Aftermarket Afterlife by Seanan McGuire

Well this was fun. I somehow skipped Aftermarket Afterlife and didn't realize until after I'd written my review of Installment Immortality... which means I had some of the bones of Aftermarket Afterlife already in my head as I was reading. I knew about Jane and the Covenant plan and essentially how things worked out, I just didn't have the details. Getting those details was, as usual with McGuire's writing, quite the ride.

Aftermarket Afterlife captures the chaos around reunions, death, and danger among a family that's part biological and part found and very much spread out. Mary's the perfect vehicle for that. I cannot imagine how she managed to do some of that stuff and serve the Crossroads at the same time before Annie put the anima mundi back in charge. Just the insanity of bouncing between family members... whew. I could never.

I definitely cried during part of this book, though it wasn't exactly a part that should probably have had tears involved... I dunno. I'm a sucker for community coming together and honestly, the big family Zoom-call did it. Just at the beginning of the main plot, go figure. Aftermarket Afterlife is truly an ensemble piece that kind of felt like a finale (though obviously I knew it wasn't). I loved getting to see the disparate groups of Price family members just doing their thing, for the most part.

I only have a couple more notes. Leonard Cunningham was giving me big Gaston (Disney's Beauty and the Beast ) vibes. I could definitely hear Annie rolling her eyes at him. The further world-building of the Twilight and ghost-y stuff was kind of fun. Love me some world-building. But yeah. Aftermarket Afterlife was definitely solid and a good read.

Favorite Lines

"Torturing racists is a moral obligation," - Sally Price

 

"Yeah, no. Forgiveness isn't an obligation. It doesn't get to be. You forgive someone when you want to, or when the anger gets too heavy yo carry around anymore. No one gets to tell you it's time. Time may never come." - Rose Marshall

 

"Saying 'sorry' isn't like casting a magic spell. Even if you do it with all the sincerity in the world, it doesn't fix the things you broke. It doesn't undo what you did." - Jane Harrington-Price

 

"No one chooses who their parents are going to be, or what species they're going to be born as. People are just people. It's what they do that matters, not how they're born." - Mary Dunlavy

 

    "What have I told you about throwing knives at everything that startles you?" I asked.

     "That it's antisocial and doesn't make me a very good neighbor," she replied.

     "And what did you just do?"

     "Threw a knife at my babysitter." - Mary Dunlavy & Antimony "Annie" Price

"Dreaming of You in Freefall"

Honestly a very fun novella, despite Verity's grieving. Well... also because of it. The image of a dragon offering a hug and getting covered in snot is funny. Lots of dragon stuff plus Verity being a badass, definitely worth the read.

Installment Immortality by Seanan McGuire

Well... I'm shook. I apparently missed an InCryptid book. It doesn't quite matter, I don't think. I read Installment Immortality thinking it was #13 and there's enough retreading of backstory that it felt like I'd read it... aaaaahhhhhhhhhh. I'm facepalming so hard right now. Just ordered Aftermarket Afterlife. Anyway... here's my review of Installment Immortality. Enjoy.

 

So, although I am definitely more into the Cryptid side of the Incryptid series, I do enjoy the occasional dip into the ghostly side. Mary’s been an interesting character, even moreso now, I think, that the Crossroads are gone. I really like that there are so many different kinds of ghosts, which I’m sure we knew, but I honestly kind of forgot. It’s been a while since the last Incryptid book, so my memory’s a bit… holy. Lol.

I like that we got more of the Harrington-Price branch of the family. Elsie’s quite fun and I liked getting a peek at how Arthur’s doing… not well, apparently, but I feel like that’s more a function of him being stuck around people who knew him as Artie than anything else. Arthur needs to figure out how to get out more and figure out who he is despite his inserted Artie memories, in my opinion. It was also interesting to see how they’re handing the Aeslin mice situation. I’m not sure we’d have gotten much of the mice this book anyway, but I did sort of miss them.

Installment Immortality was fun. I like Mary. I like seeing her interact with different members of the family and the ghost community as well as other Cryptids who have heard of her.

Last thing: The Covenant really just needs to give up the ghost, so to speak. If what Heitor told Mary was true, they shouldn’t be a problem for the Price’s much longer… and good riddance, honestly.

Favorite Lines 

"Sexism can help you narrow the field, when you know how to apply it." - Mary Dunlavy

"She'll figure out where she wants to point it sooner or later, and then a lot of shit is going to be on fire. Metaphorically. Actual fir is Antimony's job." - Aeslin Mouse

"Annie's more than moderately terrifying," I said. "She's probably the culmination of all the traits the Covenant was breeding for when they introduced your grandmother's grandparents." - Mary Dunlavy 

"Hatred of bedbugs is the unifying factor of all sapient life," - Phee

"Original sin isn't real. There's only so much time you have to spend apologizing for the crimes of people you never knew. At the end of the day, you're only really responsible for yourself." - Enid Healy

“Mourner’s Waltz”

This was really cute. I’m glad Verity has friends to help care for her and her children. Malena was a nice surprise. She’s a fun character.

