โ Scribed by Mercedes Lackey; Larry Dixon
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Setting a story in prehistory suggests a enormous potential, a feeling that all is new and possible. Lackey's latest created world (illustrated by husband Dixon) predates the setting of her Valdemar series by a millennium but never quite lives up to its expanded possibilities. The gryphon of the title is the charismatic Skandranon, leader of the gryphons, a race of birds just evolving into awareness. After establishing this intriguing premise, however, the tale soon bogs down in fantasy cliches as the main characters fight a standard war against the forces of evil. Although some of the novel's elements, like Skandranon's human friend Amberdrake, suggest a possible complexity, the plot is predictable and the overwritten battle scenes are difficult to follow. In the end, the evil Mage of Black Fire is destroyed, nearly everyone else lives and the chaotic magic of prehistory is tamed.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
As the tyrant-sorcerer Kiyamvir Ma'ar's forces sweep across the land in a relentless war of conquest, one man--Urtho, the Mage of Silence--arises as the leader of the opposition. Set a thousand years before the founding of Valdemar and the rise of the Herald Mages, the latest novel by Lackey and Dixon relates the story of the legendary black gryphon Skandranon Rashkae, his healer-companion Amberdrake, and the war that changed the face of a world forever. Featuring some of the authors' most endearing protagonists yet, this first in a projected dualogy is recommended for most fantasy collections.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
### From Publishers Weekly Setting a story in prehistory suggests a enormous potential, a feeling that all is new and possible. Lackey's latest created world (illustrated by husband Dixon) predates the setting of her Valdemar series by a millennium but never quite lives up to its expanded possibili
### From School Library Journal YA?In Book Three of "The Mage Wars" series, readers find the city of White Gryphon at peace. The warriors of the Cataclysm have settled into a comfortable and secure life within the city gates. But, there are other worlds to explore outside the haven of White Gryphon
### From Publishers Weekly There is pleasure to be taken from novels of intrigue in which readers don't have to think at all, where their hands are held throughout the action and nothing is anything but what it seems. In Lackey and Dixon's second novel of the Gryphon trilogy (after The Black Grypho
### From School Library Journal YA?In Book Three of "The Mage Wars" series, readers find the city of White Gryphon at peace. The warriors of the Cataclysm have settled into a comfortable and secure life within the city gates. But, there are other worlds to explore outside the haven of White Gryphon
### From Publishers Weekly First book in Lackey's new Mage Storms trilogy, a sequel to her previous Mage Winds trilogy. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. ### From Library Journal In the face of a growing threat from the mysterious and powerful Eastern Empire, the lands of Valdema
### From Publishers Weekly First book in Lackey's new Mage Storms trilogy, a sequel to her previous Mage Winds trilogy. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. ### From Library Journal In the face of a growing threat from the mysterious and powerful Eastern Empire, the lands of Valdemar