This month’s book club book was The Black Gryphon (fantasy, 460 pages) by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon.

“Skandranon Rashkae is everything a gryphon should be with gleaming ebony feathers, majestic wingspan, keen magesight, and a sharp intelligence, he is the fulfillment of all that the Mage of Silence, the human sorcerer called Urtho, intended to achieve when he created these magical beings to be his champions, the defenders of his realm – a verdant plain long coveted by the evil mage Ma’ar. And now, as Ma’ar is once again preparing to advance on Urtho’s Keep, this time with a huge force spearheaded by magical constructs of his own, Skandranon is sent to spy across enemy lines, cloaked in the protection of Urtho’s powerful Spell of Silence. As days pass and Skandranon doesn’t return, all in Urtho’s camp wait anxiously. But there is one among them for whom the possible loss of this great bird will be more than just a major military defeat. Amberdrake – a Healer of body, mind and spirit whose talents are as essential to the army as those of any general – waits on the landing strip with anguish in his heart. For Amberdrake has come to value the vain, cocksure, and brave Skandranon as his closet friend and comrade, and now he fears that this prince of gryphons will never return.”

Probably one of the most interesting things about this book is that the back of the book summary is actually the story before you start reading at the beginning. This summary doesn’t mention at all what happens in the book itself and I think this is the only time I can think of where reading the back of the book actually helped fill in a lot of gaps with the beginning of the book, as it was a little bit like the text before the Star Wars movies. So if you read the book without reading the back, it might feel like you were missing parts of the story and background in the beginning (which you were).

While I have read this book, and the whole trilogy, before, it’s been well over at least one decade if not more since I read them. I do reread the Heralds of Valdemar books frequently (about once a year) but these books just didn’t catch my desire to reread them so often. Maybe it’s the lack of women in this story or other relatable characters for me? Or maybe because everyone winds up in het relationships? I don’t know. There aren’t zero women in this story, just the two who show up as love interests for the main characters of Shandranon (Zhaneel) and Amberdrake (Winterhart), and one who is already attached to another man in the book (Cinnabar with Tamsin).

What do I mean when I say these women don’t exist except to become partners for the main male characters?

Zhaneel is an amazing character in general. She’s suffering from vast amounts of abuse in her military unit and even outside her military unit, as the gryphons pick on her for being smaller and having different foreclaws that are more like hands. (I guess that just goes to show you that prejudice knows no species boundaries). But even as she hates herself for being different than the other gryphons, she finds a way to use her smaller size and speed to her advantage, and then even goes so far to set up her own obstacle course in order to specifically train herself to be better at tasks she is actually designed for. But she doesn’t start accepting her individual differences until she comes to the attention of Skandranon, who immediately lusts after her, and she crushes on him but doesn’t want him to know it. So while she does all this training to be able to do more at war, she also has the side goal of attracting Skandranon’s attention.

Winterhart starts out in a very abusive relationship and it’s very positive to show what that actually looks like and how hard abusive relationships are to leave. I did appreciate how both Amberdrake and Winterhart acknowledge that starting a relationship in the middle of deeply traumatic emotional abuse from another person is not healthy and how they worked to communicate effectively. But while Winterhart also has a fantastic character arc, she’s still really only there to become a main love interest for Amberdrake.

One of the things that came up in discussion at book club was how accurate this portrayal of military life, especially a military in active war, truly is. It acknowledges civilians in the military camp, and it acknowledges that a major military involved in a ground war isn’t just soldiers. There’s family members, healers, supply personnel, and trading of goods or services. Of particular note was Amberdrake’s role as a Healer of not just the body, but of the mind and soul, as well. It would be amazing if that kind of care for people in general, not just military personnel, was a real thing that was actually available.

Overall, this book is a high two on my rating scale. It’s not one of my favorites and it was okay to read, but it just didn’t grip me as well as some other books. I’m happy I own it for reference purposes with the rest of the Valdemar books.

Lackey, Mercedes and Dixon, Larry. The Black Gryphon. DAW Books, 1994.