Customer Reviews

The Silver Gryphon (The Mage Wars)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I've been a Lackey fan for years, and this is by far her worst book ever. I've always loved the Valdemar universe and I had been excited when the "pre-history" series was coming out. I don't know if it's the influence of her husband as a co-author, but this trilogy is one that I don't think I can bear to read a 3rd time. I only read it twice because I couldn't believe it had been as awful as I'd recalled.

The characters in the 3rd story are so hard to care about that it becomes nearly impossible to care about anything happening in this book. The book seemed rushed - almost as if it had been thrown together to complete the trilogy.

I'd recommend reading ANY of Ms. Lackey's books before these. I still think she's a wonderful author, but don't let this trilogy be your first experience reading her work.

I feel like Larry Dixon must have written most of this book. This acts like there was one event, and they tried to turn it into a whole book. There is little or nothing about the Black griffon and his mate in this book, and it does not add to the story line. The black griffon was an excellent read, and if you like it, you won't like this book. I think this was the first time I returned/traded off a M. Lackey book.

That said, this author is one of my favorites, with series I read and re-read over and over, discovering new things each time. Please check out the first book in this series, or any other of her books.

It has been twelve years since the city of White Gryphon became a part of the Haighlei Empire. The kestra'chern Amberdrake and his friend, the gryphon Skandranon, and their families have lived in relative peace. Amberdrake's daughter, Silverblade, and Skan's son, Tadrith, have grown up and are now members of White Gryphon's elite guard, the Silver Gryphons. They are given their first assignment: a remote rain forest post on the Haighlei border. Despite their parents' misgivings and concern, the two set out. Along the way, a mysterious force suddenly sucks the mage energy out of their equipment, causing Blade and Tad to crash. Injured and unable to call for help, will the two be able to outrun and outwit a deadly enemy they have never encountered before?

"The Silver Gryphon" is the third book in Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon's Mage Wars Series. As with the previous two books, Dixon's influence on the text will be apparent to Lackey fans. It is easily the weakest of the three, although it is still a worthwhile read for experienced Valdemar fans.

I really enjoyed the characters, especially Tadrith. He was a lot of fun and demonstrated all of the entertaining male gryphon quirks that have been present in Skan and Treyvan of Mage Storms and Mage Winds. I didn't like Blade so much at first, mainly because I was hoping she'd be more like Amberdrake (one of my favorite Valdemar characters), but she grew on me as the story went on. I came to appreciate her strength and courage. And of course it was a pleasure to read about Amberdrake and Skan again, even if only for a relatively small portion of the book.

The action in this book was quite good. There was ample suspense as Blade and Tad were chased and hunted (I won't mention by what as some other reviews have because I feel it ruins the surprise). The climax was also very tense and exciting.

My major complaint (and it really is a trend in Lackey's books) is the rushed feeling I came away with after completing the book. However, this book felt even more rushed than the others. I think this is mostly because I was expecting it to be the concluding book of a series. It really wasn't. These three books can be treated almost individually, unlike the Arrows books or Last Herald-Mage books.

Bottom Line: Good for its action and suspense, but lacking in the pacing of its ending. I would really only recommend this to readers familiar with Valdemar.

Having read and enjoyed the first two books in the trilogy, I was really looking forward to the conclusion. I needn't have bothered. Somehow I got the feeling that Lackey was just churning this one out to get it done. It was very poorly written. My advice: get it from the library if you really want to read it. You'll be glad you didn't waste your money on this one.

If you like Mercedes Lackey and if you like Amberdrake and Skandranon from the earlier books in this series, read this third one. Drake and Skan are in it, albeit briefly, and it's a good "here's how the story ends" type of book. Everybody needs closure, right? In fact, I guess it's safe to say that, really, if you've been reading a series ... you should probably continue right on through the last book. Did you really need someone to tell you that???

