvěle vidět, jak se člověk po smrti milovaného dokáže změnit naprosto k nepoznání. Dokud to člověk sám nezažije, tak tomu jen těžko uvěří.
Bran, Gern a Flell jsou Arrenovi přátelé, kteří se snaží za každou cenu držet s ním. Ale i je zažene jeho seveřanská stránka, která se v něm pomalu ale jistě probouzí. Bran, jako strážník, ho dokonce musí hlídat ve vězení. Pomalu ale jistě mu přestávají věřit a myslí si, že se dočista zbláznil.
Do té doby, co byl Arren gryfmistrem, se k němu všichni chovali s velkou úctou a říkali mu pane, ale poté, co zemřela Eluna a neměl už tak po svém boku mocného gryfa se začala projevovat nenávist ostatních vůči seveřanům - černým. Hlavně vůči Arrenovi. Jsou to přesně takový lidé, kteří vám pochlebují jen do té doby, dokud máte moc, pak na vás vytáhnou nože a snaží se vás zbavit.
V knize jsou samozřejmě dalšími významnými postavami mocní gryfové. Kolem nich se točí celé město a každý z nich má patřičný respekt. Většina lidí, co něco znamená, má svého věrného gryfa. Ale gryf, který nás zajímá, nemá žádného svého člověka - je to lidožrout. Lidé v Orlíně ho přezdívají Temné srdce a chodí se na něj dívat do arény, jak vraždí a rozsápává zločince. Tento gryf je svým způsobem stejný jako Arren, nikdy ho nikdo patřičně neuznával a jen si z něj dělali legraci, nebo chodí na jeho show.
Než jsem se do knihy pustila, neměla jsem na ní nijak zvlášť valný názor. Ale jak jsem se začala začítat, čím dál tím víc mě to pohltilo. Hodně mě překvapil ten, jak bych to řekla, rasismus, který se v knize vyskytoval vůči Arrenovi, čas od času mi ho bylo až líto a dokázala jsem chápat jeho pocity.
Kdykoliv se v knize objevilo nějaké trhání lidských končetin, okamžitě mě zabolela ruka nebo noha, někdy dokonce i hlava. Někteří gryfové byli prostě až moc krutí, ale to k téhle knize tak nějak patří, vždyť je to přeci Temný gryf.
Kniha splnila moje očekávání. Chtěla jsem nějaké tajemné fantasy a to se mi vyplnilo. Asi jediný chlup na knize (pro mě) byla většina jmen postav nebo gryfů. Gryfí jména bych ještě pochopila, jsou to přeci jen starobylá a mocná zvířata, takže musí mít divně znějící jméno ale dívčí jméno jako je Flell jsem vážně trošku nedokázala přenést přes pusu. Ale příběhu to samozřejmě nijak neškodí. Také bych ráda vyzdvihla sécnu, kdy jedna gryfka vypráví Temnému srdci jak jejich druh vlastně vznikl, to se mi moc líbilo (nahoře máte ukázku). Velkým plusem knihy jsou také nádherné černobílé ilustrace. Není jich tam sice nějak hodně, ale není to žádná knížka pro malé děti, aby na každé stránce musel být obrázek. Každopádně jsou hodně vyvedené a líbí se mi. Jako poslední bych řekla, že se mi kniha moc líbila a bylo to něco naprosto jiného, než co většinou čtu, a jsem za to ráda, těším se na další díl.
April 11, 2018
This book pulled me in from the first page. It got better and better (or maybe I should say, worse and worse). The story follows Arren who was born and raised in the Cymria but whose parents were from the north and whose family was originally slaves. It also follows "Darkheart", a griffin who was born wild but who is captured and enslaved. I won't give away more of the story except to say that the end is a shocker, and it leaves you wanting more, much more!
July 28, 2018
This is how I like my fantasy novels! The magical elements in this novel are so tiny and are completely not the crux of the plot - which is such a relief. Arren, our protagonist, goes through a phenomenal character arc in this novel. The last 200 pages had me absolutely hooked. This may not be the best written novel in the world, but anyone who reads for plot and character would ultimately enjoy this novel.
February 9, 2019
To be completely honest, I wasn't sure how I'd feel reading an all out fantasy book, especially one that was over 500 pages which I'm fine with but is a lot to throw yourself into. And I was pleasently surprised by how easily I was launched into the story and how much I enjoyed it. I loved the story and while I could guess quite a few things that would happen quite early on, that didn't deter from the enjoyment I gained from reading it.
