Last year, when I finished reading Blackwing, by Ed McDonald, I was unsure if I would be back for more. My review of the McDonald’s debut can be found here, but the short version is: good writing and interesting world, but a super boring protagonist. However, after sitting on the book for a few months I found myself still invested in the plot and curious to see what would happen next. So, I decided to pick up the second book in the Raven’s Mark series, Ravencry, and see if it stepped it up or dropped the ball.
The plot of this series is hilariously complicated, and you can find a much more in-depth run down in my review of book one (which is linked in the first paragraph). However, the short version is McDonald’s books take place in a post apocalyptic wasteland where two sets of gods wage war. Our protagonist, Ryhalt Galharrow, is a captain in the special forces (the Blackwings) of one of the supposedly less garbage gods (Crowfoot), and works as a combination detective/warden/bounty hunter. His general job is to investigate and track down anomalies that his patron is worried about. The plot of Ravencry is essentially that the events of book one have shaken the populace’s faith in the ruling class, and the common people have started to form cults and riot. While this is happening, a powerful artifact is stolen from Crowfoot’s personal vault. Ryhalt needs to find this artifact before it starts causing trouble, while dealing with the fact that the city he inhabits is in upheaval.
As I have said both in my previous review and the first paragraph, McDonald’s world is pretty fantastic to explore. A large part of the world revolves around a slice of land that separates the two warring gods: a horrific wasteland called the Misery. There is a dualism to the Misery; it is filled with untold horrors, but it is also constantly explored and mapped in order to maintain the boundary against the rival deities. This forced exploration provides a powerful natural narrative vehicle by which to show the reader all sorts of cool and terrifying things. You also find yourself buying in to the idea that the Misery is this awful place due to reactions of all the trackers who have gone in to map it. In Ravencry, the world continues its patterns of excellence. McDonald expands the scope of his world building. The first books primarily focuses on a single city and the Misery, while the second does a better job of selling these two massive countries at war.
However, while Ravencry still has the strengths of its predecessor, my real question was did it shore up my big issue with book one – the characters, specifically Ryhart. The answer to this is …somewhat. The support cast in Blackwing was decent, but I would argue that Ravencry‘s is slightly better. The supporting characters are a mix of new and old, and McDonald feels like he takes a lot more time to introduce, and flesh out, all the people you meet. I definitely felt like I understood the identities and motivations of characters in Ravencry, whereas many of the cast felt like one dimensional beings provided to enable Ryhart in the first book. Ryhart himself is definitely better, but I still think he has a little ways to go. I previously had two issues with Ryhart; he didn’t seem “special” enough to be the protagonist of book one, and I just didn’t like his personality. Ravencry does a great job fixing the first issue, but doesn’t fully fix the second. In the first book, Ryhart just seemed weirdly untalented for how much faith people placed into him. His principle skill just seemed to be that he happened to be standing in the right place at the right time, which didn’t really give him a lot of agency. In the second book, he feels much more like a knowledgeable detective who is deadly in a fight. I had a much stronger understanding why other cast members might look to him for leadership and why he felt important to the story. As to the second issue, I had a hard time explaining my problem with Ryhart’s personality in my review of book one, but I think I finally understand how to state it better with the second installment. As I mentioned before, one of the huge strengths of this series is the world building, and how the character’s reactions and identities really sell this post apocalyptic wasteland. This is almost universally true except for Ryhart himself, who feels like he doesn’t react to his surroundings as he should. Most of the character’s live life knowing that the Misery could murder them in a blink, and this is reflected in their bleak nature and lack of long term planning. On the other hand, Ryhalt feels like he has plot armor, and knows it, as choices and feelings he has don’t mess with what I would expect. This creates cognitive dissonance for me and makes it occasionally hard to believe him as a character. However, Ryhart is definitely better overall in almost every respect in Ravencry.
At the end of the day, I think Ravencry is an improvement on almost every metric compared its excellent predecessor. I harped on Ryhart a lot, but it really is a small blemish in an otherwise great read. While I was on the fence about the series after book one, Ravencry has cemented my loyalty to the Raven’s Mark series, and I eagerly await the next installment. It you are looking for a dystopian/horror fantasy that has an impressive ambiance, complicated but engrossing plot, and relatable cast – check out Blackwing and Ravencry.
Rating: Ravencry – 9.0/10
-Andrew
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