Favorite Lines

"Always take care of the living before you take care of the dead, and if you aren't sure which category someone falls into, always take care of the most people you possibly can." - Verity Price

"We've allowed you to wallow in grieving for this long because you're a gestating mammal, and gestating mammals are irrational. William said so." - Candice

Backpacking Through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire

This review is gonna be a little different than my usual. Basically random notes I made while reading, following this paragraph. Backpacking Through Bedlam is basically Alice’s homecoming book. She and Thomas and Sally get home and immediately have to go help Verity is New York. It was a lot of fun, but I don’t really have much to say other than my notes so… on to those.

I really do love the Aeslin mice. Probably because all the Prices love them, but still. I think they’re a weird critter — with the religion thing — but also very cute. They’re often the ones moving me to tears, all truth be told.

Aaand of course we’ve landed in that universe Sarah and Annie ended up in in Calculated Risks. Should be fun. And amusing that Alice thinks it’s super improbable before finding out that, yes, it was Sarah and Annie who landed the “masonry” there.

Don’t know if it’s my mood lately or just that I’m ridiculously attached tho these characters, but I’ve been tearing up every time something happily touching happens. Something as simple as Sally introducing herself as a Price, for example. Tears. Blegh. Love it and hate it. Sally has grown on me a lot like she’s grown on Alice. I was genuinely almost crying at the end of the book… which I will not spoil.

I’m so happy to have Istas back. I love her so, so much. Having her interact with Alice and Sally is just… chef’s kiss. Love it.

I am very pleased with how the Covenant stuff worked out, at least for now. I'm definitely anticipating blow-back, as this is, in fact, a war. But yeah... hope Sarah's not too messed up about what she had to do. Lord knows she didn't share all her thoughts on the matter with Alice.

The Mysteries of the Stolen God and Where His Waffles Went

I was not expecting a deeper look at the Aeslin, but I liked it, I think. Also, James is growing on me, given he’s not background here. I feel like Jane needs to get over herself and realize that her feelings are just hers, valid as those feelings are. I feel like she hasn’t really tried to understand Alice and probably never will. Aaand I love the Price family. They’re so accepting of the members they’ve adopted to the point it just brings me to happy tears… again. I'm also happy for a look, albeit a tiny one, of what Artie's like now he's been rebuilt by Sarah. Kind of hoping we get more on that and that it's not, like, super debilitating.

Favorite Lines

"Nothing gets better if you don't open your damn mouth. Okay?" - Mary Dunlavy

"We make monsters whenever we disagree about how a limited resource should be spent. It's so much easier to kill a person whose personhood you've stolen away." - Thomas Price

"People who have sense to recognize me for what I am aren't scared of me," she said. "They're terrified, as well they should be. I am nature's perfect killing machine."

     "Here I thought that was cats," said Ryan, in a tone that indicated a frequest joke, something with the edges of it worn smooth between them.

     Istas looked at him with polite blankness. "It is also cats. More than one thing can be perfect, it's not a competition."

In Other News

 

I have decided, given the length of the InCryptid series, I will not be doing a Series Overview... unless I change my mind sometime between now and... if I ever Do The Thing. Anyway, I'll be moving on to rereading/finishing the Mercy Thompson series by Particia Briggs.

Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire

Calculated Risks is basically one big bottle-episode character study. Definitely not a book to put down and pick up and put down and pick up — which I did for the most part. It is definitely a book and a story that works better in much larger chunks than I was reading it in. I recommend reading it when you have time to actually sit down and read it. All of that said, Calculated Risks was very good.

Poor, poor Sarah having to deal with the closest members of her family without them remembering her. I don’t know if I could have coped, but she manages arguably better than anyone could be asked to. Especially given that they all have to deal with the stress of an alternate universe and basically zombies at the same time. I also believe I said in my Imaginary Numbers review that I wasn’t really affected by the Sarah/Artie romance… Calculated Risks made me feel it in-absentia. Sarah’s heartbreak during the 24-hours or so during which Artie does not remember her is palpable.

Artie during this whole thing is a giant jerk and is called out several times for it. Given how much time he and Sarah apparently spent together throughout their lives, I do not blame him one bit. I’m sure having such patchwork memories to deal with was awful. I do like that he eventually came around and it is very helpful to remember that Calculated Risks takes place over 48-hours so it’s not like there was a lot of time to process.