July 19, 2019
The parts from Darkheart the griffin's point of view are good and I really wish the book was more about him as he does serve as a great character to learn about the world. As he knows pretty much about the world as the reader does but when the story follows Arren it is just boring to me. Even the race theme is kind of blunt which could have been fine if the story had a faster pace. In summary I just wish the book focused more on the griffins instead of focusing on the human politics.
July 16, 2017
What started out as a fanfiction of the inheritance cycle turned into its own engaging world (I would argue one better than inheritance cycle)- parallels are somewhat obvious and knowing origins the derivative relationship between Griffon companion and Dragon rider is clear but the differences are significant enough that it doesn't feel like an imitation.
September 25, 2020
Really interesting story and how it had a twist end of the 1st book what did not really expect. But again in some point for Arren I would have used "I was desperate" rather then "I think I lost my mind for a bit."
But for sure will be looking into getting my hands on next tow books of The Fallen Moon.
But for sure will be looking into getting my hands on next tow books of The Fallen Moon.
August 26, 2023
Magical with references to historical Roman incarcerations and amphitheatres - the story could have gone so many ways ... Loved the griffins and the relationship between human and griffin. Endearing and great social construct. Would love to read more stories of griffins - it was like being transported back to childhood.
December 13, 2024
I liked this book. The author got really dark in some areas but it was overall pretty good. I like having griffins be the forefront of a fantasy novel for once. It’s a nice change of pace from dragons.
June 2, 2017
++
12:05am
12:05am
August 18, 2017
Completely engrossed. Heart in "talons" for so long
March 7, 2018
Gripping! I really enjoyed reading from the dark griffin and Arren's points of view and watching how things unravelled and came together. Good read!
July 30, 2018
I enjoyed this book. Two underdogs who rise above every obstacle to get their revenge. The next book will continue their journey.
August 22, 2019
Good enough to read what comes after.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
October 26, 2022
If you like books about small people riding around on large flying mythical creatures read Temeraire.
December 28, 2010
Review provided by Black Lagoon Reviews:
The Dark Griffin is the first novel in The Fallen Moon Trilogy by K.J. Taylor focusing on the life of Arren and a black griffin. Fantastical and filled with emotion, this novel was a great start to what has the promise to be a thrilling series.
The world building within the novel was first rate. Honestly, I normally don't like fantasy simply because the settings and creatures are too hard to relate too. Authors tend to take liberties with creating world-specific languages that the reader has to learn, not something that I overly enjoy. When I read I like to be able to relate to the writing without having to think what some unpronounceable word is suppose to mean. Taylor's writing of this mythical world that reveres Griffins is not such a novel. Instead, this is very relatable and easy to read. The language is straight forward yet the atmosphere of the world is well maintained. In truth, I really loved the settings of the novel. Taylor was able to capture something that was reminiscent of medieval times, but the language gave it a feeling of being more modern. But, more over it was the atmosphere created within these settings that truly set this novel apart. It is one that is ruled by emotions and those emotions play such a large part in dictating the settings. For instance, at the beginning of the novel there is a warmth surrounding Arren and his small, meager home. While not well furnished or very posh, there is a light there that is comfortable and cozy. When we return to his home later after his trials at Rivermeet, his home is no longer so pleasant. Instead, the dwelling is cold and dark covered in dirt and cobwebs. Light can no longer penetrate the darkness that lurks within to warm it. It is empty, no longer a home but a refuge from the outside world.
The characterization within the novel is also quite enjoyable. We begin the novel following a griffin and her chicks which focuses on the struggle for survival and a mother's devotion to her offspring. Soon, the mother is killed by humans and the single surviving chick is left alone to try and survive on his own. We then follow this chich, black griffin, who is wonderfully personified. I loved reading his passages immensely! While he doesn't know many words which often makes communication with the few humans and griffins that he comes into contact with difficult, his thoughts and actions make him endearing to the reader. Arren is likewise relatable, but with him there is so much pain, torment and utter despair. Both are characters that the reader can sympathize with and you get drawn into. Also, both are given a rich back story and that we got to see both these characters before the 'fall' which only makes them more human as the novel progresses.
This is definitely not a light story. The subject matter is dark, violent and often brutal focusing on slavery, social class, and about the loss of self-identity. The mirroring of these plots between black griffin's story line and Arren's is wonderfully done, tying the two together in an unlikely bond. There was a lot in this novel that often had me grinding my teeth, the foremost being Arren's supposed friends. While they accept Arren and try to be loyal to him, their ease at believing him to be dangerous and insane is aggravating. True, after the death of his griffin Eluna he is in pain and enraged by the betrayal of an official he considered to be a friend, but no one believes his story about how was charged to go to Rivermeet. Ultimately, he is left more and more isolated as time goes on, ostracized, abused and mocked until finally his dignity is stripped away as well by the slave collar that is forced upon him. Likewise the dark griffin is subjected to this same demoralizing treatment until the situation finally comes to a head.
