Crowfall (Raven's Mark) by Ed McDonald
With Crowfall, Raven's Mark series might have just risen up to be one of my all-time favorite grimdark series. Ed McDonald, take a friggin' bow! Crowfall tops off this incredible series, culminating in a delirious high with the last outing into the Misery for Captain Galharrow and his friends.
For people not familiar with the brutally bleak world that Ed has created in the Raven's Mark, I have one advice - go back and pick up the first book, Blackwing. Much of this review is going to focus on events only from the third book and it will be difficult to keep what happened in the first two books out of this narrative, so to build up the right continuity.
Crowfall starts six years after the cataclysmic events of Raven's Cry and we find that the Blackwing Captain Ryhalt Galharrow is a possessed man, given in to a mad dream that only the Misery can help him achieve. He has spent most of this time, wandering the wastelands of the Misery, getting further and further away from the rest of the humanity. An accidental meeting with one of the Nameless, Nall forces his hand to give up on this nomadic existence - to convey back the terrifying message that one of the Deep Kings, Arcadia is planning an all-out siege, having become an emperor now and having acquired the power of a terrifying entity called Sleeper.
Back in the city of Valengrad, Ryhalt - now almost a creature of the Misery with the taint having transformed his appearance as well, is finding it hard to adjust back. His only friend, Tnota - the drunken navigator is trying to settle down with his new found partner. Nenn's dead ghost keeps heckling him. His adopted daughter Amaira, now a full Blackwing Captain, has disappeared on a mission. And Valiya, who had managed his affairs as an efficient administrator and almost become his love, has now fully disappeared. There's a new mysterious sharpshooter in town, baying for his blood. The current Mayor of the city despises him. and to make matters worse, someone's been murdering Crowfoot's captains. And the threat of the attack by the Deep Emperor is getting closer. Life, as usual is a cakewalk for our bitter hero.
Ryhalt has always been a hard-bitten cynic. The series has primarily been about this central character. Raging under an aura of guilt [ for first having lost his wife and children, and then having lost Ezabeth to the "light", then his friends to hopeless causes to defend a city that despises him] Ryhalt's voice has always been the primal force driving the story forwards. Acerbic, unforgiving and sharp so to cut straight down to the bone with his observations on life. While his voice remains the same, there is an even harder edge to the man in this final book. There's a primal madness to his visions, a secret ambition that has been in the works for long. And now he's grown strong with the magic of Misery flowing through him.
He's hard on himself throughout the series and this book is no different. But you get the feeling, that this time, he is going to break. A palpable sense of tension as madness and poison flows through him, that impending sense of doom that he's going to fail again, making him eschew friends and relationships yet again. You really feel for Ryhalt and I think that's what made this book such an emotionally supercharged suckerpunch of a series-ending for me. Despite the brooding sense of grimdark that blotches through the whole narrative, there is also that feeble sense of clinging to the last dregs of hope - buried there in the hard-boiled cynic's mad plans somewhere. That at least this time, he will redeem himself. It's draining, I must tell you. I read this book in just two-three sittings and it's a crackerjack of a novel that will pin you down, force you to forego sleep and food in anticipation of that final showdown.
Throughout the book, this sense of hopeless desperation clings to you as a reader as you ride into the Misery for one last time. Back to where it all started for Ryhalt, as a young captain who was given the impossible task of guarding the town of Adrogosk. Now given the impossible task of defending the crumbling walls of the broken fortress with a meager handful of soldiers, less than a thousand against the incoming massive army of the Drudges led by the Deep Emperor, twenty thousand plus strong. It's absolutely heady stuff. I would have said heroic but nothing about Ryhalt smacks you of heroism. He's brutal, practical and downright demoniacal in his dedication to a cause that he's given his life up for. This is not the dreamy charge of the final light brigade. This one's a bloody carnage, mad magic flaring up from the Misery against the ruthless ambition of corrupted Ancient beings of power that would stop at nothing in their world domination plans.
