Hi! I see you posting something called Song of the Summer King! Is that a book or a show? I'm very curious about it and it looks like something I might be interested in!
hi! oh bro lemme tell you
Song of the Summer King is the first book in a quartet written by Jess E. Owen, titled the Summer King Chronicles. Jess is self-published and SOTSK was her debut novel! SKC doesn’t have any humans in it, just talking/sentient animals.
The later books explore different regions of the world, but SOTSK focuses on the Silver Isles, a cluster of five islands inhabited by gryfons (Jess’s spelling) and other animals like horses, wolves, caribou. There’s two main types of gryfons, Vanir and Aesir (yes, lots of Nordic inspiration) and roughly ten years before the series began, the Aesir came a-conquering to the Silver Isles. The Vanir fought but lost, the Aesir established themselves as the rulers of the isles and outlawed Vanir practices. Vanir who refused to be subjugated were banished, which is essentially a death sentence. Aesir and Vanir interbred, forming half-bloods. However, the main protag of the series, Rashard son-of-Sigrun, is a fully-blooded Vanir, the only of his age group as the other kits were slaughtered. Being a full-blood Vanir, he’s smaller and doesn’t have “dragon-blessed” feathers as the full-blood and half-blood Aesir do, and Shard feels that he must prove himself a loyal and helpful warrior to the pride to avoid being exiled.
That’s the premise of the first book, Shard trying to prove himself worthy of uh existence, and in order to keep up with his peers, he finds himself seeking out . . . alternative ways of success. Forbidden ways, you could say . . . dun dun dun
So yeah the first book is pretty limited in scope and is hmmm a bit predictable and simplistic? I mean, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out Shard’s real parents before it’s revealed. But the rest of the series expands quite nicely honestly. Jess’s strongest points (for me) are her writing style and characters. Her description/imagery is On Point and creates a lovely atmosphere that I adored sinking into the first time I read the series. And while like the plot the characters start out pretty simplistic they get nice development through the series and I cannot help but love them hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shard and HIkaru though.........
Unfortunately not many gryfons are canonically gay or anything? (There is an established couple in the second series which Jess is currently writing, the Dragon Star Saga) HOWEVER there are a plenitude of *clenches fist* really good platonic relationships and I live for that. Yes there are a few, sigh, love triangles but they’re not the main focus and really I think the emphasis is on familial and friend relationships, and that’s lovely.
There’s some real nice themes about colonialism and respecting other cultures, when/if war is justifiable, and the push to be better, be kinder, rise higher. A handful of characters get some pretty neat redemption arcs that I really like (because they have to actually face the consequences of their actions and realize they are wrong and want to change and recognize that the people they’ve hurt aren’t obligated to forgive or even like them). It’s not the deepest crap in the world but it did open my eyes/change my perspective of a lot of things when I first read them back in middle school.
tldr: YA furry fantasy about talking gryfons who learn to drink respect other cultures juice and has some incredibly good soft vibes that i cherish
here’s her website if you’re still interested: http://www.jessowen.com/#skc and i think you can find a link to her discord there, which i think is open to everyone