The series is pretty much worth the read (*she typed grudgingly*) ... but the first book is the best - best characters/character development, best plot, etc. Don't expect the second two to be quite as good.

i think that the characters are a bit too boring and quite unintersting. the plot is too contrived but i feel that the explosive ending is applaudable. it managed to make this book an okay read. i like that in the end, both children managed to set their differences aside and see who their fathers really are and that they indeed wanted the same thing the children wanted : acceptance. amberdrake is the most pained here, especially since his daughter blade seems to alienate herself from her parents, especially to amberdrake. it's really sad to see that he couldn't have a common ground with his own child, and him being a kestra'chern seems to make it worst. however all is solved at the end and it's the end that truly becomes the saving grace of this effort.

If one is a fan of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, "The Silver Gryphon" is helpful only insofar as you will be able to say that you own all of her books set in that world (barring the recent Owlflight books which seem to be merely another method of "milking a long dry cow" as it were). The characters are the "scions" of the previous two novels - and rather whiney characters at that. They spend their time lost in a jungle, afraid. The reader spends his or her time lost in the doldrums, bored. If one is an illustration flipper, like me, who tends to look at all the pictures before reading the plot, the "magic eating creatures" are already revealed. There are very few books that I cannot finish - this nearly became one of those (except that I had purchased it, I certainly would not have finished). If you enjoyed her Valdemar series thus far, if you read that series merely to puzzle out her world, then consider your puzzle complete and leave "The Silver Gryphon" on the shelves.

This was not the best of Mercedes Lackey's books, true, but it was better than most of the people have said. I think it explains some qeustions I've had about the wyrsa, like why the ones that Tylendel summoned in "Magic's Pawn" were different than the ones in the Winds series that Skif and Wintermoon (?) fought. I think that there should be a sequel to it, but that would upset the balance of her series of trilogies. ;-)

The idea of magic being sucked out of something is a good one, and I think that by making Tadrith and Silverblade's stalkers have that power and also draining the magic from the surrounding area was a nice touch. I did want to see the Outpost, though . . .

The descriptions are wonderful. They let me feel the exact feeling of the forest and air around me. I think that Skan captured a real parent's feeling, but I wouldn't know having never been a parent. :-

I have read many of her works; this is the only one I sold due to its extreme poor quality and its moral depravity. I realize that most Lackey books are light fun and occasionally you get a gem like Magic's Pawn. Not only is this particular book badly written and kind of dull, it shows two good characters from earlier books as horribly callous. Her healer character threatens to use confidential information to blackmail his former friends. Said healer and the black gryphon, protagonists and "good guys," blithely let their companions die in the woods and judge them worthy of this fate because of their supposed incompetence, even though the two "heroes" plainly contributed to the debacle. This is supposedly OK because they are only responsible for people they care about. After saving their own skins and those of their children, we have a happy ending despite the consequences to others. Read the first two books in this triology, plus the Pawn trilogy and the Arrows trilogy. Give the other Valdemars a pass unless you are an addicted fan.

This was the first book I'd read by husband and wife team Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon, and unfortunately I can't say I'm in a big rush to read any more. I gather from the other reviews that long-time fans of her work weren't particularly impressed with this instalment either, finding it slowly-paced and predictable. Like the myriad of Lackey's fellow `fantasy-genre' authors, including Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan and David Eddings, the influence of Tolkien's Middle-Earth is clear, for "The Silver Gryphon" is set in a fantastic secondary realm, with medieval swords and sorcery setting, filled with different cultures and perpetually in danger from dark forces. Lackey's main original attribute is the presence of intelligent and communicative gryphons that feature predominately in the history of this secondary world.

As mentioned, I'd never read any previous novels, either in this "Mage Wars" trilogy or the more popular "Valdemar" novels and so was interested to see how easy it was for a newcomer to grasp the basics of her work. On the whole, everything was fairly straightforward; I gather that the two previous books in this trilogy ("The Black Gryphon" and "The White Gryphon") were focussed on the gryphon Skandranon and his human ally Amberdrake and their experiences in what is referred to as the Mage Wars. Though the war is long since over, it led directly to three realities that are relevant to the story of "The Silver Gryphon": the creation of magical creatures roaming free in the world, the construction of a city built vertically into a cliffside, and an alliance with the Haighlei Empire which requires several recruits from the city to periodically man watchtowers along the border.

