Say goodbye to Soren, the Guardians, the Band, the Chaw of Chaw, the wolves of the Beyond, Coryn, and even the Pure Ones. Because for some reason or other, we're blasting thousands of years into the past to deal with mythology that was never mentioned in the series until The Hatchling (but mostly The Outcast). And don't worry your pretty little heads, because this mythology will directly contradict what's been said before and will confuse the hell out of you.

Actually, you know what? Worry.

I have two massive questions/complaints:

What exactly is Glaux?
Glaux was stated to be owls during the time of humans, but the term is used like a Crystal Dragon Jesus ("By Glaux!", "Oh my Glaux!" etcetera, etcetera). Then it was said to be the first owl, not the whole group of them. But in The First Collier, suddenly the first owl is called Hoole... which confuses things further as this is a different Hoole from the Hoole of the Ga'Hoole tree, who was named for that first Hoole. (Are you confused yet?)

What the hell are hagsfiends?
During their first appearances, hagsfiends are dead owls from hagsmire, which is the term for owl hell. Now they're explained to be a cross between crows and owls. More specifically, they are descendant from a species called crowls, which are explained as the common ancestor of owls and crows.

But if the hagsfiends re just another bird species, why are they Always Chaotic Evil? And how can owls become hagsfiends just by hanging around them? Obviously it's supposed to be that the PURE EVIL rubs off on them, but that only works if they're actual demons of some kind, not a bird species. Which they were until this book Retconned it. (Are you confused now?)

Really, I feel like Lasky got confused halfway through writing this. Like maybe she took a long break and got her own mythology mixed up when she sat back down to continue. Or she wrote two or more wildly different drafts in which the mythology evolved and when she tried to bring the best of the drafts together, the mythology accidentally got confused. Or... I don't know, maybe she just thought kids would be too stupid to remember what she said in the previous books?

So, yeah. We're back at the bottom of the downhill slide from The Hatchling. The prejudice is back in full swing with the invariably PURE EVIL hagsfiends, and with the mythology getting so bungled and contradictory, I'm getting really close to just not caring.

And with the final reveal that Coryn thinks his mother is actually a hagsfiend, not an owl at all, I was really close to throwing the book across the room. You cannot retcon your villain into being a different species from the good guys. Seriously, imagine that these were people instead of birds.

"Le gasp," Coryn says. "My mother's too evil to be a _______ like me I think she's really one of those terrible _______!"

Now fill in those blanks with things like white and black, capitalist and communist, Republican and Democrat, Northerner and Southerner, etcetera. Suddenly it's offensive, right? That's because it was offensive all along, and yet so many anthropomorphic and fantasy series try imply that discrimination is perfectly acceptable because it's not against people. It's not.

The little owlet Hoole was the highlight of this book. He was sweet and innocent, and since he'd never heard of hagsfiends, he didn't suffer the ingrained prejudice that the other characters flaunted. I can only hope he'll stay that way. (Though, unfortunately, I doubt it.)

This book is much different from the previous Guardians of Ga-Hoole books. Soren and Coryn read a story of Ezylryb's about Grank, the first collier. A collier is an owl who deals with fire. The book tells the story of how Hoole, the prince, was born.

take me back to the other owls

the series went so downhill when the focus left soren and his besties ;-;

I quit reading this out loud at night... the story does not lend itself well to out loud reading done in small chunks. I can tell that this is OK, but the chapters are long and drawn out, and it puts my 8yo to sleep within minutes. So he'll finish this one on his own. Honestly, I'm quite bored with this book, and I'm glad to be done with it.

Lol, I’m a pretty awesome Grandma. Ok kids on to book 10.

The whispers of legendary stories have guided Soren and his friends thus far. Now, they have a chance to confront an eyewitness testimony. I imagine that their response to the truths therein will set the tone for the rest of this series. It has struck me, hearing snippets of one cycle or another through the ears of one owl or another, that up til now, the reader has not been told a full version of any one legend. As the parting words of Grank make clear, even this one (26 chapter) book is a mere piece of the puzzle. Other voices will join his, will you listen?

I'm grateful for the audiobook. I've never had the full series available to me, though I hope to have all of them one day. The woman's voice is beautiful but also strangely annoying at times. Especially when she voices a younger owl. Which makes for an interesting experience. I'm not sure that pitchy is the right word, perhaps scratchy? Like her voice is stretched thin? Might just be me.

i love this book and the series

Yes, I'm still reading this series. This book is told a little different than the others. In addition to being book 9 of the series, it's also the first book of a series within the series. It is a story of how things came to be in the owl kingdom. It gives background on a lot of the legends referenced in previous books.

When I found out that the first Collier would be a lore novel, revealing past stories of Ga'hoole, I was quite excited. However, something in how it is written didn't feel quite right. At times Grack's visions through the fire felt correct, other times it felt like he was seeing and hearing far too much, as if it was simply convenient so he could tell the story. This too happened with the arrival of his apprentice, Theo, who didn't seem to have much back story or purpose, and again with a sudden, abrupt ending that came on unexpectedly. The story simply felt cobbled together, and while it did provide some good lore in parts, failed to fully capture my imagination.

What a complete disappointment this book was. This is a total history dump of a book. Through out the other 8 books we’ve learned basic history stuff as it was important to the present story. But the prologue to this book was literally an owl on his deathbed saying, “you must read the true history. Only I have a copy. It’s hidden away.” And then chapter 1 begins a completely different tale, some unknown time ago.

And to make matters worse, it’s not a chronological history. The narrator jumps from story like to story line with no apparent thought of story flow. Very clearly we jump time lines, focuses and different perspective (but yet still somehow narrated by the same owl) simply for the purpose of leaving some stories unresolved for cliff hangers. It seemed that every third chapter we switched to something else, no matter what was happening.

And to make it even worse, the narrative owl is one of the most ornery and rude owls ever encountered in this entire series. Did I care about anyone? Not really. Was the main owl we were supposed to be focusing on even in this story? No. He was an egg.

If the tenth book continues in this fashion, I will be skipping it.

The writing in this series has been incredibly lacking and cumbersome. But I’ve not focused on it too much since this is a children’s novel series. But this is just ridiculous.

The first of the trio of legend books in the Guardians of Ga'hoole series



meet Grank, Theo, Siv, H'rath, Lord Arrin, and other owls of the past




(setting: N'yrthghar)