I like griffins. You may have guessed from the title of this blog, even though it is a word I got form watching a spelling bee years ago and apparently means messy handwriting and has nothing to do with griffins. The thing is that griffins are way underdone, especially compared to, say, dragons, or wolves. So instead of being a "Top" Five, this is really just a list of the five books about griffins that I've read and ranked.
5. The Griffin Mage Trilogy - Rachel Neumeier
This one I only read a couple years ago, but I had to do a library search by "griffins" because I could remember neither title nor author, nor the names of any of the characters, nor exactly what happens. I only read the first book, Lord of the Burning Sands. So let's see. There's this girl, who's an orphan, and lives on a horse ranch (points for not making it a generic farm) and then a bunch of griffins swoop in and make the area a desert because they have some kind of Grogromon effect on the environment. And then they kidnap the girl because she has some special magic. And...stuff happens, and there's a big fight at the end. Oh, and there was some sub-plot with this soldier boy, and apparently certain humans have a kind of magic where they can control a particular type of animal, and the big twist at the end is when the soldier boy discovers he can control griffins. Which makes them animals or what? They seemed pretty sentient.
What I did not like about Neumeier's griffins is that she focused on making them savage and unhuman, which to me made them uninteresting.
4. The Fallen Moon Trilogy - K.J. Taylor
I was at the new bookstore, and I felt like I had to buy something, so when I saw The Dark Griffin I was like "Hey! I like griffins. It can't be too bad." And it wasn't. More on that later.
My first big hurdle reading this was when I realized that people are riding these griffins. They're bond creatures. But it is fairly integral to the plot, so I got over it. And I mean, I had a griffin-rider fantasy when I was, like, twelve, so I can't really judge. The prose isn't the best - it reads like a draft, but a draft by a rather good writer. It's like in the original draft she wrote "And then the baby griffin grew up on its own" and by the final draft had to wrack her brains for details that really didn't matter to the plot overall. And there there was the food. Literally. Her characters always eat "food." As in: "The food was plain but nourishing" or "His house had been ransacked, the food trampled into the floor." Again, it seems that she put it in as a placeholder, and by the time she got to later drafts was like "Crap. What do they eat instead of pizza and ramen?" Her answer: Bread. Cheese. Dried meat. Apples. Oh, and cabbage. That was the one original item mentioned, only the thing is, you don't eat cabbage raw. You have to cook it. So what do they do with cabbage in...whatever the country was called? Steam? Boil? Bake? Fry? Pickle? Or do they eat it raw? At one point the main character eats stew at an inn, and that's as excitingly detailed as it gets. Read Redwall if you need inspiration, girl.
The only real problem I had with the book, though, was the characters. They were so flat I could not tell that the one chick was the main character's actual established girlfried until they were having sex. This was about three or four conversations in, and I had been wondering if they were a pre-couple. There were so many times during the book I was practically shouting "Why are you doing that? You have no motivation! Real people don't talk like that! Real people don't act like that! Real people aren't motivated like that!" Namely the part where the main characters friends all try to help him feel better after his griffin dies (oops, slight spoiler, but it's fairly early on). And I'm thinking Dudes, his bond creature just died. Some 'verses don't have people survive that, though that's usually the telepathic ones (points for no telepathy). And the friends...you don't get any real sense of friendship. The author was just "Hey, main character must have social life (insert friends here)" None of them have a distinct personality and one can tell their only purpose is to be the failed support network. They are characters playing a role, not people. Also, more amusing than anything else - the one friend seems to be the only cop in town. I mean, it's implied that it's kind of a bigger city, but every single time the cops show up, Bran is there. Every. Single. Time.