I like James a bit more now. Getting the little bits of time with him near the end reminded me that he’s a research nerd and maybe doesn’t have much of an outward personality, which isn’t a bad thing. I also think his rapport with Annie is pretty awesome. They really do feel very much like James took to being a Price quite quickly. I’m sure being stuck in a camper with Annie and the gang helped with that, but I really felt his whole thing here… if that makes any sense to anyone but me.

Annie was her loveable self throughout. I am glad we basically got to see how well-rounded she is as a person from both inside and outside perspectives. Sarah was definitely right when she called Annie “the flexible one.” Annie will always be my fave of the Price “kids.”

Finally, Mark. Hmm, he’s alright for a fully adult cuckoo. I quite like somewhat acerbic heart-of-gold type characters. Like, we know he’s inherently selfish, but not entirely so that works. I also definitely think he did a bit of a whammy on Annie, James, and Artie to make them more comfy around him, even if it was unintentional and not really addressed. I feel like Mark would be a good ancillary character to have around after this.

The story itself was mostly a bottle-episode focused on Sarah. I didn’t really feel much dread until the giant spiders started appearing, which was over halfway through the book. Aaand I don’t like giant spiders, not even Greg. I tried very hard not to think about Greg or the mantids and focus myself on Sarah and the other humanoids. Speaking of, we finally learn why the Prices are luckier than normal humans! That was fun, even if I can’t remember the name of the species their luck comes from. We do learn a but more about cuckoo brain-ology though. Seeing them pretty much from tiny to fully instar-ed out helped with that.

I’m glad Sarah basically found a way to de-cuckoo the cuckoos… or at least the kiddos who “made it” to the Iowa thingy. Hopefully they make a point of going about de-cuckoo-ing any others they can. I’m interested to see how the species is going forward.

So yeah, Calculated Risks is very emotionally heavy and should be read (in my opinion) in as few sittings as possible for full enjoyment. Really let those emotions sink in a burrow, man.

Favorite Lines

"And then it was said and Stated, as it always shall be, Never Split the Party!" - Aeslin Mouse

"Dumbledore was a dick," - Sarah Zellaby

"Sarah is my cousin, because  say so, and I'm the terrifying one." - Antimony Price

"Is that the correct plural?" I asked. "I thought it was 'mantids.'"

     "I don't think the correct plural is appropriate for me to use around children" - Sarah Zellaby and James Smith

 

Singing the Comic-Con Blues by Seanan McGuire 

Novella Included in Calculated Risks

I’m not overly fond of nine-years-ago Annie. She might be a quippy smart-alec but she’s also just straight-up mean. Seriously, the amount of Verity hate in the entire thing is egregious. Needs character development.

This novella was kinda cute, but not really satisfying. I mean, I would have liked to get an actual resolution to the siren, rather than just the “let’s talk in a few hours.” Sarah was adorable. Artie was there, being nervous, but largely just there. Much shrugging. 

Favorite Lines

"I am what happens when nerds are allowed to marry and thus produce even more nerds, like nerdiness squared, like what happens when Seymour from Little Shop is allowed to hook up with Jordan from Real Genius. And if you got both those references, odds are good that you're a nerd, too, which would explain why you're following this road trip of the damned." - Antimony Price

"Why? Are we expecting a visit from the normal people for some reason? I thought I was done with them when Artie graduated and they stopped trying to strong-arm me onto the PTA." - Jane Harrington

Imaginary Numbers by Seanan McGuire

I don’t know if this is just my mood right now, but I’m really not sure how to feel about Imaginary Numbers. Like, I appreciate the cuckoo/Johrlac lore dumps we got because, ya know, world-building is fun. I liked most of the Price family being around, even if they were “off screen” for most of the book. And I still really like Sarah and I’m glad she’s more-or-less back to herself. However, I was actually really surprised when I opened my book and saw “Epilogue” at the top of the page. That might partially be because of the novella that’s tacked onto the end, but the end also didn’t really feel like an end. It felt like Sarah was continuing to ramp up to get to her end goal. Much shrugging.

The Aeslin Mice are forever bringing tears to my eyes. Sarah’s getting her own branch of faith! It’s so sweet.

I would cheer for Sarah and Artie finally getting together, but I also don’t really care enough. Probably because it feels very Fitz-Simmons. The pair of nerds are getting together. Joy and happiness for everyone. Except I’m also not as into Sarah/Artie as I was into Fitz-Simmons so… much shrugging.

I loved getting more Annie and Sam. I love Annie so much. James is still mostly a non-entity, though I did like how he was used by Heloise, like tactically. Artie was, I dunno, pretty much how I pictured him being. Non-combatant but a smart non-combatant.

But yeah… still not sure exactly how I feel about this one. On to the novella, I guess.

