Front cover of the first book
The Summer King Chronicles is a Norse Mythology-flavored Xenofiction High Fantasy series by Jess E. Owen. The series consists of four books covering the Summer King Chronicles arc and a Sequel Series beginning with Rise of the Dragon Star.
The first book in the series, Song of the Summer King, starts with the young male gryfons (this is the author's spelling of griffins) of the Silver Isles pride undergoing a coming of age test, the dangerous initiation hunt. While on the hunt, one of the gryfons, Shard, comes across a wolf who hints that Shard's past is more than it seems. Shard's life becomes uncertain when the king of his pride declares war against the wolves.
The series stars gryfons. However, it treats them as animals instead of fantastical beasts.
Books
Main
- Song of the Summer King (2012)
- Skyfire (2013)
- A Shard of Sun (2015)
- By The Silver Wind (2016)
- Rise of the Dragon Star (2020)
Short Stories
- The Starward Light (2018)
- Beneath the Windward Sun (2018)
- The Salmon Run (2018)
The Summer King Chronicles provides examples of:
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Most gryfon have normal mammalian colors like brown, orange, and black. Dragon-blooded Aesir are more reptile-like/bird-like and can have green, bright red, blue, and purple feathers. Their abnormal coloring comes from dragons blessing their ancestors.
- Animal Naming Conventions: The various Talking Animals of the setting tend to have names loosely based in different human cultures:
- Gryfon names are usually Nordic and they title themselves with patronymics, e.g. "Kjorn, son-of-Sverin."
- Eagles use similar conventions with matronymics instead.
- Wolf names sound vaguely Native American.
- Lions have African names combined with titles, e.g. "Ajia the Swiftest."
- Dragons have Japanese names such as Hikaru and Ai. Subverted with wyrms, as they are one of the few non-sapient species in the world. The one Shard establishes a dream connection with responds to the name "Rhydda" given to her by the dragons, but they do not have their own names.
- Averted with the albatross. He says that his kind have No Need for Names, but permits Shard to call him Windwalker.
- Animal Religion: The Aesir worship Tyr, a god of sun and war. Tor, goddess of the moon, the sea, and fertility, is of equal importance to the Vanir, but the Aesir suppressed worship of her when they conquered the Vanir.
- Animal Talk: Gryfons have their own language, as do birds, and mammals speak in "earth speech." Only the Summer King "speaks to all who hear".
- Babies Ever After: The series ends with adorable fluffy gryfon kits for Kjorn and Thyra, Astri and Einarr, Halvden and Kenna, and most other Silver Isles gryfons. The Starward Light develops the next generation further and introduces Shard and Brynja's daughter Embra.
- Beast Fable: The series gradually develops into one about colonialism and reconciling past violence between two nations as the backstory is revealed. However, The Reveal that the Aesir colonized the Silver Isles because they were chased there by wyrms makes it into more of a Fantastic Aesop.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": For some reason, the only animals referred to this way are bison (greatbeast) and orcas (blackfish/Wolf-Fish).
- Civilized Animal: The gryfons of the Dawn Spire, thanks in no small part to their keeping of fire. The dragons even more so.
- Clever Crows: The ravens Hugin and Munin.
- Culture Chop Suey: The Winderost is a sort of Biome Chop Suey between the North American prairies and mountains (great herds of bison and pronghorn, red rock formations and canyons} and the African savanna (lions and painted wolves).
- Dead All Along: The mystic gryfess Groa and her Arctic fox companion who Shard encounters are actually ancient spirits.
- December–December Romance: Stigr and Valdis.
- Deuteragonist: Kjorn.
- Devious Dolphins: The orcas encountered in the third book — the pod we see are a gang of Psychopathic Manchildren who enjoy "playing with their food" (sadistically torturing their prey).
- Fantastic Caste System: Aesir gryfons in the Dawn Spire live in a strict tier system that they inherit from their parents. Gryfon can move up a rank by accomplishing certain deeds. Your tier decides many things, including how high up your den is.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Kjorn is golden all over and is The Wise Prince.
- The Hero: Shard.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Wingbrothers/wingsisters are this to each other.
- In-Series Nickname: Rashard's name is commonly shortened to "Shard".
- Interspecies Friendship: As the Summer King, Shard "speaks to all who hear" - he makes friends with wolves, lions, painted dogs, eagles, and dragons.
- The Mentor: Stigr educates Shard in Vanir culture.
- The Native Rival: Asvander for Shard once he arrives at the Dawn Spire.
- Interspecies Adoption: At the end of the second book, a dragon entrusts Shard to raise her hatchling and bring him to her homeland.
- Our Dragons Are Different: "Dragons" here refers only to Eastern dragons, who can grow huge but live only one year. They are easily the most Civilized Animals in the setting, having martial arts and walls engraved with their history, and turn to crystal when they die. Introduced before them are Western dragons, here called wyrms. They are Kaiju-sized, mindlessly destructive monsters who drive other creatures to mindless terror with their very presence. The dragons took advantage of the wyrms' love of gems and gold and being one of the few non-sentient creatures in the setting to enslave them to mine gems.
- Our Gryphons Are Different: Gryfons resemble traditional gryphons, being half-eagle-half-lion quadrupeds with tufted ears, except they have feathered tails instead of the typical feline ones. They live up to 60 years and are adults at around 10. They live in prides where females primarily hunt and males primarily fight, and the females give birth to a single kit at a time. Gryfons mate for life. As for the two races:
- Aesir are a large, diurnal Proud Warrior Race who are more warmly and often luridly colored and eat red meat.
- Vanir are slimmer, more nocturnal, more mystical, come in monochrome shades, and prefer to eat fish (which gives them a water-resistant coat of oil on their feathers).
- Maternity Crisis: Every female gryphon in the Silver Isles in the climax of the fourth book. The wyrms just happen to attack at the start of the whelping season. Justified as the stress of their homeland being under attack from borderline Animalistic Abominations while they have to crawl through damp underground tunnels would be enough to trigger labor.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Most gryfons are solid-colored, but Asvander has falcon-like coloration. Apparently, this is common in the Ostral Shores population of Aesir.
- Partially Civilized Animal: The Silver Isles gryphon pride has a king, laws, an honor code, folklore, and the concept of a colony, but otherwise behave like animals. Much the same goes for wolves.
- People of Hair Color: Aesir tend to be more warmly colored than Vanir, who are mostly shades of white, brown, and grey.
- Primal Fear:
- Most Aesir gryfon are afraid of the night.
- Wyrms induce this in any creature in their presence.
- Being confined in a small space with a limited supply of food and a rapidly growing young child, as Shard is with Hikaru at the beginning of A Shard of Sun.
- Redemption Equals Death: After recovering from Sanity Slippage and realizing what he's done to his pride, Sverin sacrifices himself in order to deal a fatal blow to a wyrm.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: There are three correct spellings of the name of the animals featured in these books - "griffin", "griffon", and "gryphon". The author chooses instead to use "gryfon."
- Sanity Slippage: King Sverin undergoes this as his desire for vengeance against the wolves consumes him, to the detriment of his pride and to the point that he goes Nameless.
- Short-Lived Organism: The dragons live only one year.
- Shrinking Violet: Astri.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Astri loses her mate Einarr while pregnant.
- Tragic Villain: Sverin ultimately becomes this.
- The Wise Prince: Kjorn.
- Fantastic Racism: The Summer King Chronicles provides numerous examples of this trope. The Most notable example is Vanir Genocide of the Conquering.
- Xenofiction
