Taste the Books: Review Morsels #47 Seanan McGuire: "InCryptid" Series #9-12

Intro

Hello beauties!

Welcome again to my own brand of mini reviews! I never thought I'd do minis, until I recapped a few of my long reviews in some digest post in 2014, and then guest-posted some shorties for a blogging event in 2015. And Karen from For What It's Worth started praising my short recs/recaps 😊. Just to be clear,  I'm NOT taking a break from writing long reviews - no such luck LOL (though for anthologies, shorter books or books that I didn't enjoy/I don't have enough to say about, I decided to stick to minis). But while I'm making up my mind about a new book I've read, I might as well give you the short version 😉. Just be warned - this feature will be VERY random!

Note: all the mini blurbs (in italics) are of my own creation.

Imaginary Numbers by Seanan McGuire

(InCryptid #9)

★★★★★

Telepatic predator and amateur mathematician (a.k.a. Johrlac) Sarah Zellaby is trying to reclaim her life after damaging herself to save her human family - and maybe finally embrace a relationship she thought forbidden. But her fellow cryptids have different plans for her (and, well, the universe) - and despite the best efforts of her adoptive cousins, Sarah might have no other choice but to do the math...

***

McGuire has been playing the long game by introducing Johrlac (or "cuckoo") Sarah Zellaby in the first InCryptid installment and giving her a co-protagonist role in the second. By the time she got her own book (or better, two of them - this one and the following), I was already in love with her and very much looking forward to getting to know her better, so I guess the plan worked 🙂. For those in the back: Sarah is a pseudo-mammalian cryptid, namely a predator/manipulator/telepath by birth who grew a conscience by living with the Prices and became fiercely attached to them, which created an interesting (and heartbreaking) nature-vs.-nurture problem. Five years after breaking herself at the end of Book 2 in order to save her foster family, Sarah is tentatively returning to (her version of) normal...when a new menace rears its head - one that hits a bit too close to home - and tries to deviate the course of her life in an unexpected way, along with the one of the whole planet (a little more literally).
The story in itself is wild, but as it's often the case with McGuire, its strength lies in the characters and in the world-building's complexity. Sarah's unique biology (with regards to humans) and coming-into-her-powers arc, her potential duplicity vs. her conscious efforts to do the right thing, make for a fascinating narrative (though at a certain point the POV splits between her and her adoptive cousin Artie, a cryptid himself if from a different species - mind you, not that the story loses any points because of that). Also, did you know that math can be a superpower? Well, maybe you did, if like me you've read Middlegame before this one. I don't even like math, but I'm in awe of the way McGuire incorporates the subject in her plots, and I love her math girls to bits.

Brief aside: a lot of people seem to be mad because this book ends on a cliffhanger, and they have taken it out on their ratings. I want to respectfully point out that 1) NO OTHER BOOK IN THE SERIES ends on a cliffhanger (now, if the very first one had, that would have been a scam...not nice); 2) on the other hand, ALL THE BOOKS IN THE SERIES leave some loose ends (especially Magic for Nothing - !!! - and Tricks for Free...of course, since they're part of a bigger arc...); 3) Sarah's story was too long for one book; and 4) (but most important), if you're still reading the series and are in for the long haul, why does it matter if the NINTH installment has a cliffhanger? unless you aren't enjoying it anymore, and in that case, there's no lack of cliffhangers that can fix it...🤷‍♀️

Note: as a rule, I review every book that I rate 3.5 stars and above in full, unless it's a novella or an anthology. But this series has been around for years now, and it doesn't sound like McGuire's going to stop writing it anytime soon, so I decided to only write mini reviews for its installments, or it would be too hard for me to catch up. I'll write mini reviews for the new ones as well, out of consistency.

Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire

(InCryptid #10)

★★★★

Telepatic predator and amateur mathematician (a.k.a. Johrlac) Sarah Zellaby saved the planet from her own kind...only to find herself stranded in another dimension with some family members and a recent ally, none of which remembers her anymore. Which poses a problem, since they're inclined to regard her as their natural enemy. Now Sarah has to rebuild a series of relationships that took her the better part of her life to develop in the first place - not to mention, work with her mistrusting companions to dodge this dimensions' threats long enough to make it home...assuming they can find a way back and avoid dying in the process.

***

Rated 4.5 really.

Who doesn't love a stranded-in-another-dimension plot where everyone except the protagonist has amnesia? (Well, selective amnesia, but still). And that's just the icing on the cake. Calculated Risks is larger than life the way a horror B movie is, and yet another evidence of McGuire's flair for taking a bunch of tropes and giving them crazy, entertaining twists without losing sight of the human factor (which more often than not translates into "the characters' pain"...but I digress 😂).
Sarah's moral dilemmas are even more poignant and heartbreaking this time, and bringing everybody home could be the last thing she'll be able to do, so basically, Calculated Risks is a high-octane Imaginary Numbers, only with reluctant/suspicious/hostile allies who used to be her family and (recent) friends - oh, and a dimension of giant bugs with a few other surprises to boot. It's a rich story, and an absurd one too but in the best way, and Sarah does get to shine, but there's also a bunch of over-the-top drama with a certain character that doesn't even make complete sense (especially in light of a glaring inconsistency), and a number of, well, not exactly plot holes...more like, abandoned/ultimately overlooked characters (even the MICE!!!). Also, I'm suspending judgement about the ending for now...I'm not sure if it's a deus-ex-machina, and it does partly negate Sarah's moral journey (though out of necessity), but I think I like it? A lot hinges on how McGuire intends to proceed from here, and in order to know that, I'm afraid I'll have to wait (the next two books are about Alice and her quest to find Thomas, so I don't think this particular problem will be properly addressed).
As usual with the latest books in the series, there's an attached novella, in this case one taking place during Antimony's first solo mission (ha! she wished) with Sarah and Artie in tow. Nerdy and cute. The series' chronology is a mess, but the actual year here should be 2011...