Follow the Lady

I guess it was a nice little update on what happened between where That Ain’t Witchcraft left off and Annie back in roller derby in this one. Glad Alice got her info about Thomas and the Crossroads. And it would have been nice to get a Huldra entry in the field-guide because boy am I confused and intrigued. A good chunk of this novella was recapping Annie's adventures and Alice's history, all stuff I would hope we'd know by this point in the series.

Favorite Lines

"There's no such thing as doing absolutely no harm. Human, cuckoo, it doesn't matter. Everybody hurts and is hurt, in a grand cycle of being alive. But minimizing the damage... that matters." - Sarah Zellaby

"People in airports are allowed to be weird. They're liminal spaces. They don't count the way the real world does." - Sarah Zellaby

"Most of them are telekinetic and have gravity-defying boobs," said Antimony as she rattled around behind me. "My boobs aren't gravity-defying. My boobs are very, very aware of gravity, and they don't like it. They want to be protected from it whenever possible, especially if I'm about to go up against a cuckoo. Why was the door unlocked?" - Antimony Price

"We've never been chill," she continued, still filing. "Chill doesn't save anybody. We like saving people. The ones who can be saved, anyway. Some of them were always beyond salvation." She blew on her nails. "Those ones, we bury in the woods." - Elsinore Harrington

Tricks for Free by Seanan McGuire

Tricks for Free was pretty fun. Antimony was less annoying as she wasn't constantly referring to Verity and how much she hates Verity and actually settled into being her own person, even if that person was Melody West. I feel like Melody definitely has more Antimony inherent in her than Antimony really wants to think. That sounds a little confusing, but the differences in her aliases is something Antimony thinks about at some point so... yeah. Antimony also manages to gather her own little found family while facing down a villainous cabal of magic users. It was a lot of fun.

I pretty much pegged the cabal as bad from the beginning. Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series had several sorcerer run Cabals so this group of magic users pinged my "bad guy" radar pretty hard. That said, it was nice to learn all about the different types of magic users. Routewitches were mentioned and encountered in previous books, but I didn't really get a good grasp on what they could do until Tricks for Free. I liked the addition of ambulomancers and trainspotters as well as the more traditional sorcerers and witches. I do feel like having such specific forms of magic is limiting to the users, but since I guess they can't really help what they get, so much shrugging.

I also enjoyed hurting my brain trying to parse all the stuff about luck we got from Cylia the jink. Pretty cool, if sometimes brain-breaking. I was relatively happy with the implicit "read the terms and conditions" thing. It's a semi-fun conceit that I hope doesn't get overused. I was also intrigued by the crossroads stuff we got. Couldn't help but imagine the crossroads creature as having Mark Shepherd's voice, because, ya know, Supernatural and Crossroads Demons. Not quite the same thing here, but it's kind of fun to imagine some kind of crossover where Sam and Dean had Mary hanging off their shoulders brokering deals with Crowley. Antimony's magic issues were less interesting to me, really. I still have very little clue as to what a sorcerer can actually do, aside from deal in pyromancy and power-theft, so... yeah. Much blah.

I mentioned Antimony's found family in my opening paragraph and they were honestly the highlight of the book. I clocked Fern showing up at Lowryland as hinky to begin with. That was just too convenient to be random coincidence... and proved not to be. Thanks Cylia, who I love, but not as much as I love Fern. Fern had me tearing up in places just because she's so sincere about how much she loves Antimony as a friend. Also, Fern and Sam's rapport was hilarious. Megan was a nice addition to the crew and I'm a little sad she's not going on the epic road trip they're going to have, but we can't keep everyone around all the time. Besides, Antimony has enough snark to make up for the loss of Megan's particular brand. Sam has grown on me, though he still seems mostly flat as a character. There to fill Antimony's need for a partner.

Overall, I was very pleased with Tricks for Free. Despite Antimony needing to be undercover, she felt a lot more herself than in Magic for Nothing. I've definitely grown to like her more as a character.

THE RECITATION OF THE MOST HOLY AND HARROWING PILGRIMAGE OF MINDY AND ALSO MORK was included in my copy of Tricks for Free, so this'll be a short review of that as well. The Mindy and Mork parts were pretty cute. I'm glad we got something from an Aeslin POV. The Sam bits... well, they were alright. I didn't really have any questions about what he was doing or how he dealt with his grandmother while waiting for news from Mary about Antimony so Sam's bits just kinda felt tacked on, to be honest. It does vaguely figure that Emery would have at least attempted a crossroads deal at some point, but it also has no real bearing on the overall plot that I can tell so... yep. That was a thing. It was overall a pretty cute novella.

