Customer Reviews

Lord of the Changing Winds (Griffin Mage Trilogy)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I love Griffins.

Sure, Dragons are awesome. Dragons are mighty. Dragons go with heroic fantasy as much as, say, treasure laden dungeons.

But Griffins...

Combine a lion, king of the beasts, with an eagle, king of the air. That's a potent combination. A combination that speaks to me in a way that the coldly reptilian eye of a dragon doesn't always manage. Too, Griffins are not as well developed as dragons. Everyone knows dragons breathe fire (except when they don't). Everyone knows they love riddles (except when they don't). Smaug is the classic, archetypal dragon.

Griffins aren't anywhere near as common, and so their natures are more of a blank slate...and thus room for a writer (or a GM) to invent as they like. I like seeing that potential fulfilled...and this latest read of mine makes it happen.

Lord of the Changing Winds is the first book in a new trilogy called "The Griffin Mage" by author Rachel Neumeier.

Set mainly in the country of Feierabiand, Lord of the Changing Winds is the story of Kes. A young healer in the backwater village of Minas Ford, her life, and the life of her country, are turned upside down by the arrival of large migrating band of Griffins. Why the Griffins have left their desert, what they want with Kes, and the machinations of the Kings of Ferierabiand and neighboring Casmantium are the Matter of this first novel.

This is Neumeier's first adult novel, and there are striking strengths, and, unfortunately, some glaring weaknesses that mar but do not completely spoil the reading experience.

Best of all is Neumeier's imagining of what Griffins are, and what they do. Their terraforming of the land around them into a beloved (to them) desert is a wonderful conceit and concept, and a strong rationale for why Griffins are usually found in places far isolated from man. The characterizations and emotional palettes of the characters, both human and Griffin, on all sides of the conflicts are strong. I felt myself wanting to know more about the Griffins, their culture, and the cultures of the two very different nations caught in the claws of the Griffins life.

The quality of the writing is very good. Neumeier describes the Griffins lovingly, with the words of someone who loves these creatures as much as I. Each of the Griffins we meet is an individual, in appearance as well as personality. Her writing description of environment goes best when she is describing the Griffins desert, and less so when the action takes us elsewhere.

The magic use in the novel was not strong enough for me to judge it. I need more data before I can decide whether it makes sense or not. I can see the lines of how it works, but I'd like to know more before I decide if I like it or not.

The weaknesses in the novel on the other hand have to do with the movement of people, and more especially armies. There is a phrase in military circles: "Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics."

As bad as it seems that armies fly around the map of Neumeier's world (and they do, I couldn't get a decent sense of scale), the worse part is the logistical trains. Neumeier does not seem to really have considered the logistics and supply chains needed to make the movement of these armies, especially at speed, practical and possible. From a 30,000 foot level. what the two armies are trying to do makes sense. But without a decent sense of scale, it seemed as realistic as wargaming in the video game Civilization IV. Happily, this is not as crucial to the enjoyment of the book as one might fear, but this lack of thought was disappointing.

So, would you, gentle reader, like this book? If your preference is for fantasy fiction with strong characterization and the use of a neglected mythological creature, the Lord of the Changing Winds might be your cup of tea.

If you prefer the military aspects of your fantasy reading to be more rigorous. you are going to be frustrated with swaths of this novel. Personally, I think the strengths and inventiveness and quality of the writing outweigh the negatives, and I have already make plans to buy and read the second novel in the series.

This is a lovely story. Being soured by the money wasted on other
supernatural creature-of-the-day-books, I almost passed over this book at Barnes&Noble. It's so annoying to pay $7.99 plus tax and then find out you've bought a yawner. Not to worry - this book delivers value. It's an exquisite tale which deserves to be a fantasy classic but will probably get lost in the background clutter. I'm keeping it for my collection and I will be searching for other books by this author - I can't give higher praise than that.

Kes is up in the woods collecting herbs for her stock when she spies the Griffins flying in the distance, and is distracted by their beauty. After Kes returns home to her sister Tesme and their helper Jos, she goes into the small village with her sister to celebrate the birth of magnificent horse of Tesme's. While there a man comes looking for Kes, asking for her help. Kes realizes something different about this man, that he must have a connection to the griffins by what she sees and feels. Kes willingly goes with this man and learns she can heal griffins, without her herbs.

