book reviews for winged people (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
booksofafeather) wrote2011-03-05 12:22 am
booksofafeather) wrote2011-03-05 12:22 am
Entry tags:
The Black Gryphon
Short review: A far too complex book to really say what it's "about"... it starts out seeming to be about war, but there are so many other plots, and character goals, and reasons for people to be doing things that mostly you don't see much war at all. It's not very much about war until close to the end. There are a lot of twists and turns in this story... and it has a very sympathetic approach to the winged nonhumans. It wasn't my "usual type" of story, but I can't find any reason to fault it except that some of the villains are a bit stereotyped. I can't wait to read the sequel!
Writing: It's well-written and you get lots and lots of nice description. Everyone's preference is different of course, but there's no way I can say this is "bad writing". Twists and turns keep you reading and the overall plot ends up not being quite what you expect a lot. Don't stop until the very last page, because just when you think something is over, more things occur! As I said before, it could use not having a "stereotyped evil", or having most of the evil be in ugly creatures... but that's most of the problem I see.
From a winged person's perspective...: This is a book that really feels like it interacts with its winged people as winged. They're not my winged people (being gryphons) but I could see a lot of similarities in the needs for their care, and they are treated as having a full culture that centres about what they are. It's very natural feeling. They are in a way an oppressed culture seen as lesser than humans but part of the story is about them claiming their rights. It has some "species-queer" elements also, to do with what if you aren't quite one species or another, but a new thing. The book is even aware of human-centric thinking and mentions it by that name! It's very good about this. In all of that, there aren't actually many "traditional" flying descriptions, but a lot of detailed battle flying and tactics.
Trigger warnings: Cruel methods of punishment: cutting off wings, removal of skin, other tortures. Mentions of neglect of a deformed child. People feeling they are freaks (though not just for being winged). Clipping of wings. Various war horrors. Not a gentle book in general.
More thoughts...: The first thing I can't help but say... my copy of this book, that I got from the library, has a big sticker over the main character's face on the cover. ^^; That's unfortunate... especially since the story does deal with some rights issues surrounding the main character's species. Haha, just a funny thing that I noticed. It's a shame since it's a pretty cover.
Anyway! I don't really know where to begin with this book. There's a lot in it. And it's rather different from most books I've written about up to this point. Mostly I've written about books that are about gaining flight, because one, since they are focusing on the feeling of having something new, I would think they would have the best descriptions of what it really feels like to fly and be winged, and two, that's what's interesting to a lot of otherkin. Also three, mostly stories about winged humanoids (which I am) are of that type, or they're about a concept of angels and demons that feels... not at all like what I experience as a winged person. A wartorn battle sort of world. I don't really feel that fiction about such a world is inspiring to me... I want to read about a world where people can stop and take time to find wonder, and look to the sky. A poetic dream world that has this "aozora" (blue sky) feel about it. It's hard to describe... but when I look to the sky, or experience flight, that is what my world is like, and that's what I want to read.
And of course this book list is all about me... （´・ω・｀;） Well, not really. Still, it has the books in it that I thought would be fun to read.
Anyway, like I said... this is a different kind of book from my usual. A war book. Yet really it's not a lot about war. If you don't like war stories, you may like it anyway, since most of the time is spent healing the injured, or going along other side plots (which in their own right are fascinating). As for how it is for winged people, I could just fill this review with the lovely little cultural details that they took time to think of. From the thought of a gryphon using a feather as a bookmark (of course he would, you probably just have many of them around and they're a good shape!), to keeping feathers from your last molt so you can imp them if your wing gets injured, to the delicate art of painting feather patterns that match with the original colouring of the wing yet still have decoration... there are so many small things like that, and I don't want to spoil them for the reader! The position of flight in the culture is interesting, and revealed in small ways such as during a blessing given to the dead.... not being able to fly is definitely seen as a big loss even though it's not mentioned often. Otherkin might find a similarity too in the healer who is humanoid but takes on a gryphon's pain, so he can feel it in his own body... the places where the pain gathers when you don't have the body part... might be interesting to some.
The book also has interesting beauty standards... after reading "The Encounter" I was very disappointed about how anything other than human beauty seemed to be written off... but this book is very fair about it, showing the beauty of the gryphons through gryphon eyes (and sometimes human eyes even) as much as it shows the beauty of humans. There is a lot of ugly language used in describing the enemy creatures, and I guess that in a war, that's how you see people, but it does feel like "the good guys are pretty and the bad guys are ugly" a little. However, as for whether the villains are stereotyped stock characters... they are, but this book has a lot of twists. It wouldn't surprise me if they do something in the sequel that flips things around... I have some faith.