Favorite Lines

"There are people who say you never really escape from high school, you just keep finding it in different forms, over and over again, until it finally kills you. Those people are assholes, and should not be allowed in polite company." - Antimony Price

"There are days when I want to punch absolutely everyone around me, and keep punching until they're no longer capable of fighting back. I'm told those desires are antisocial. Sometimes, I really don't care." - Antimony Price

"Megan made a clucking noise with her tongue. 'Whoever he is, marry him and keep us in the style to which we'd like to become accustomed.'

     'He works in Public Relations.'

     'Whoever he is, murder him and make it look like an accident, but make sure you get away with his wallet.' Megan ammended.

     'Thanks for the vote of murder-confidence,' I said.

     She flashed me a bright, toothy smile. 'I always have faith in you when it comes to murder.'" - Antimony and Megan

"Your family, your real family, will always welcome you home with open arms. Anyone who says you can lose their love isn't really family, no matter what blood says." - Evelyn Baker.

"All the safeguards in the world won't stop something that really wants to break." - Antimony Price

"It's easier to fight a person than an accident." - Antimony Price

"Murder is always on the table for later." - Antimony Price

"Love is love. If anybody tries to tell you your love's not worth having, shoot them in the kneecaps a couple of times. It won't change their minds, but it'll make you feel better." - Frances Brown

"People are why we can't have nice things." - Sam Taylor

Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire

A Spoiler Free Review

Magic For Nothing was pretty good. Definitely not perfect, but I guess as close to perfect as you can get with the kind of double undercover storyline it’s got going on. I largely like Antimony, though certain personality quirks can get annoying at times. Overall, she’s pretty chill for what we’d been led to believe coming off Verity and Alex’s POVs.

I do find Antimony’s view of Verity very grating. Antimony was lucky to fall into a sport that doesn’t get a lot of press and I would very much like to see what she would have done if it did or goes more mainstream. Calling Verity selfish all the time specifically because of the dancing is annoying. I very much get that Antimony is very family-centric more-so than either of her siblings, but this kind of thing is still annoying.

I do appreciate the X-Men references that are slightly more obscure than your average person would get. The other random bits and bobs of comic and pop culture references serve the story well, placing it firmly in a world close to ours, at least.

The Covenant isn’t just a secret society, they’re definitely a cult. Fuuuuck arranged marriages and the rationalization behind them. And pretty much fuck all the Covenant nonsense. Wanting to kill and entire community of people just because a) some of them aren’t human and b) the humans “harbored” the non-humans is just… nope. Nope. Nope. The Covenant needs to go down and the sooner the better. I do like that we got to humanize them a little bit, but humans can be trash so… yeah.

Leo somehow reminds me of Hec from Imagine Me and You until that hella creepy shit at the end there. Gross. I dislike Chloe a lot, typical mean girl energy coming off her. I really like Emery. Sam… jury’s still out. He’s young and hot-headed in addition to the protective streak he has. He and Antimony were cute while it lasted. And of course Covenant flunkies Robert and Margaret I hate with a passion. Their history precedes them. It was semi-interesting that Margaret views the Price family as still very Covenant-like, wanting to test her or something. Real weird.

I liked learning about this universes’ version of yokai. Makes some sense as a catch-all term for cryptids. It’s always struck me as a catch-all term for Japanese demons, after all.

But yeah, overall, I enjoyed Magic for Nothing. It’s always fun getting to know more characters and more of the universe.

Favorite Lines

"Every time I think my family has plumbed the depths of stupidity, somebody goes and finds a goddamn shovel." - Jane Harrington-Price

"I am a soft, squishy creature, with lots of moving pieces, and I want to keep all those moving pieces safely contained inside my skin." - Antimony Price

Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire

Slightly Spoilery Review

Like, the second to last paragraph and there's a warning.

Another cracking InCryptid adventure. We’re back with Verity and Dominic this time and Verity’s back to dancing. Quite a fun ride with a couple new Cryptid friends in the mix.

I was honestly unprepared for Alice Healy-Price. I figured she’d keep popping up in the series as a long-running family legend/inside joke kind of a deal, but I was unprepared for her to actually show up. I thought the second woman on the cover was Antimony, not Alice. I did really enjoy her, though. Learning the little bits and pieces about her life just adds more to McGuire’s skillful world-building.

Speaking of world-building, we got a bit more about routewitches and other cryptids. I’m still not totally clear on what exactly routewitches deal with, but it’s interesting enough that I want to know more. I also enjoyed the bits about what cryptids were doing in LA before the humans got there. Finding out about the bogeymen, hidebehind, and ghoul city under the city was a shock when revealed but pretty cool upon later reflection. That sounded pretentious, but I’m mot sure how else to put it. Anyway, the world-building was great.

