The White Gryphon

Mercedes Lackey

The city of the Black Gryphon has been in operation for 10 years after the collapse of Urtho’s empire. Now threatened by the black skinned owners of their land, Skan and Amberdrake are threatened as never before.

Skan returns – but he’s fat and bored with life. The novel here sees him getting back into shape, but also being saved only by the smidgen of luck. The same goes for Amberdrake. Sometimes it feels like they’ll use up all their luck just being alive!

I would have liked to see more of the regular life at the settlement, and more of the black people’s lands. But I guess you can’t fit everything into one novel.

The action isn’t bad, even if there isn’t really much suspense, because the reader already knows who and what is happening. You feel sure that they are going to triumph. You don’t even like the people who are murdered!

Something I disliked about this novel were how the partners of the men were basically ignored as sideeffects and weren’t really given much of their own say. This was particularly true of Zaneel.

Although I was intending on reading all of this trilogy in a row, this novel put me off reading them for a bit. For me, these novels are some of the weaker ones in the series.