The Book Club of the Apocalypse.

by Grahame Evans

When I finally got my hands on this book, I was surprised by how it felt so… small – not what I was initially envisioning. The novella’s length ended up being both a help and hindrance to the story, in my opinion. On the one hand, when one has read, viewed, and created as many fantasy worlds as I have, it’s refreshing to dive right into a story without needing to define the tropes that are present. And on the other hand, I wish that we had spent more time inside the minds of the characters. The choice to use third-person present tense narration did not make this any easier, since it deprived us of the characters’ streams of consciousness and memories. Nonetheless, I was impressed with the amount of character building present in Dymitr, and appreciated the reveal of how Ala tied into his backstory. Niko, however, felt a bit flat to me, almost forced into an otherwise sleek plot. Although they were revealed in the end, without knowledge of his backstory, of his relations with neither Baba Jaga or Ala, I struggled to understand why he was sacrificing so much for Dymitr and Ala, who at best (as far as I knew) were amiable acquaintances. Unfortunately, this lack of motivation also made the romance fall flat in my eyes. It seemed forced, given that it evolved over the course of a day or two, and there was no prior relationship of any kind. 

No creation is perfect though, and despite the areas in which When Among Crows let me down, I still thoroughly enjoyed this excursion into the rich lore of Slavic mythology and the city of Chicago. 

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