I was glad Dominic had more to this time around. He got to show off his Covenent skills as well as how he’s loosening up now that he’s out.

I’m pretty sure Malena is up for my favorite new character. I like her personality and her Chupacabra-ness is pretty cool. I felt like Pax was just kinda there as a blood-detector. Lyra… she was alright, but really faded into the background for most of the book. Anders had a really abrupt about-face there at the end that was surprising for both Verity and the reader.

The following paragraph contains spoilers.

And this brings me to an element of Chaos Choreography and actually InCryptid overall that I’m not so happy with: the bad guys. The threat of the bad guys looms over the entire plot but they don’t get much play throughout the books themselves. Their reveals are almost last-minute twists. It makes them hard to talk about and hard to feel much about. The only exception to this was Clint’s creepy dance with Verity… every other bad guy was just blah. Jessica was so obviously a bad guy that it was both surprising and not that she actually was. Lamp-shading it didn't make it better.

End spoilers.

Anyway, I thought Chaos Choreography was an overall fun romp. I’m chomping at the bit to go on to Magic for Nothing so I’m gonna go do that.

Favorite Lines

"Turning into a giant snake is never the solution to your problems," I said. "It actually ranks somewhere between 'cut off own hand, replace with chainsaw' and 'summon indestructible dream demon.' Bad plans one and all." - Verity Price

"And lo did the Violent Priestess speak unto the congregation, and she did say, 'Ain't Nothing Wrong with Most People which couldn't be Fixed with a Good Smack Upside the Head,'" - Aeslin Mouse

"Your real friends will love you for who you are, no matter how many heads or limbs or ovipositors you have." - Evelyn Baker

"Coincidence is just another word for an accident that doesn't kill you." - Alice Healy-Price

"HAIL!" rejoiced the mice. "HAIL THE LACK OF STABBING, SHOOTING, AND FLAME."

"Profanity is the universal language." - Verity Price

In Other News

I finished another OviPets Project! Majiramon is based on the Digimon of the same name. I made the tattoo depicting their clothing. Majiramon took me 9 months to complete.

Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire

A Spoiler Free Review

I honestly spent a good portion of Pocket Apocalypse being very, very annoyed in the direction of Riley Tanner and the members of the Thirty-Six Society who agreed with him. I have never been a fan of people who ignore the advice of experts in their midst or those men who think they actually have a say in who their daughters end up marrying. Pocket Apocalypse had both of these things and it bugged the ever-living-hell out of me.

It was quite interesting to see Lycanthropy actually treated as a disease, although clearly not as fatal as Alex and the Prices thought. I'm also interested in the concept of rhino lycanthropes... it's not often at all that herbivores end up as a lycanthropy strain in any universe.

I'm not sure how to feel about Shelby's family. They're much more dedicated to security than the Prices (as evidenced by Dominic not getting the third degree in the short story "My Last Name" (available on Seanan McGuire's website)). Not sure I agree with how crazy they are about it, though. Also the fact that Riley kept calling Alex "Covenant Boy" the entire time... I very much dislike how hostile Riley is toward Alex. I get it, he's the dude fucking your daughter and you don't approve. Get over it. He's here to help, as he keeps saying. Ugh.

The Thirty-Six Society was semi-interesting, as secret cyrptozoologist societies go. They really seemed more like doomsday preppers than cryptozoologists. I guess that kind of makes sense, given Australia and all. I dunno, they were largely just kind of around as camouflage for the werewolves and additions to the Alex bashing.

Basil is my new favorite Cryptid. He's pretty awesome and I hope he gets all the Tim Tams he wants. Seems like he deserves them.

I got a little teary eyed reading the final battle. Like, good tears or the happy variety. Something about the entire family teaming up in that last moment with help from Dr. Jalali... it just made me happy.

So anyway, I very much enjoyed Pocket Apocalypse as a whole... once I got past the Alex bashing. It was fairly entertaining and the antagonist didn't come out of nowhere this time, so that was nice.

Favorite Lines

"Hello," she said. "Have you heard the good word of Wadjet, Protector of Egypt and great snake of the Milky Way?" - Dr. Helen Jalali

"I think you'll find that when you're looking for a patron goddess to consume your eternal soul and save you from the fires of your current religion's afterlife, Wadjet is absolutely the best choice available." - Dr. Helen Jalali

"No one's kidnapping a priest," scolded Charlotte [Tanner]. "It's rude to abduct the clergy."

Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire

A Spoiler Free Review

A snake, a snake
Snaaake! A snaaaake
Oooh, it's a snake

Sorry, couldn't help myself. Had that stuck in my head as the beginning of this review since I started reading this afternoon. Half-Off Ragnarok is filled to bursting with snake cryptids, most of them sapient. It was actually a lot more fun that I had originally thought upon starting my read.

