On The Nightstand – Ravencry – 9/2/2018

“To Everyone Who Thinks Writing A Sequel Should Be Easy Because You’ve Already Created The Universe:  Bwa Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! Heh. No.”

John Scalzi

This has been a good year for Grimdark.  A fair amount of my reading time has gone into the new entrants in this sub-genre and I’ve honestly only scratched the surface with respect to the 2018 releases.  I’ve read and reviewed R.F. Kuang’s “The Poppy War’ – which most seemed to really enjoy but which I found to be mediocre at best.  I read and reviewed Cameron Johnson’s “The Traitor God” and “The Grey Bastards” by Jonathan French – two really good books that I truly enjoyed but tagged with the “Missed It By That Much” Maxwell Smart quote for a few minor things that I called out in my reviews.  I read and reviewed “The Wolf” by Leo Carew – another book that I truly enjoyed and would have ranked higher than either “The Traitor God” or “The Grey Bastards” if I assigned rankings.  As good as most of those books were, however, my personal favorite – by far – was “Blackwing” by Ed McDonald – reviewed here:

http://booksofbrian.com/on-the-nightstand-blackwing-ravens-mark-6-17-2018/

and here:

http://booksofbrian.com/on-the-nightstand-blackwing-ravenmark-epilogue-6-18-18/

The reviews will give you an feel for how much I enjoyed this book – one of my favorites to date for 2018.  It therefore goes without saying that I was very eager to receive and read “Ravencry” – Book Two in the Series.  I picked this one up as soon as I finished The Wounded Land Trilogy and jumped in hoping for the same magic I’d found in the first book.  It never came.  It wasn’t a bad book – not by any means – I enjoyed it.  I still really love the world that McDonald has created, his protagonist continues to fascinate me and McDonald sets himself up for what looks to be a very interesting third volume.  Unfortunately, this one just didn’t explode in the same beautiful way that “Blackwing” did for me.

What happened?  Too many little things:

• The writing wasn’t nearly as evocative and impactful.  The writing in Blackwing just dragged me along – it created some very visceral images and the protagonist’s observations on the world in which he lived and the people he interacted with were compelling.  The writing here felt a bit flat and I’m very sad to say that I wound up skimming at times.
• The plot and pacing weren’t nearly as crisp and the book started slow.  I wasn’t able to put Blackwing down – reading that book was like rolling down a hill – it grabbed my interest immediately and the story just kept accelerating – never giving me a reason or a chance or any desire to stop or pause.  It was much harder for me to engage here and it took me far longer to finish that it should have.
• There were a few parts of the book that just left me shaking my head – when the protagonist headed into the final battle in a mechanized set of plate armor and a phos-powered gatling gun – I honestly just stopped paying attention.  At that point, all I wanted to do was get to the end.

“Ravencry” was only published 11 months after “Blackwing” and I couldn’t help but think that McDonald didn’t take the time he should have on this one.  With “Blackwing”, it felt like McDonald had put everything he had into that book – obsessed over every single word and sentence.  Reading “Ravencry”, it felt like McDonald was grinding out a necessary but annoying Epilogue in order to deal with the consequences of an ugly but unavoidable decision the protagonist had made in “Blackwing” AND build the bridge to a critical third volume.

Please don’t get me wrong – this wasn’t a bad book – it was actually pretty good.  I enjoyed it every bit as much as “The Traitor God” and “The Grey Bastards”.  I’m still on board and I can’t wait for the third volume in the series.  McDonald creates some truly memorable, often uncomfortable moments during the story and his protagonist is every bit as hard – often unlike-ably so – and fascinating as he was in “Blackwing”.  It’s just that he gave me one of the better books I’ve read in quite a while with “Blackwing”.  I wanted more from “Ravencry” and I didn’t get it.  “Blackwing” was filet mignon while “Ravencry” was flank steak.