I will give credit where credit is due, though, and say that the book has a very good plot. As in I want to read the sequel even though the characters are flat as paper. It's a Martinesque rather than a Tolkienesque story, meaning (I think; I'm just making this up and I've only read about three chapters of GRR Martin) that it is a human story with twisty political gimmicks, rather than a quest to destroy a Great Evil*. The main character is sent to capture a wild griffin and told "Oh yeah, you'll be fine" when really that sort of operation takes a specialized team, but he manages it even though his griffin partner dies. And there's a mini-conspiracy against him, and this racism subplot that makes it really obvious the writer is white. The second plotline follows the titiular dark griffin that he captured. On the whole though, it's a really intriguing story despite the blandness of the chracters. Plus there are references to Diana Wynne Jones, I swear there are. The oranges. The arena that is totally Costamaret. You don't...? Oh never mind, just keep reading.
(*Just read on author's website that it is supposed to be a villain origin story. I am intrigued. Library, y u no have sequels?! I don't like it so much I want to spend more money on it.)
3. The Black Griffin - Mercedes Lackey
Yes, I ranked a Mercedes Lackey book this high. I actually kind of like this one. Mostly because of the griffins. This book is about...um...a sort of masseuse/psychotherapist/
2. The Firebringer Trilogy - Meredith Ann Pierce
Yeah, okay, the main focus in this series is on the unicorns, but the griffins are a major subplot, and there's one of the cover of the first book. They are shown as enemies of the unicorns at first, but then they are shown to have their own culture and traditions, and eventually make peace when the unicorns decide to drive the wyverns out of their ancestral lands instead of squatting on the griffins' ancestral hunting grounds (really, the griffins were only hunting them because they drove out the deer. It's all just a misunderstanding.). Only it gets a little weird when the one griffin has a romancey relationship with one of the unicorns, and it's implied that they have offspring, which is like, wut? I would kind of like to read something about that, though. The offspring, that is. Except it would end up being full of race-angst, so maybe it's better she left it at that.
1. Dark Lord of Derkholm/Year of the Griffin - Diana Wynne Jones
Of course I rank Jones at the top. Am I biased? Only because she's a damn good writer. Was, I mean. Fuck.
Book 1 of the...duology...introduces Wizard Derk genetic engineering wizard, and his genetically engineered griffin offspring. Plus the two human ones. The rest of the plot is about how the pseudo-medieval fantasyland is being exploited for tours from a parallel world. Wizard Derk is bullied into running the operations for a year, and his kids, griffin and human, all pitch in and help. The second book is after the tours are abolished, and follows one of the griffin children at college dealing with the aftermath of the tours. And yes, that makes it sound like a Disney sequel, except 1) Elda was around in the first book, she was just too young to do much, and 2) Even though it is technically less epic, it is still quite interesting - perhaps even more interesting. It's not a sequel, it's completely different, slightly related story. I like these griffins (okay, they were my first impression of griffins) because they are people, not talking animals or mysterious "others." Lackey actually managed to do that too. Huh. Whodathunk?
But I wanted another sequel, dammit! I wanted to see Elda and Flury hook up! That would have been so adorable! And I wanted to see the Other Continent. And now Jones is dead and there will be no more, ever!
Anyway, we have, in ascending order: Griffins as Grogromon, Griffins as bond-creatures, Griffins as created race, Griffins as...other race, and Griffins as created race AND other race on the Other Continent. Griffins as different magic-users from humans, griffins as the ONLY magic-users (I thought that was pretty cool, especially since the didn't spend a lot of time on exposition, just snuck it in there periodically), griffins as the same sort of magic-users as humans, griffins not exactly using magic any more than anyone else, and griffins as mostly the same sort of magic-users with cultural and personal variation.
Shortlist: Squire by Tamora Pierce, in which there is a griffin on the cover and the main character takes care of a baby griffin for a while which does absolutely nothing to further the plot. The griffins are just part of a magical ensemble and aren't really important. And it's Tamora Pierce.
That's about all I had to say about griffins. Or, well, books. I realize I may very well be obligated now to read Game of Thrones if I'm going to be making claims like that the Tolkienist movement has now split into Eddingsian and Martinesque factions. Or maybe I'll just stay with my indie-fantasy.
I like griffins. I've had a griffin story on backburner for years. Must write before they become the new dragons...do you think that could ever happen? There's been a lot of indie dragon deconstructions lately, so they might be on their way out.
Hmm.
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