The countries have divided themselves by the people and their abilities. The setup of these abilities, or different magic's, is started in this book as you learn a little about all of them and more of a few special ones. The abilities are categorized as; Makers, Legists, and Animal Affinity. Then there are Mages present as well; earth, cool, and fire. And they all have a strange affect on each other. But Kes is about to learn a wondrous secret of herself...

There are no mysterious turns to the story, this story is a solid fantasy style read. I enjoyed reading the beauty drawn through words of the griffins and learning of them as the story went on. In the first 100 pages I only felt for Bertaud and of his friendship with the King. I wanted to connect with Kes and the griffins, yet they seemed... standoffish. But, somewhere between 125 and 200 pages something happened, and I feel for Kes and the griffins and started to understand more of their personalities. I think part of the connection I didn't feel was because I didn't trust the Griffin Mage. I didn't like him in the first half of the story, but I came to understand him in the second half, and even start to like him in the end. I think the author wants you to not trust Kairaithin along with finding it harder to connect with him and the griffins. I started to realize it may be part of their nature since they are creatures of fire. But in the end I accepted them for who they are and liked them.

The only thing about the read I had a hard time with were the names of the griffins. It was hard for me to keep them separate at first as the names were rather long and similar to each other, example: Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu. What did help was the author did usually give a description of the griffin by color with the names to help differentiate them, and after giving them nicknames I started to do well with them.

After reading this book, I am curious to see where the rest of the trilogy goes. In the end of the story I felt I started to understand what makes all the characters work and would like to read the next book to see where they all go and what falls upon them.

I have tried to limit myself to character based fantasy lately since the quest driven fantasies are starting to tire me. At first glance Lord of the Changing Winds fits the bill, it starts with a day in the life of our main character, Kes. That is how I like to be drawn into a fantasy world, and I was interested right away. I don't enjoy long drawn out descriptions of what the land looks like, who rules where, and who hates who. Unfortunately, the second chapter brought just that. I felt like I was reading the same story twice. We would hear about events from Kes and the griffins, then from the king and company. Change in viewpoint only works when it gives us new interesting information, and that is not the case here. It doesn't help that the king and the other characters in that section of the world were very flat and uninspiring. Kes was the only promising character in the story, and she isn't very deep either. She handles living with griffins as if it was taking a trip to the beach. She wants to escape and visit home occasionally, but that feeling doesn't last too long. She gets angry at people for deceiving her then gets over it right away. Overall, I feel that this story had the potential to be good, but it fell short. Talking griffins, interesting magical abilities, and a decent conflict made this novel worth finishing. However, a single viewpoint with more character development would have made this novel great. If it took more than a few pages for Kes to learn fire magic and to acclimate to living with griffins then my interest would have increased. If cold mages were explored in more depth and more information was given about the enemy, then I would have enjoyed this book much more. As it stands Lord of the Changing Winds feels like a very simple war story with some griffins thrown in. Nothing is complex enough to make this novel excellent. Griffins are normal, the human characters are normal, and the bad guys want some more land. Decent, but not what I expected.

I wish I could give this book a better review. The problem is the characters are essentially flaccid, and there's almost no distinguishing them. The only two characters who seem to stand out are the main character a teen girl who in our world would probably be diagnosed with Aspergers, and the Bad Guy. Sadly a lot of the book is told from other characters POV's and this makes reading the book a tough soporific.

With the above, and a few shriveled stock fantasy garnishes the book just doesn't quite manage the trick.

There were things i liked about the book:
Griffins just aren't explored enough.
The main character goes through changes without huge angst.
The story (despite the defects) flows decently.

I have to admit this book was interesting. I picked it up and could not put it down. Unfortunately it was in hopes that the story would get better. It seemed like the story was building up to some kind big moment for Kes but in the end she just gives up and does what the griffins want. The sense of scale in the book seems off. The locations sound like they are far apart but the characters get from one to the next to quickly. Over all I would recommend picking up this book from the library but not buying it.

Interesting characters, situations and fantasy world. I felt the first half of the book was a bit slow and wordy. I know you have to do some world building, but it was quite detailed and almost lost me. The second half was better. The one aspect that almost made me stop reading was the names-each griffin has three long hard to read or speak names. I had a very hard time figuring out who was who,who was what.
I finally wrote them out on my bookmark for reference and did better. I have high hopes the next book will continue the upward trend.

