The Raven begins by purporting itself as the untold tale of Edgar Allan Poe’s fate. In doing so, it gets everything wrong. Everything. Poe’s death being the subject of American legend, mysterious as anything the man ever wrote, would seem particularly inviting to a bit of speculative fiction, and the theories of people much smarter than those responsible for The Raven range from murder to disease, with all manner of exotic, period-specific possibilities considered. Here, Edgar Allan Poe is the victim of a madman’s obsession, a person whose devious machinations draw Poe into an investigation of a series of grisly murders. If he does not solve the crime, the killer promises, Poe’s beloved will die. (more…)