I did however have some linguistic trouble; Lackey kept using terms such as "trondi'irn" and "kestra'chern", as well as several others with no indication of what they meant - even by the end of the novel I was none the wiser as to what they referred to (a basic glossary at the beginning of the book would have been most helpful). I also couldn't shake the feeling that had I read the previous books in the series (or even books that take place chronologically later in the timeline) certain characters and events would have a deeper resonance and meaning.

Several years after the events of "The White Gryphon" Skandranon, Amberdrake and their spouses have children of their own: the gryphon twins Keenath and Tadrith, and the human female Silverblade, and this next generation couldn't be more different from the first. Tad is reckless and bold, whilst Blade is stoic and tomboyish, both are members of the Silvers and both are living in the shadows of their famous parents. Therefore both are delighted when they are assigned Watchtower Five, a remote station that will take them far from the reputation and influence of their parents, to let them stake out a name for themselves.

However, on the flight from home to the tower the two run into trouble. A spell had been placed upon the basket carrying both supplies and Blade to lighten its weight and allow Tad to effectively carry it to their new station...but halfway there it suddenly looses its weightlessness and the two plummet down into the forest below. Surviving the fall, Blade and Tad take account of their new situation and plan their best course for survival in the uncharted forest that seems to have something lurking between its trees - perhaps the thing that caused the malfunction of all their magical equipment in the first place.

The problem is that by the time this crash happens, acting as the catalyst of the novel, we are nearly halfway through the book. Everything previous to this has been set-up. Lackey doesn't say in one sentence what can be said in twenty and the narrative is excruciatingly detailed - but since the story itself is rather simplistic there is little payoff for all the time spent in minor details. After the crash, Blade and Tad's every movement is faithfully recorded as they attempt to discover and ward off their opponents, whilst the frantic parents at home immediately organise a search party once their children fail to meet the rendezvous.

I couldn't help but wonder what the point to all of it was; the claustrophobic and tension-filled situation that Tad and Blade find themselves in never feels truly frightening, and their endless discussions on survival techniques and training made the novel feel a bit like a `how-to' manual. Rest assured, if I ever find myself lost in a rainforest with evil magic-sucking monsters after me I'll know exactly what to do.

However, the characterisations of Tad and Blade are good, and the problems they have with their parents are both familiar and relatable. Likewise, the aging of Skandranon and Amberdrake is handled well, both regarding their children with a mix of both worry and envy as they watch them go out into the world. However, this is undermined in the way in which Lackey resolves these problems by the end of the book, with the parents and children easily reconciling with each other in a neat little package; Tad narrates to his brother: "Drake sees her as a real person now - not just as his daughter, his child. They've fought alongside each other. Now she's - well, now she knows who she is; that she's not a reflection of Drake or her mother, and that she doesn't have to work so hard at being their opposite." I'm not saying that a life-or-death situation wouldn't resolve some differences, but here it's all just too easy and comes across rather trite.

The text is illustrated by Larry Dixon himself, and his renditions of the characters both gryphon and human are beautiful. The faces are alive with character, and the eyes of the gryphons are filled with intelligence - you're in no doubt that these are thinking creatures. There is also an illustration of the monster tracking Blade and Tad (don't worry, I won't give it away) which is especially creepy/beautiful in its sinister, serpentine form.

Basically, "The Silver Gryphon" isn't a particularly rewarding read. Old fans of the series will be disappointed, and newcomers to Lackey's work may be very well put off for good, believing that this is as good as it gets. Considering the popularity of Lackey's other works, I really hope that this was just a bad day for the writing duo.