The Dark Griffin
K. J. Taylor
369 pages
published in 2009

One of the things I've been trying to do more of these past five years or so has been to try out more new to me authors. K. J. Taylor is one of these authors, an Australian fantasy writer whose Black Griffin looked interesting when I was browsing the Amsterdam library shelves. I had no choice but to like a writer who said of herself: "a lot of fantasy authors take their inspiration from Tolkien. I take mine from G. R. R. Martin and Finnish metal". A bit of research online discovered that she isn't even thirty years old, published her first book at twenty in 2006 and has had seven books published since. Which makes her on a par with Elizabeth Bear with regards to productivity (and here I have trouble writing a blogpost sometimes...)

The Dark Griffin is the first in a fantasy trilogy, which in turn was followed by another trilogy. You may suspect therefore that this is pretty much a setup book and you may be right. What this is, is an origin story, both of the titular dark griffin (literally, as the book starts with his birth) and his ride, Arren Cardockson. As the story starts Arren is the only Northerner griffin rider in the city of Eagleholm, of far humbler origins than his fellow griffineers. His parents are freedmen, ex-slaves, while all other griffin riders are aristocrats. Nevertheless and despite the occassional tension, he feels well supported by the city's elite. Even more so when lord Rannagon, one of the leaders of the griffiners and master of law, suggest a way for Arren to get out of his money problems.

The reason Arren has money problems is because Eluna, his griffin killed a man during a raid on a smuggler that he lead as part of his duties as overseer of the city's market. Though he was lawfully killed, Arren still owns compensation to the killed man's family, which he can't afford. Luckily lord Rannagon has a solution: go and capture the wild black griffin that's been slaughtering cows in a remote village several days travel away and sell it to the Arena for profit. They like big, wild griffins, because they can pitch them against condemned criminals and make a killing.

As experienced fantasy readers you and I would of course smell this as a trap, but Arren is nineteen and headstrong and determined to prove that even if he was raised a Northerner he can still be a goof griffineer. Completely assimilated and in any case in love with Flell, lord Rannagon's daughter, Arren has no reason to mistrust him. So off he goes on his quest, Eluna being eager to make up for her mistake.

Naturally it all turns into a disaster; nobody sane would attempt to capture a wild griffin alone, as we saw in the first chapter, when a group of griffineers had enough problems putting down the black griffin's mother. Arren manages to capture the griffin, but at the cost of Eluna, who died saving him from his attack. Getting back to Eagleholm he sells the griffin to the Arena, where it's named Darkheart and promises to become the star attraction. Meanwhile Arren is now an ex-griffineer and gets to experience how the city treats normal Northerners, as slaves and barbarians who are not to be trusted.

Arren undergoes the full Monte Cristo treatment, losing everything, his griffin, his title, his home, his possessions and finally his honour as he attempts to steal a griffin. Thrown into the Arena himself, he meets up with his nemesis and together they manage to escape as they both swear vengeance against the city that has so mistreated them.

As I said, The Dark Griffin is an origin story, setting up the rest of the series. What will be interesting to see is the direction Taylor takes the rest of the series in. The easy route would be to make Arren into an antihero or outright villain and make this a revenge story, or make it a personal conflict between him and Flell. But throughout the story Taylor has shown little seeds that could make this into something bigger, in the way Northerners are treated. Arren could escape most of that treatment because he was a griffineer and his status protected him. In turn he himself denied his heritage because he had internalised the values of the city's elite, who see Northerners as backward and barbarian; once he fell from grace it turned out they saw him the same way.

That's a lot more sophisticated view of race and class relations than we usually see in fantasy, which often operates on a good king/bad king level of understanding. That's not to say that it's perfect, as Taylor doesn't quite set up this racial tension well enough for me in the early parts of the story to make the speed with which Arren is ostracised entirely believable. It's also the question if Taylor will follow through on this; she wouldn't be the first Australian fantasy author to disappoint me.

If Taylor doesn't through, what remains is a perfectly servicable fantasy story, nothing that special, though I like the use of griffins as creatures of magic rather than something more familiar like dragons. It has some rough edges, but good light entertainment.