I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Two things: a) I read an arc. So it’s possible all my issues with it will be fixed before the book is published. I’m pretty sure at least some of the lines that make me twitch are genuine typos and thus have a good chance of being smoothed away before release day.

b) I am unreasonably picky about prose. I think most readers will get along with Gryphon King just fine. I did not. If the quotes I quote don’t bother you, then you’re golden, and I kind of envy you!

The prose here is simple and direct, with word choice often striking a weirdly juvenile note. That’s not me saying this reads like YA, because it doesn’t; I’m saying that it’s a little odd to hear ‘the palace stunk’ from an adult author, because ‘stunk’ is not the word most adults would choose there. It’s not wrong. It’s just odd, jarring, and unfortunately, the writing is jarring a lot, to the point that I very quickly didn’t care about the story any more because the prose was bothering me so much. As if to compensate for the weirdly juvenile word choices, there were often moments that read as though the author had popped the normal word into a thesaurus and picked a synonym that doesn’t actually quite work.

the coolness of morning

Nohra and Safiya strode inside

whispers cresendoed to impassioned shouts

Wormy voices whispered that he ran [the district]

The other jarring thing, the much, much more prevalent one, is awkward or clunky phrasing.

Change came, and like waves breaking around her body, Nohra would have to keep wading forward, even if it was without [her friends].

What that sentence actually seems to be saying is that Nohra’s wading forward is like the waves breaking around her body – and that makes no sense. That’s not what the author is trying to say, but…that’s what they’ve said.

Before them spread a sea of patterned turbans and snowy beards, each man with a mouth he couldn’t keep shut for long.

‘A mouth he couldn’t keep shut for long’? Why would you phrase it like that?

Minister Lofri’s feathery eyebrows fluttered as he spoke

I’m sorry, his eyebrows what?

(Please enjoy the mental image of me spending several minutes trying to make my eyebrows flutter, in an effort to make this line make sense.)

Two more gryphons dove into the same horse.

They dove…inside the horse???

His mouth curled like a snake’s when the corners pulled up too high.

No it didn’t. His mouth did not curl like a snake’s mouth curls. You might have meant ‘his mouth curled like a snake’ – that would work! But it did not curl like a snake’s mouth curls. You know why? Because their mouths don’t curl.

(At certain angles a snake can open its mouth at you and be extremely cute! But its mouth is not curling.)

Bataar exited into the courtyard first. Inside the estate, suffocation had gripped him

You mean ‘house’. Inside the ‘house’. He hasn’t left the grounds, so he hasn’t left anybody’s ‘estate’, he’s just stepped outside!

The royal ornaments sparkled in light thrown from a tall window, signaling his station in the room of men. He was goddess-blessed, and they only wielded influence because he let them.

The ornaments only wield influence because he let them? And ‘signaling his station’ sounds so off. It’s not technically wrong! But you could say that so much better if you tried literally at all.

Speaking of ‘literally’, the dialogue is bizarrely modern – I know not every fantasy reader cares about this, but uh, if you do, it’s a problem here.

I’d literally rather practice sums or read Grandmother’s diary.”

or

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get smart.”

etc.

For a fantasy that is all about war, the scenes of violence and/or gore are terrible. I’ve noticed before that if you don’t use sensory description for things like monsters, the description falls flat and they’re not scary. The same sort of thing happens here: the description is so minimal, or else odd, that the intended effect is not coming through. (And I say this as someone who is very sensitive to gore!)

Its body slammed so hard into one of the horses that bones broke and torn-open veins sprayed showers of red. Bataar had never seen something die as quickly as that horse’s soul spurted out of its body.

SPURTED? The soul SPURTED out of its body? Even if your minimal description didn’t leave me cold, this is just going to make me crack up during a scene you want me to take seriously.

SPURTED. Oh my gods.

Thick intestines like strings of sausages were strewn across the dirt

Listen: you’re not wrong! Sausages are made out of intestines! The intestines probably do actually look like sausages! But: sausages are not scary. Sausages are either neutral or outright cosy, depending on your reader’s preferences/experience with them. Food descriptors for gore do not work in text form, and I will explain why!

See, if I was standing where this character is standing, and saw gore, and my brain went ‘sausages’, I would probably be really grossed out! Possibly distressed! But I would be distressed at my own response to the gore, not the gore itself (in that moment). It’s like if you smell a burned human body, and it reminds you of cooked pork or something: you want to throw up because it is deeply disturbing that you could find that smell appetizing. The smell in and of itself is not horrifying: your own reaction to it is.

But if I am not standing there – if it is not my brain that thinks ‘sausages’ or ‘yummy pork’ or whatever – then there is no horror. The food descriptor just becomes…pretty dumb, actually. You want me to be icked out by sausages??? That’s. That’s not gonna happen, ma’am. I’m sorry. I’m just thinking about an English Breakfast now.