In the land of Feierabiand in the woods by the small remote village of Minas Ford, teen Kes the healer gathers herbs, but stops to watch the beauty of the visiting griffins soaring through the sky before completing her chore. She rushes home to her worried sister farmer Tesme and their helper Jos as a horse River is about to give birth. With Kes' aid, the siblings celebrate the birth of the foal when a stranger asks Kes for help.

Kes senses the man is different and somehow has ties to the griffins. Bering a healer who uses herbs she goes with him to attend to healing the griffins. As she assists them without herbs and communicates telepathically; a mage and diplomat escorted by soldiers arrive to investigate tales of griffins coming across the mountains from Casmantium.

The insight into the griffin culture owns the opening tale of the aptly titled The Griffin Mage saga; the humans even the heroic lead healer pale in comparison. The story line is an entertaining fantasy; however in spite of a map, the deployments of large forces including the griffins flying across the mountain range were difficult to envision what it took these various groups to accomplish their respective missions; that is a key reason exiting Iraq in an orderly manner takes time. Still this is the tale of the griffins soaring through the skies over Feierabiand and their healer learning their ways and more to help them to fly with the winds they brought with them.

Harriet Klausner

Two main characters, the autistic girl Kes talked about on the back of the novel, and a prince of a small kingdom who is in a vassal relationship with another king. After reading it, I can't remember his name, but a stablehand of note is named Jos. Slow pacing. Germanic names with upwards of ten syllables each. At first the perspective trade off between fledgling fire-girl and man-of-nobility felt like a forced and mediocre set-up for a romance novel. (Transition between chapter one and chapter two is very jarring; like you are starting a separate novel which has nothing to do with the first character.) This I did not like. Later, war gets in the way, and it's not a well-written war. Neumeier actually writes army soldiers *don't* complain and are polite right after a major 'victory' where a bunch of them died and they had a forced march into different terrain. (A jarring transition between a desert environment and cold weather.)

The good part of the book was the characterization and descriptions of the griffins, a well-woven mythology. I actually got an alien and majestic vibe from the Griffin Lord of the Changing Winds (Kairaithin something something... remember long names). On the other hand, nothing about griffin mating rituals or reproduction is discussed, and as a reader, I wonder how will the these Griffins recover from the losses described in the novel? That was glossed over, not very neatly either.

This read like a first novel. Don't expect much depth, and do expect long passages about landscapes.

I've now finished all three of the books in the "Fire Mage" series. They are thoughtful and well-written, the premise unique and engaging; however, the crisp, clear, and direct writing of her "Floating Islands" and "City in the Lake" is sadly missing here.

The pacing is so EXTREMELY LEISURELY, the descriptions of geography and costuming so detailed, that the whole story arc might almost have been written by Jane Austen. There is a 19th-century focus on seemingly-endless details of passing scenery, dressing of main characters, the colors of ribbons braided into horses' manes, that truly made me impatient to GET ON WITH the story. Because there WAS true drama, and might have been real suspense, in this story. There was also, unfortunately, a massive amount of minutiae to wade through, in order to pry any hints of it free.

I could have done with much LESS of the details of costuming and architecture -- and MORE of the biology and traditions of the griffins themselves. It was frustrating, to have three whole books to wade through, and end up still knowing virtually NOTHING about griffin mating rituals, the birth and rearing of their young, etc. I wanted to know more about them, than their superficial flashiness, or the fiery "magic" they dragged through the scenery after them. (In Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, did we not learn almost at once about the dragons' mating flights, the egg-laying and -nurturing, the bonding? Not so, here.) Disappointingly little of the interminable detail in this Griffin Mage series, is devoted to the creatures themselves.

The author was plainly in love with every tiny physical detail of the world she had created here (or at least, the human portions of it); a modicum of restraint and editorial "tightening up" could have made me love it too. The writing here did NOT carry me along; instead, I felt as though I was determinedly slogging through it -- as though through desert sands...

In addition, the author's choice of exceedingly long, multiple, pseudo-Germanic-sounding names made it tiresome to try to keep track of them -- and made me wish Neumeier had invested that attention in adding more depth to her griffin characters (instead of syllables to their names).

This should have been one shorter, much more dynamic (griffin-like) book with a faster, cleaner pace.

Overall, a disappointment. Not tragically disappointing, or furiously disappointing -- but the series "missed," for me, nevertheless. I do hope this recently-discovered writer regains her footing, after this, and returns to the cleaner, more direct style which drew me in, in the first place.