I enjoyed getting to know Alex and the Bakers. Alex isn't nearly as outgoing as Verity, but he definitely knows how to handle himself, so that was good. I find it a little odd that he's as bad a liar as he's made out to be, but we don't really see that, only hear about it from other characters. Angela Baker's probably my favorite of the extended family aside from Sarah and I'm immeasurably glad she's looking after Sarah. I mean, having adopted Sarah in the first place, I would assume that'd be the case, but still... I like her and I'm glad she's around.

Of the other new characters introduced, I definitely loved Chandi right off. Yeah, she's entitled and all, but I like spunky little girls who take no shit and give plenty of it back. I liked Dee from the beginning. Not much to say about her character though, she's there and likeable enough. Shelby though... I really did not like Shelby for the first third of the book. I wrote my initial notes about her right before she was revealed to be a fellow cryptozoologist... she just rubbed me the wrong way with how she treated Alex and her views on relationships. Sorry, but the view of "Any woman in the world will tell you that one date cancelled is too many" is both barf-inducing and patently untrue. Shelby did grow on me some over the course of the book. I like that she's so delighted by cryptids and takes Alex's lead in situations where he clearly knows more than she does. And that's not a sexist thing. It's smart to follow the lead of people who you know, know more than you do.

The story itself was a semi-interesting who-done-it. I always like seeing cultures that don't exactly match up with our own and Half-Off Ragnarok had that in spades. At least three differing cultures (assuming you count the "fringe" gorgons as different than the main ones) on display here, not including the Price/Baker family dynamic. The who-done-it villain, though I won't say who it is, was basically an incel/boomer cross, which, ya know, was fun, I guess. The motivations on them were... yeah, just a lot of anger at everyone and everything and definitely came from the most hinged of minds. Most definitely.

But anyway, Half-Off Ragnarok was surprisingly hard to put down. I'm not sure why I found that surprising, but I do. Seanan McGuire's work has an almost Netflix-like quality to it, in that you just want to keep going and going as long as there are words on a page. It's really no different here and there are less divisions in the narrative than the first two Incryptid books had, so that almost adds to that feeling. I did finish Half-Off Ragnarok in less than a week so... yeah. Pretty dang good.

Favorite Lines

"I'll never understand the human idea that children are invariably more valuable than adults," said Dee. "If you have twenty adults and twenty children, and half of them are going to die, you can't save just the kids. They'd starve to death."

"The world could end, and anything morphologically feline would find a way to take a nap." - Alex Price

"The natural world has a place for everything. It's just that some of those things make me think that Nature isn't very fond of people." - Martin Baker

"Tweed is a lifestyle choice," - Alex Price

"Rules only matter if everyone understands them, agrees to them, and can be trusted not to break them. Bearing those irrefutable facts in mind, rules never matter at all." - Thomas Price

"a sulking sister, rewarded for her efforts, will proceed to push her sulking to ever-greater heights, until an entire platoon of pigeons could perch on her out-thrust lower lip." - Alex Price

"Being smart isn't good enough. You need to be educated, and you need to be open-minded, and you need to remember that what you don't know can most definitely hurt you." - Martin Baker

And A Video If You Didn't Understand My Opening Lines

 

Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

A Spoiler-Free Review

I loved Midnight Blue-Light Special so much, I'm not even sure I have the words to articulate it. There were distinct Buffy, Season 7 vibes mixed with Seanan McGuire's unique brand of mythology and just the right amount of anxiety running throughout. I love pretty much all of McGuire's characters, although Sarah and Istas really stood out this time around. Partially because Sarah got to carry the story for a bit and Istas... Istas is the next best thing to a talking cat, which is saying something because I love me a talking cat.

So first, I really like my brain's version of how Kitty turned he uncle's strip-joint into Freakshow. I just loved that idea and would definitely visit myself if given the chance. Also, Kitty kind of amuses me. Her dress-sense is just the best contrast with her attitude. Chef's kiss. I also really love how she decided to turn Freakshow into a safe-house. Definitely a contrast her her uncle.

I also quite liked Verity turning her own safe-house into a safe-house for more than just herself, Sarah, Mike, and the mice. It was honestly that, that gave me the Buffy, Season 7 vibes. Just random cryptids showing up for safety's sake. Not actually, though, because it was ultimately only Sunil and Rochak, but still. I enjoyed Uncle Mike. Nice to know that the Gucciard family is still around and kicking. They're introduced in the short stories that are largely available on Seanan McGuire's website and I highly recommend reading those if you're enjoying this series.