What makes things even edgier is the fact the very sorcerers pledged to save mankind, cannot be trusted. And this is a message driven time and again as we are taken to various flashbacks involving the Nameless. there's quite the bevy of characters, some new, most old familiar faces back again one final time. I quite enjoyed Maldon's characterization throughout the series. Even here, he's in top form. The bitter hopelessness laid straight on by blazing black humor, the child-like former war hero now cursed with immortality and blindness is an absolute delight. I wished Nenn was back in form but we get glimpses of her insufferable humor in the form of her ghost who still plagues Ryhalt's conscience. Then there is Valiya - the lady whose love, Ryhalt think he's undeserving of, pining as he is, always and forever about Ezabeth, the lady he lost to light. Amaira's as refreshing as she was in the last book, now a grown up woman and still deriding Ryhalt over a lot of things. Their whole friendship is the rockbase on which humanity in this world is anchored on. Because this foolhardy fools are all that stands between total annihilation and survival. It's a shitty hand, this world has been dealt with. Having someone like Ryhalt as their last bet savior. But it's all they have and my word, the last half of the damn book was like a rogue bullet-train assaulting my senses. Ryhalt is magnificent, totally totally loved him.
It's a brilliant ending to this series that will be hailed as a modern classic of grimdark. There are horrors galore in the Misery that will kill you in a hundred horrific ways but ultimately, it is the tension that builds and builds throughout the book that will ultimately gut you. It's a story that ably builds up the foundations set in by the previous books in the series, giving you a lot of refreshing flashbacks that helps seal gaping holes in our understanding of the whole bleak dangerous world this is set in. A border world caught in the middle of a never-ending war between duplicitous sorcerers whom humanity cannot trust but could be their last hope and a horde of God-like beings hell bent on world domination and destruction. Where the rain that falls down is black and can burn through your skin to make you go mad. Where the sky has been torn to fragments and where madness and horrors alike reside in a desert that conspires to kill you and consume you in a thousand unthinkable ways. Where your only hope is a hopelessly cynical, mad guilt-ridden bastard whose personal intentions are more secretive than the untrustworthy sorcerers and whose mind is brittle, eaten away by the taint of this twisted desert-land.
I could go on and on about how utterly devastatingly amazing this series ending is. It ends in a gut-churning heart breaking manner but is ultimately the best way to end things off. My soul was satisfied. with the glut of blood, darkness, horror and gore that blotched up the last quarter of the book. It's a dream culmination for any lover of grimdark and with Crowfall, Ed McDonald I duly declare that I am now, a fan for life. I cannot wait for what is churned out from that devious endlessly imaginative mind of yours. Raven's Mark is a hallmark in the grimdark genre, epic fantasy at it's finest. One of the best books of 2019, period.
For people not familiar with the brutally bleak world that Ed has created in the Raven's Mark, I have one advice - go back and pick up the first book, Blackwing. Much of this review is going to focus on events only from the third book and it will be difficult to keep what happened in the first two books out of this narrative, so to build up the right continuity.
Crowfall starts six years after the cataclysmic events of Raven's Cry and we find that the Blackwing Captain Ryhalt Galharrow is a possessed man, given in to a mad dream that only the Misery can help him achieve. He has spent most of this time, wandering the wastelands of the Misery, getting further and further away from the rest of the humanity. An accidental meeting with one of the Nameless, Nall forces his hand to give up on this nomadic existence - to convey back the terrifying message that one of the Deep Kings, Arcadia is planning an all-out siege, having become an emperor now and having acquired the power of a terrifying entity called Sleeper.
Back in the city of Valengrad, Ryhalt - now almost a creature of the Misery with the taint having transformed his appearance as well, is finding it hard to adjust back. His only friend, Tnota - the drunken navigator is trying to settle down with his new found partner. Nenn's dead ghost keeps heckling him. His adopted daughter Amaira, now a full Blackwing Captain, has disappeared on a mission. And Valiya, who had managed his affairs as an efficient administrator and almost become his love, has now fully disappeared. There's a new mysterious sharpshooter in town, baying for his blood. The current Mayor of the city despises him. and to make matters worse, someone's been murdering Crowfoot's captains. And the threat of the attack by the Deep Emperor is getting closer. Life, as usual is a cakewalk for our bitter hero.
Ryhalt has always been a hard-bitten cynic. The series has primarily been about this central character. Raging under an aura of guilt [ for first having lost his wife and children, and then having lost Ezabeth to the "light", then his friends to hopeless causes to defend a city that despises him] Ryhalt's voice has always been the primal force driving the story forwards. Acerbic, unforgiving and sharp so to cut straight down to the bone with his observations on life. While his voice remains the same, there is an even harder edge to the man in this final book. There's a primal madness to his visions, a secret ambition that has been in the works for long. And now he's grown strong with the magic of Misery flowing through him.