Oh, and the monsters don’t get described well either;

A clear membrane slid over the gryphon’s eyes. It looked like a huge lion, except for its beak and feathered back legs ending in taloned feet.

That is very plain, boring description, but also: the gryphon looks like a LION with a BEAK??? Are you sure? Are you sure that’s what you want me to picture? (And like, you can do what you want, obviously, it’s fantasy, but gryphons usually have the front half of eagles and the back half of lions and the mental image I have looks deeply weird with it the other way around.)(Also you might want to tell your cover artist that they got your gryphons wrong.)

This isn’t a prose issue, but: hi, your characters are stupid. In one early scene, our MMC orders his eagle to attack the hunting bird of a prince. The prince is upset. (The bird is fine. But like. I’d be upset too.) Possibly I am just being Very Autistic, but I have scrutinised this scene several times and I cannot work out why the hell the MMC did that. This prince is not an important person, exactly, but he is important to the MMC’s plans – and even if he wasn’t, what kind of idiot makes enemies when he doesn’t have to? You’re a terrible war-leader! Goodbye!

His two second-in-commands, who are his besties and clearly attracted to each other, also have this kind of banter, which I hate so much;

“Leave some women for the rest of us.”

“What woman wants you?” Shaza deadpanned.

“I can think of one.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or two.”

She shoved him. “Watch your tongue if you want to stay attached to it, louse.”

Ahh yes: the Badass Woman who is aggressive to the man she’s attracted to because gods forbid she display Feelings. Specifically, is aggressive to the man she’s attracted to who has done nothing wrong. What did he say that made him a louse? He said one woman ever might be attracted to him! MAYBE two women! That’s not a gross thing to say! If anything, it’s kind of funny, and very surprising, to hear a guy say only one or two women might be attracted to him! That’s very modest! It certainly isn’t rude.

I despise this kind of banter/dynamic. No. Go away.

I could go on – I could talk about how strange the timeskips are, in that they skip over some momentous events in the lives of each main character that we were set up to expect on-page (Nohra becoming a Harpy Knight, which her opening chapter made clear was the sole goal of her life; Bataar marrying Qaira whom he had no chemistry with when they were introduced); or the very strange way paragraphs keep going statement->not clearly related fact with no overt connection between them; or the wildly wrong use of the word hatpin – I could go on! But. I have gone on way too long already.

I really did want to love this. The premise is so cool. But I cannot enjoy it.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Two things: a) I read an arc. So it’s possible all my issues with it will be fixed before the book is published. I’m pretty sure at least some of the lines that make me twitch are genuine typos and thus have a good chance of being smoothed away before release day.

b) I am unreasonably picky about prose. I think most readers will get along with Gryphon King just fine. I did not. If the quotes I quote don’t bother you, then you’re golden, and I kind of envy you!

The prose here is simple and direct, with word choice often striking a weirdly juvenile note. That’s not me saying this reads like YA, because it doesn’t; I’m saying that it’s a little odd to hear ‘the palace stunk’ from an adult author, because ‘stunk’ is not the word most adults would choose there. It’s not wrong. It’s just odd, jarring, and unfortunately, the writing is jarring a lot, to the point that I very quickly didn’t care about the story any more because the prose was bothering me so much. As if to compensate for the weirdly juvenile word choices, there were often moments that read as though the author had popped the normal word into a thesaurus and picked a synonym that doesn’t actually quite work.

the coolness of morning

Nohra and Safiya strode inside

whispers cresendoed to impassioned shouts

Wormy voices whispered that he ran [the district]

The other jarring thing, the much, much more prevalent one, is awkward or clunky phrasing.

Change came, and like waves breaking around her body, Nohra would have to keep wading forward, even if it was without [her friends].

What that sentence actually seems to be saying is that Nohra’s wading forward is like the waves breaking around her body – and that makes no sense. That’s not what the author is trying to say, but…that’s what they’ve said.

Before them spread a sea of patterned turbans and snowy beards, each man with a mouth he couldn’t keep shut for long.

‘A mouth he couldn’t keep shut for long’? Why would you phrase it like that?

Minister Lofri’s feathery eyebrows fluttered as he spoke

I’m sorry, his eyebrows what?

(Please enjoy the mental image of me spending several minutes trying to make my eyebrows flutter, in an effort to make this line make sense.)

Two more gryphons dove into the same horse.

They dove…inside the horse???

His mouth curled like a snake’s when the corners pulled up too high.

No it didn’t. His mouth did not curl like a snake’s mouth curls. You might have meant ‘his mouth curled like a snake’ – that would work! But it did not curl like a snake’s mouth curls. You know why? Because their mouths don’t curl.

(At certain angles a snake can open its mouth at you and be extremely cute! But its mouth is not curling.)