Sarah's chapters in Midnight Blue-Light Special were interesting. I'm glad we got a good look at how she thinks in order for her fate at the end to really pack more of a punch. Like, I enjoyed Sarah in Discount Armageddon, but she's largely seen as an aloof nerd by Verity. Getting to see how she thinks and experiences the world did more to fully realize her than anything we got in the last book. And I know you're probably going "well duh, cuz that's what being a main POV character does" but I'm also having a bit of trouble actually saying what I mean about Sarah. She's definitely more than an aloof nerd and actually a lot more insecure than I think Verity gives her credit for.

As fun a running around with the Price family is, I do actually kind of want to see some of this stuff from a Covenant perspective. I feel like The Covenant isn't as fleshed out as it could be, or maybe even should be. Just going off of Margaret Healy's reaction to Verity... they're really fucked up. Like, really fucked up and I'd weirdly like to see just how that level of fucked-up-ed-ness comes into being. But maybe not. I don't know. The InCryptid universe is just so different than your run of the mill fantasy universe and just seeing how the denizens of it outside The Covenant function make me question how The Covenant actually functions. Maybe I just have questions. I dunno. Religious zealots of all kinds make me angry so... I just don't know.

Speaking of The Covenant, Dominic has a bit of a crisis here. However, it's supremely uninteresting to me. I had zero doubts about Dominic's ultimate loyalty. Just... bleh. Probably the only thing about Midnight Blue-Light Special I didn't enjoy. Dominic was kind of amusing in the last book, but here... just nah. He's boring and one-note.

Midnight Blue-Light Special was definitely an enjoyable read. I'm so very glad it lived up to an expanded on everything Discount Armageddon started. I didn't really have any doubts about that, but... ya know, sequels and all that. Also, on a slightly separate note: I like how the narrative is divided into smaller chunks. Makes it a bit of an easier toilet-read, if I'm being completely honest. But yeah. Loved Midnight Blue-Light Special. Istas is the best.

Favorite Quotes

"If wishes were horses, we'd have a way easier time feeding the chupacabras." - Verity Price

Not a quote, I just like the term: "Pantheistic Cryptid Mouse Dream House"

"There have been rumors which indicate that a sewer kraken may be making its home dowtown. I would enjoy the opportunity to battle something with that many limbs." - Istas

    "I was unaware the telepathic girl possessed a temper. This is pleasing. Temperamental people are more likely to participate in carnage.

    "Sweetie, what have we talked about?" asked Ryan.

    Now it was Istas' turn to sigh. "Humans are discomforted by excessive discussion of their squishy interiors."

    "Which means...?"

    "No referencing carnage more than once in a single conversation."

    "As the dominant human in the room, that rule is hereby suspended until we get my niece back," announced Uncle Mike.

"Vengeance carnage is often satisfying, but it takes longer to perform properly than the kind which does not require a death to begin." - Istas

"If we encounter heretics while on the search for our brave Priestess, we will smite them down wuth the Fury of a Thousand Angry Rolling Pins!" squeaked the mouse.

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

2023 Reread Review

Spoiler Free

I did a very short review on my first read that basically consisted of “it was good” and “I look forward to the next one,” which is still true. I had a lot of fun rereading Discount Armageddon. The book itself is currently serving as my mousepad while I’m on vacation.

I find Verity an interesting protagonist. She’s got a sort of Buffy mentality to monster — sorry, Cryptid — fighting and having some sort of life on the side. I like her no-nonsense approach and her curiosity. It also helps that she’s an athletic person to begin with. There are just too many “hey, I’m the protagonist but I don’t actually do much in the way of exercise but I look fantastic and have great fighting stamina” protagonists out there. Verity is not one of them.

I found Dominic’s progression from monster killer to more tolerant dude really quick. I believe Verity seconds that a few times in the book by looking at him askance. He’s an alright character, but he is honestly quite blank.

I love all the Cryptids. I find it really interesting that a lot of them are therianthropes rather than just critters. The pseudoscience that McGuire puts into them is pretty well thought out, if wacky. But hey, Cryptids are pretty wacky to begin with so… much hand-waving. I definitely enjoyed the change from the bog-standard vamps and witches.

Discount Armageddon was quite fun. Loved the mix of humor and action. Loved the characters. Loved the Cryptids. Just a lot of fun overall.

Favorite Quotes

"There's no such thing as a normal life. Some lives are just more interesting than others, and we shouldn't judge people for being boring." - Evelyn Baker

"We all make mistakes. Luckily for us, there are very few mistakes that can't be solved with a suitable application of either lipstick or hand grenades." - Frances Brown

"When all else fails, put on a fresh coat of lip gloss and pretend you have no idea what that horrible thing that just went running down Main Street was. A surprisingly large number of people will believe you." - Frances Brown

"If you interfere in any manner with our continued survival, I will play skipping games with your intestines while wearing your lungs as a hat." - Istas