I don't know how to say more without spoiling the story... it is a lovely book, with some rough edges, and while I didn't feel somehow that it wholly captured the kind of thing I am looking for in these books, and I feel that they could have done better in a few places, I would recommend it. I'd say maybe a four and a half out of five, for this book, because it's enjoyable to read and probably a lot of the reason I didn't connect to it was because it's not my species (I imagine that a gryphon would especially like it).
Writing: It's well-written and you get lots and lots of nice description. Everyone's preference is different of course, but there's no way I can say this is "bad writing". Twists and turns keep you reading and the overall plot ends up not being quite what you expect a lot. Don't stop until the very last page, because just when you think something is over, more things occur! As I said before, it could use not having a "stereotyped evil", or having most of the evil be in ugly creatures... but that's most of the problem I see.
From a winged person's perspective...: This is a book that really feels like it interacts with its winged people as winged. They're not my winged people (being gryphons) but I could see a lot of similarities in the needs for their care, and they are treated as having a full culture that centres about what they are. It's very natural feeling. They are in a way an oppressed culture seen as lesser than humans but part of the story is about them claiming their rights. It has some "species-queer" elements also, to do with what if you aren't quite one species or another, but a new thing. The book is even aware of human-centric thinking and mentions it by that name! It's very good about this. In all of that, there aren't actually many "traditional" flying descriptions, but a lot of detailed battle flying and tactics.
Trigger warnings: Cruel methods of punishment: cutting off wings, removal of skin, other tortures. Mentions of neglect of a deformed child. People feeling they are freaks (though not just for being winged). Clipping of wings. Various war horrors. Not a gentle book in general.
More thoughts...: The first thing I can't help but say... my copy of this book, that I got from the library, has a big sticker over the main character's face on the cover. ^^; That's unfortunate... especially since the story does deal with some rights issues surrounding the main character's species. Haha, just a funny thing that I noticed. It's a shame since it's a pretty cover.
Anyway! I don't really know where to begin with this book. There's a lot in it. And it's rather different from most books I've written about up to this point. Mostly I've written about books that are about gaining flight, because one, since they are focusing on the feeling of having something new, I would think they would have the best descriptions of what it really feels like to fly and be winged, and two, that's what's interesting to a lot of otherkin. Also three, mostly stories about winged humanoids (which I am) are of that type, or they're about a concept of angels and demons that feels... not at all like what I experience as a winged person. A wartorn battle sort of world. I don't really feel that fiction about such a world is inspiring to me... I want to read about a world where people can stop and take time to find wonder, and look to the sky. A poetic dream world that has this "aozora" (blue sky) feel about it. It's hard to describe... but when I look to the sky, or experience flight, that is what my world is like, and that's what I want to read.
And of course this book list is all about me... （´・ω・｀;） Well, not really. Still, it has the books in it that I thought would be fun to read.
Anyway, like I said... this is a different kind of book from my usual. A war book. Yet really it's not a lot about war. If you don't like war stories, you may like it anyway, since most of the time is spent healing the injured, or going along other side plots (which in their own right are fascinating). As for how it is for winged people, I could just fill this review with the lovely little cultural details that they took time to think of. From the thought of a gryphon using a feather as a bookmark (of course he would, you probably just have many of them around and they're a good shape!), to keeping feathers from your last molt so you can imp them if your wing gets injured, to the delicate art of painting feather patterns that match with the original colouring of the wing yet still have decoration... there are so many small things like that, and I don't want to spoil them for the reader! The position of flight in the culture is interesting, and revealed in small ways such as during a blessing given to the dead.... not being able to fly is definitely seen as a big loss even though it's not mentioned often. Otherkin might find a similarity too in the healer who is humanoid but takes on a gryphon's pain, so he can feel it in his own body... the places where the pain gathers when you don't have the body part... might be interesting to some.
The book also has interesting beauty standards... after reading "The Encounter" I was very disappointed about how anything other than human beauty seemed to be written off... but this book is very fair about it, showing the beauty of the gryphons through gryphon eyes (and sometimes human eyes even) as much as it shows the beauty of humans. There is a lot of ugly language used in describing the enemy creatures, and I guess that in a war, that's how you see people, but it does feel like "the good guys are pretty and the bad guys are ugly" a little. However, as for whether the villains are stereotyped stock characters... they are, but this book has a lot of twists. It wouldn't surprise me if they do something in the sequel that flips things around... I have some faith.
I don't know how to say more without spoiling the story... it is a lovely book, with some rough edges, and while I didn't feel somehow that it wholly captured the kind of thing I am looking for in these books, and I feel that they could have done better in a few places, I would recommend it. I'd say maybe a four and a half out of five, for this book, because it's enjoyable to read and probably a lot of the reason I didn't connect to it was because it's not my species (I imagine that a gryphon would especially like it).