The Black Gryphon

Mage Wars Series, Book 1

By: Mercedes Lackey, Larry Dixon

Narrated by: Gary Furlong

Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's Summary

It is an age when Valdemar is yet unfounded, its organization of Heralds yet unformed, and magic is still a wild and uncontrolled force. 

Skandranon Rashkae is perhaps the finest specimen of his race, with gleaming ebony feathers, a majestic wingspan, keen magesight, and sharp intelligence. Courageous, bold, and crafty, Skan is everything a gryphon should be. He is the fulfillment of everything that the Mage of Silence, the human sorcerer called Urtho, intended to achieve when he created these magical beings to be his champions, the defenders of his realm - a verdant plain long coveted by the evil mage Maar.  

Now Maar is once again advancing on Urtho's Keep, this time with a huge force spearheaded by magical constructs of his own - cruel birds of prey ready to perform any evil their creator may demand of them. And when one of Urtho's Seers wakes from a horrifying vision in which she sees a devastating magical weapon being placed in the hands of Maar's common soldiers, Skandrannon is sent to spy across enemy lines, cloaked in the protective of Urtho's powerful Spell of Silence.

©1994 Mercedes R. Lackey and Larry Dixon (P)2018 Tantor

Love the book

I love this book but held my breath as it started because I don't like every narrator. I laughed out loud as I listened to the first sentence. He is great! Every character name pronounced exactly as I has imagined it, every exciting and nuanced passage came across splendidly. I listened to the whole thing in two days and may start it again tomorrow.

Wonderfully written, beautifully performed.

I have always loved this book, and was extremely excited to see it had finely gotten an audio book. Gary Furlong has done an outstanding job in bringing the characters to life. Amberdrake, and all of his wisdom, brought chills to my spine once again. Everyone needs to hear, or read, this book, and marvel at the truth, beauty, and sadness of war, love and hate, and ultimately hope that Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon so masterfully brought forth for us. We see from not just both sexes, but different jobs, as well as different species, the affect war has on our bodies, minds and souls. And indeed, there is always hope, and a moment of silence.

Love this book

I absolutely love Mercedes Lacky’s books and valdemar story line. It has become such a wonderful thing for me to hear the stories come to life. Only problem I have is I want to hear The White Gryphon and The Silver Gryphon. Sad to see that Audible hasn’t even listed this book as part of the Mage War series. Yet this is the series that starts all of the other valdemaren series.

Dull, unimaginative, too many info dumps.

Narrator was good. No complaints. The story itself is ungodly boring. Each paragraph is an infodump. More tell than show in this story than I'm used to by a long shot. Obviously written by furries.

One of my favorite books!

I love this book to pieces and I was so excited to find it on audible. I hope they hurry up and finish the other 2 books!

Excellent,as always!

I've always loved this series! I hope the next two books in the series are released quickly.

couldn't finish it

The narrator did not speak clearly. Or with any emotion. I felt like I needed Closed Captioning. Wait! Just read the print book.

Great story and you will get hooked on this author

Loved hearing the story I have read so many times before. Losing the ability to read comfortably has been a huge life change. Having access to the books of my favorite author is immeasurable happiness.

narration is bad

Mercedes Lackey is one of my favorite authors. I actually have not read this book yet, but the narration is so bad I cannot get through any more of it. I feel like I wasted money on this audio book.

I won't be buying the rest of the series

great story. poor performance

the narration of the names Skandranon and Kaled'a'in was extremely jarring. it detracts from the flow of the book