He's hard on himself throughout the series and this book is no different. But you get the feeling, that this time, he is going to break. A palpable sense of tension as madness and poison flows through him, that impending sense of doom that he's going to fail again, making him eschew friends and relationships yet again. You really feel for Ryhalt and I think that's what made this book such an emotionally supercharged suckerpunch of a series-ending for me. Despite the brooding sense of grimdark that blotches through the whole narrative, there is also that feeble sense of clinging to the last dregs of hope - buried there in the hard-boiled cynic's mad plans somewhere. That at least this time, he will redeem himself. It's draining, I must tell you. I read this book in just two-three sittings and it's a crackerjack of a novel that will pin you down, force you to forego sleep and food in anticipation of that final showdown.
Throughout the book, this sense of hopeless desperation clings to you as a reader as you ride into the Misery for one last time. Back to where it all started for Ryhalt, as a young captain who was given the impossible task of guarding the town of Adrogosk. Now given the impossible task of defending the crumbling walls of the broken fortress with a meager handful of soldiers, less than a thousand against the incoming massive army of the Drudges led by the Deep Emperor, twenty thousand plus strong. It's absolutely heady stuff. I would have said heroic but nothing about Ryhalt smacks you of heroism. He's brutal, practical and downright demoniacal in his dedication to a cause that he's given his life up for. This is not the dreamy charge of the final light brigade. This one's a bloody carnage, mad magic flaring up from the Misery against the ruthless ambition of corrupted Ancient beings of power that would stop at nothing in their world domination plans.
What makes things even edgier is the fact the very sorcerers pledged to save mankind, cannot be trusted. And this is a message driven time and again as we are taken to various flashbacks involving the Nameless. there's quite the bevy of characters, some new, most old familiar faces back again one final time. I quite enjoyed Maldon's characterization throughout the series. Even here, he's in top form. The bitter hopelessness laid straight on by blazing black humor, the child-like former war hero now cursed with immortality and blindness is an absolute delight. I wished Nenn was back in form but we get glimpses of her insufferable humor in the form of her ghost who still plagues Ryhalt's conscience. Then there is Valiya - the lady whose love, Ryhalt think he's undeserving of, pining as he is, always and forever about Ezabeth, the lady he lost to light. Amaira's as refreshing as she was in the last book, now a grown up woman and still deriding Ryhalt over a lot of things. Their whole friendship is the rockbase on which humanity in this world is anchored on. Because this foolhardy fools are all that stands between total annihilation and survival. It's a shitty hand, this world has been dealt with. Having someone like Ryhalt as their last bet savior. But it's all they have and my word, the last half of the damn book was like a rogue bullet-train assaulting my senses. Ryhalt is magnificent, totally totally loved him.
It's a brilliant ending to this series that will be hailed as a modern classic of grimdark. There are horrors galore in the Misery that will kill you in a hundred horrific ways but ultimately, it is the tension that builds and builds throughout the book that will ultimately gut you. It's a story that ably builds up the foundations set in by the previous books in the series, giving you a lot of refreshing flashbacks that helps seal gaping holes in our understanding of the whole bleak dangerous world this is set in. A border world caught in the middle of a never-ending war between duplicitous sorcerers whom humanity cannot trust but could be their last hope and a horde of God-like beings hell bent on world domination and destruction. Where the rain that falls down is black and can burn through your skin to make you go mad. Where the sky has been torn to fragments and where madness and horrors alike reside in a desert that conspires to kill you and consume you in a thousand unthinkable ways. Where your only hope is a hopelessly cynical, mad guilt-ridden bastard whose personal intentions are more secretive than the untrustworthy sorcerers and whose mind is brittle, eaten away by the taint of this twisted desert-land.
I could go on and on about how utterly devastatingly amazing this series ending is. It ends in a gut-churning heart breaking manner but is ultimately the best way to end things off. My soul was satisfied. with the glut of blood, darkness, horror and gore that blotched up the last quarter of the book. It's a dream culmination for any lover of grimdark and with Crowfall, Ed McDonald I duly declare that I am now, a fan for life. I cannot wait for what is churned out from that devious endlessly imaginative mind of yours. Raven's Mark is a hallmark in the grimdark genre, epic fantasy at it's finest. One of the best books of 2019, period.
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