Song of the Summer King by Jess E. Owen

Xenofiction can be misleading, can't it? To look at the covers of The Dorset Squirrels or Duncton Wood, you'd think they were about fluffy cute rodents and their gosh-darn adorable troubles.

(To give you a hint; not fluffy, not cute, and not adorable by any stretch of the imagination).

However, I'm happy to report that I've found a book about sentient animals you can give to your kid and not worry about those years of therapy. I picked up Song of the Summer King at Supanova, and while dealing with some serious themes, it can be safely enjoyed by young teenagers.

Oh yeah, and it has griffins! Who doesn't love griffins?

The premise is a young griffin named Shard coming of age in his pride. The pride is composed of two elements; the Vanir griffins native to the area and the larger Aesir griffins who took the territory by force a generation earlier. Shard is the only surviving male of pure Vanir blood, making him a figure of interest to pretty much everyone. He has to choose between the ways of the invaders and the ways of his forebears.

Art by Jennifer Miller

This could easily have been a very black-and-white story, but I think Owens has managed some real nuance in how she explores cultural imperialism. While the Aesir did some awful things she takes care to show they are not an inherently evil race. They're just people... or griffins... with the usual mix of good and bad. And Shard has known them his whole life, so his struggle to choose a side feels real and heartfelt. The standout character for me was Shard's nest-father, whose gruff relationship with his mate and adoptive son was surprisingly sweet. In fact, the entire book was respectful of both blood and adoptive families, dismissing neither and giving due weight to both. This is how you handle adoption, peoples.

Outside of Shard's nest-father, however, the characters are kind of two-dimensional. It's not a fatal flaw in a young teenage novel, but this book is definitely not Sabriel, which can be enjoyed by young and old alike. It's like I could see what kind of characters were being portrayed, but their motivations didn't always make sense. They were just doing what they were doing because the plot demanded it.

For example, Shard didn't have any real reason to learn the old ways. He'd already got what he wanted; he'd succeeded at the hunt, was granted the right to stay in the pride, and was best bros with the Crown Prince. No one risks all that to 'make the pride stronger' unless they're already at risk of losing it all anyway.

Art by Jennifer Miller

What might have worked better was if the order of events was switched around. If the hunt had taken place in the middle of the novel instead of the beginning, that would have given Shard a concrete goal to strive for and a damn good reason to break the rules. It's outright stated that he's the skinny runt of his generation so the old ways would be his way of compensating. Ie. 'If I get caught learning the old ways I'll be exiled, but if I fail the hunt, I'll be exiled anyway, so I might as well take the risk'.  

Other than that, I have no complaints. It's clearly meant for young adults, so me and my nitpicking are not the target audience. I'd recommend it to teenagers in the 12-14 range. There's some violence, but it's not explicit, and sex is only vaguely referred to. The animalistic body-language was nice and I'd have liked to see even more of the descriptive language of the landscape. I'm also hoping for a cross-species romance between Shard and the young wolf Catori in the sequels, but that might just be my weirdness talking, not any real possibility of it.

Song of the Summer King can be ordered in paperback from Booktopia or Book Depository, or in electronic form from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

And if you love the cover art, like I do, check out the artist on her website or Deviant Art. All the art I've used in this post is hers, simply because she does such gorgeous work.