The only thing that I didn't like about the story was the pacing. It was more 'slow and steady' until finally picking up at the end, the weighty issues proving to slow the story. However, while these dark matters may have left the tale a bit slow to wade through, it definitely set the scene for later books. The action in fact does pick up towards the end when Arren and Skandar finally accept themselves and their positions in the world. It leaves such an opening for the next novel and I look forward to seeing what these two exiles go on to do. The promise of them together is just too great to ignore!
In the end, I found this novel to be wonderfully written and while bleak, I enjoyed reading it. There is a lot of potential for the following novels and I looked forward to seeing Arren and Skandar's bond be further explored. Definitely a good read for anyone who enjoys fantastical worlds and mythological creatures!
The Dark Griffin is the first novel in The Fallen Moon Trilogy by K.J. Taylor focusing on the life of Arren and a black griffin. Fantastical and filled with emotion, this novel was a great start to what has the promise to be a thrilling series.
The world building within the novel was first rate. Honestly, I normally don't like fantasy simply because the settings and creatures are too hard to relate too. Authors tend to take liberties with creating world-specific languages that the reader has to learn, not something that I overly enjoy. When I read I like to be able to relate to the writing without having to think what some unpronounceable word is suppose to mean. Taylor's writing of this mythical world that reveres Griffins is not such a novel. Instead, this is very relatable and easy to read. The language is straight forward yet the atmosphere of the world is well maintained. In truth, I really loved the settings of the novel. Taylor was able to capture something that was reminiscent of medieval times, but the language gave it a feeling of being more modern. But, more over it was the atmosphere created within these settings that truly set this novel apart. It is one that is ruled by emotions and those emotions play such a large part in dictating the settings. For instance, at the beginning of the novel there is a warmth surrounding Arren and his small, meager home. While not well furnished or very posh, there is a light there that is comfortable and cozy. When we return to his home later after his trials at Rivermeet, his home is no longer so pleasant. Instead, the dwelling is cold and dark covered in dirt and cobwebs. Light can no longer penetrate the darkness that lurks within to warm it. It is empty, no longer a home but a refuge from the outside world.
The characterization within the novel is also quite enjoyable. We begin the novel following a griffin and her chicks which focuses on the struggle for survival and a mother's devotion to her offspring. Soon, the mother is killed by humans and the single surviving chick is left alone to try and survive on his own. We then follow this chich, black griffin, who is wonderfully personified. I loved reading his passages immensely! While he doesn't know many words which often makes communication with the few humans and griffins that he comes into contact with difficult, his thoughts and actions make him endearing to the reader. Arren is likewise relatable, but with him there is so much pain, torment and utter despair. Both are characters that the reader can sympathize with and you get drawn into. Also, both are given a rich back story and that we got to see both these characters before the 'fall' which only makes them more human as the novel progresses.
This is definitely not a light story. The subject matter is dark, violent and often brutal focusing on slavery, social class, and about the loss of self-identity. The mirroring of these plots between black griffin's story line and Arren's is wonderfully done, tying the two together in an unlikely bond. There was a lot in this novel that often had me grinding my teeth, the foremost being Arren's supposed friends. While they accept Arren and try to be loyal to him, their ease at believing him to be dangerous and insane is aggravating. True, after the death of his griffin Eluna he is in pain and enraged by the betrayal of an official he considered to be a friend, but no one believes his story about how was charged to go to Rivermeet. Ultimately, he is left more and more isolated as time goes on, ostracized, abused and mocked until finally his dignity is stripped away as well by the slave collar that is forced upon him. Likewise the dark griffin is subjected to this same demoralizing treatment until the situation finally comes to a head.
The only thing that I didn't like about the story was the pacing. It was more 'slow and steady' until finally picking up at the end, the weighty issues proving to slow the story. However, while these dark matters may have left the tale a bit slow to wade through, it definitely set the scene for later books. The action in fact does pick up towards the end when Arren and Skandar finally accept themselves and their positions in the world. It leaves such an opening for the next novel and I look forward to seeing what these two exiles go on to do. The promise of them together is just too great to ignore!
In the end, I found this novel to be wonderfully written and while bleak, I enjoyed reading it. There is a lot of potential for the following novels and I looked forward to seeing Arren and Skandar's bond be further explored. Definitely a good read for anyone who enjoys fantastical worlds and mythological creatures!
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