Bataar exited into the courtyard first. Inside the estate, suffocation had gripped him

You mean ‘house’. Inside the ‘house’. He hasn’t left the grounds, so he hasn’t left anybody’s ‘estate’, he’s just stepped outside!

The royal ornaments sparkled in light thrown from a tall window, signaling his station in the room of men. He was goddess-blessed, and they only wielded influence because he let them.

The ornaments only wield influence because he let them? And ‘signaling his station’ sounds so off. It’s not technically wrong! But you could say that so much better if you tried literally at all.

Speaking of ‘literally’, the dialogue is bizarrely modern – I know not every fantasy reader cares about this, but uh, if you do, it’s a problem here.

I’d literally rather practice sums or read Grandmother’s diary.”

or

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get smart.”

etc.

For a fantasy that is all about war, the scenes of violence and/or gore are terrible. I’ve noticed before that if you don’t use sensory description for things like monsters, the description falls flat and they’re not scary. The same sort of thing happens here: the description is so minimal, or else odd, that the intended effect is not coming through. (And I say this as someone who is very sensitive to gore!)

Its body slammed so hard into one of the horses that bones broke and torn-open veins sprayed showers of red. Bataar had never seen something die as quickly as that horse’s soul spurted out of its body.

SPURTED? The soul SPURTED out of its body? Even if your minimal description didn’t leave me cold, this is just going to make me crack up during a scene you want me to take seriously.

SPURTED. Oh my gods.

Thick intestines like strings of sausages were strewn across the dirt

Listen: you’re not wrong! Sausages are made out of intestines! The intestines probably do actually look like sausages! But: sausages are not scary. Sausages are either neutral or outright cosy, depending on your reader’s preferences/experience with them. Food descriptors for gore do not work in text form, and I will explain why!

See, if I was standing where this character is standing, and saw gore, and my brain went ‘sausages’, I would probably be really grossed out! Possibly distressed! But I would be distressed at my own response to the gore, not the gore itself (in that moment). It’s like if you smell a burned human body, and it reminds you of cooked pork or something: you want to throw up because it is deeply disturbing that you could find that smell appetizing. The smell in and of itself is not horrifying: your own reaction to it is.

But if I am not standing there – if it is not my brain that thinks ‘sausages’ or ‘yummy pork’ or whatever – then there is no horror. The food descriptor just becomes…pretty dumb, actually. You want me to be icked out by sausages??? That’s. That’s not gonna happen, ma’am. I’m sorry. I’m just thinking about an English Breakfast now.

Oh, and the monsters don’t get described well either;

A clear membrane slid over the gryphon’s eyes. It looked like a huge lion, except for its beak and feathered back legs ending in taloned feet.

That is very plain, boring description, but also: the gryphon looks like a LION with a BEAK??? Are you sure? Are you sure that’s what you want me to picture? (And like, you can do what you want, obviously, it’s fantasy, but gryphons usually have the front half of eagles and the back half of lions and the mental image I have looks deeply weird with it the other way around.)(Also you might want to tell your cover artist that they got your gryphons wrong.)

This isn’t a prose issue, but: hi, your characters are stupid. In one early scene, our MMC orders his eagle to attack the hunting bird of a prince. The prince is upset. (The bird is fine. But like. I’d be upset too.) Possibly I am just being Very Autistic, but I have scrutinised this scene several times and I cannot work out why the hell the MMC did that. This prince is not an important person, exactly, but he is important to the MMC’s plans – and even if he wasn’t, what kind of idiot makes enemies when he doesn’t have to? You’re a terrible war-leader! Goodbye!

His two second-in-commands, who are his besties and clearly attracted to each other, also have this kind of banter, which I hate so much;

“Leave some women for the rest of us.”

“What woman wants you?” Shaza deadpanned.

“I can think of one.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or two.”

She shoved him. “Watch your tongue if you want to stay attached to it, louse.”

Ahh yes: the Badass Woman who is aggressive to the man she’s attracted to because gods forbid she display Feelings. Specifically, is aggressive to the man she’s attracted to who has done nothing wrong. What did he say that made him a louse? He said one woman ever might be attracted to him! MAYBE two women! That’s not a gross thing to say! If anything, it’s kind of funny, and very surprising, to hear a guy say only one or two women might be attracted to him! That’s very modest! It certainly isn’t rude.

I despise this kind of banter/dynamic. No. Go away.

I could go on – I could talk about how strange the timeskips are, in that they skip over some momentous events in the lives of each main character that we were set up to expect on-page (Nohra becoming a Harpy Knight, which her opening chapter made clear was the sole goal of her life; Bataar marrying Qaira whom he had no chemistry with when they were introduced); or the very strange way paragraphs keep going statement->not clearly related fact with no overt connection between them; or the wildly wrong use of the word hatpin – I could go on! But. I have gone on way too long already.

I really did want to love this. The premise is so cool. But I cannot enjoy it.