Raven's Cry by 
Having loved the author’s previous dark fantasy series, I was more than excited to pick up Raven’s Cry by Christian A Brown – the first book in his new cosmic horror series. While it has a slow start, the second it settles with laying our world foundation down, everything happens. It is definitely a wild rollercoaster ride mixed with enough uncomfortable grittiness to leave you anxiously awaiting the second book in the Orphans series.
This does absolutely start off slow. Yes, we get almost immediate action and a chase away from danger at the beginning. But, it takes time before the pieces begin gaining clarity and we’re able to feel like we’ve gotten firm footing beneath us. This absolutely helps put readers into Malachi’s shoes as he goes from being a normal man with beloved family to a mystical creation involved in a cosmic war, but it was hard for me to really get hooked at first and I found myself really wanting more of the different stories we get referenced instead. I wanted to read about the Aunties and their horrific institutionalized upbringing. I wanted to read more about Mary’s descent after uncovering the journal. I wanted to read about Brock’s upbringing as a feral child and meeting the grizzled criminal who took him in. And it is all of these glimpses we’d get that continually pulled me away from the current day plot. That said, the moment we learn about Malachi’s birth, and Lenny (the love of my life) enters the picture, everything just falls into place and gets wild. We’re treated to ominous settings and glimpses into a disturbing other side in this cosmic war. With so many cosmic players, each with their own agenda, it’s so hard to see which path to take and who to trust.
It’s a lot more difficult than you’d think to decide where to throw your allegiance because we do get a large cast of characters and each of them plays a not insignificant role. Despite this being only book 1 in the series, each character carries with them already such a heavy history. We slowly unravel bits and pieces of their pasts and the influence they’ve had (sometimes unwittingly) over the disaster to come. Brown plays beautifully with this sense of foils and complements throughout the novel. Main leads (for this book at least) Malachi and Brock fill in the other of the parts they are missing. Malachi grew up surrounded by the love his mother and Aunties, allowed to nurture his creative side. Brock grew up alone in continual survival mode. They bond, and it’s interesting to see the turmoil behind that and what that means. Ana enters the picture, following behind them as another cosmic being and picks up Lenny (again, the love of my life who will never have anything bad happen to him in this series.) Where Malachi and Brock seem to complete each other, Ana and Lenny are more akin to two halves of the same coin. Both have had to endure hardships and abuse growing up. They seem to see each other and getting that glimpse into a possible future? Hallucination? I want that so badly for them. Just the comfort, the coziness. We see that mirrored again with Leng (I think I love this weird creepy man?) and Steve. Despite being such complete opposites (a weird spider deity versus local indigenous cop,) both understand the hardships of subjugation. The trauma of being forced into a corner and having to choose between two lesser evils. Brown has this amazing knack for creating complete characters, even if they’re villains, there’s something there about them. The Mothmanns are so interesting and though we don’t get a lot from them in this book, I just want to sit and pick open their brains, find out what makes them the way they are, why they make the choices they make apart from the surface level reasons we get. We also get introduced right at the very end to the fourth cosmic entity and, despite knowing practically nothing about him, I know I love him too and can’t wait to see what his deal is in the next book.
On a bit of an aside, something I found interesting about the plot is how it hinges on HP Lovecraft. While I understand he is viewed as the father of cosmic horror, I think it is unclear how much we can divorce that aspect of him against the outrageous racism. It made me wonder if the inclusion of him as the impetus or plot guide was as a nod for other readers of Lovecraft in the hopes they will get behind this, or if something will happen in the following books where we learn that this guide he’s giving isn’t a benefit or boon to the mostly marginalized cast of characters and instead framed as such to trap them. I am not a Lovecraftian reader or scholar, and I’m unsure how many other readers picking this up are, to be able to make the connections to that mythos (honestly, the connections I picked up would be from the Secret World MMO, DND, or the Call of Cthulhu ttrpg my friend wants to run.) I read this and simply accepted the information presented and it was enough for me to enjoy. All that to say, it is interesting how to find that balance between an inherently and adamantly racist creative mind and marginalized characters that have gone through tremendous trauma as a result of racism and their marginalization.
I think if you’re looking for something different in the modern/urban fantasy genre that is dark with blips of light, I definitely think Raven’s Cry by Christian A Brown would be a great book to pick up. Not only are there great characters, but solid worldbuilding with an intricately detailed plot that leaves you desperate to continue until you can place each puzzle piece together.