Note: as a rule, I review every book that I rate 3.5 stars and above in full, unless it's a novella or an anthology. But this series has been around for years now, and it doesn't sound like McGuire's going to stop writing it anytime soon, so I decided to only write mini reviews for its installments, or it would be too hard for me to catch up. I'll write mini reviews for the new ones as well, out of consistency.

 Spelunking Through Hell by Seanan McGuire

(InCryptid #11)

★★★

Matriarch cryptozoologist Alice Price-Healy finally has a shot at finding her husband Thomas, who's been missing for fifty years* after making a deal with the crossroads to save her life. It sounds like taking extreme measures to stay young and leaving her children in the care of friends while she was searching dimension after dimension finally paid off. But there's no being sure Thomas will be the same man Alice used to know - or even alive - if she finally locates the universe he's stranded in, and she may have paid a price too high to come this far...

*There's a bit of confusion in the timeline...the prologue states that Thomas was taken fifty-six years earlier (which fits this installment's publication year), but it's been fifty years in the story. Anyhow, this isn't the only glaring chronological contradiction in the series...

***

Rated 3.5 really.

I have mixed feeling about this installment. I mean, I do like Alice, though (or because?) she's deranged, and she makes for a sassy, yet somehow candid narrator; I do like what we see of Thomas (I'm not going to be more specific...is he alive? a ghost? or are those flashbacks? and what fun would it be if I told you? 😉) and his devotion to Alice; and as usual, I love McGuire's wild imagination and the multifaceted lore she spins. On the other hand, I was expecting actual spelunking through actual Hell ("A Visitor's Guide to the Underworld", my ass), not a bunch of dimension-hopping whose last stop sounds like something out of those straight-up fantasy books I'm not a fan of. The story alternatively kept me entertained (or better, its main characters and the magic system did) and gave me a mild case of boredom (or more like impatience - can we leave this fantasy stuff behind already?), but I guess readers who love the genre won't have a problem with that...though they might with certain long (if needed) conversations/explanations. Also, I've developed a high tolerance for blood and gore, but people getting skinned alive is pushing it a bit too far (and don't let me start on the bug/body horror in the companion novella, set in Alice and Thomas' past). Speaking of which, there's the not-so-small mystery of HOW Alice manages to stay young, since the method employed doesn't account for her internal organs, bones and stuff - it only explains her exterior...(I assume more/different magic is involved, but the book doesn't say). Then again, as usual, even with all the above issues - plus an unusually obvious villain and a slightly annoying sidekick - this is a creative, harsh but funny story with a lot of heart, which is typical McGuire and which I'll take any day.

(Apropos of nothing: at least two verbs are missing in this novel. Where were the proof editors?).

Note: as a rule, I review every book that I rate 3.5 stars and above in full, unless it's a novella or an anthology. But this series has been around for years now, and it doesn't sound like McGuire's going to stop writing it anytime soon, so I decided to only write mini reviews for its installments, or it would be too hard for me to catch up. I'll write mini reviews for the new ones as well, out of consistency.

Backpacking Through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire

(InCryptid #12)

★★★★

Matriarch cryptozoologist Alice Price-Healy finally reunited with her husband Thomas after fifty years (and thanks to magic and tricks, they've both barely aged), gaining an adopted daughter in the process. But they don't even have time to recover and reconnect before they're recruited to defend the New York cryptid population from their old nemesis - the Covenant of St. George - along with family and friends...and no one ever said they were easier than enemies to deal with.

***

This is an odd one structurally, and sort of circles back to the first two books in the series, but I found it far more entertaining than Spelunking Through Hell. The first 70+ pages would definitely have integrated better at the end of the previous installment (or they could have been a novella), so I'm not sure if they were used as an opener here instead in order to balance the two books' length. The real action is relegated in the last 70 pages or so. Content-wise, the middle has a lot in common with Book 1 and 2, except with a different protagonist, and there's a lot of infodumping/rehashing things we already know, though for legitimate reasons (the new girl Sally needs to be schooled about cryptids and the family who, for all purposes, adopted her. Oh, by the way, Sally is a lot more endearing than in Book 11...). And yet the story never gets boring, probably because Alice brings a different perspective than Verity did in the first two installments - not to mention we get to touch base with a number of characters from the previous books, and see how they're dealing with the fallout of some of the events that occurred since the series started. Also...you didn't really want a book about Alice and Thomas bickering and making up (or out?😂) with each other and hanging new curtains, did you? 😉
As usual with the series, at the end of the book there's a bridge novella that loosely ties in the previous installment with this one, from the POVs of adopted Price James and an Aeslin mouse from his clergy...probably the best and most original of the bridge novella bunch so far (also, we finally get to see how the other half - meaning the mice - live...).

(Small quibble: I spotted a typo in this novel as well - "A" for "I". Again, where were the proof editors?).

(Not-so-small quibble: the timeline in this series is all over the place. Like, the previous installment says it's been 56 years since Thomas was taken...then 50....this one says 55, then 50 again...and it's only the tip of the iceberg).

Note: as a rule, I review every book that I rate 3.5 stars and above in full, unless it's a novella or an anthology. But this series has been around for years now, and it doesn't sound like McGuire's going to stop writing it anytime soon, so I decided to only write mini reviews for its installments, or it would be too hard for me to catch up. I'll write mini reviews for the new ones as well, out of consistency.

So, have you read/are you planning to read any of the above? And if you have, what do you think of them? Do you post mini reviews? Do you like to read them?