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Genre: Urban Fantasy
I try to resist the impulse to review every book in a series. I really do. After a few reviews, the reader should have all the information they need to know whether or not a series is of interest to them, and I should give some new authors a chance. But I was so happy with Chaos Choreography, the latest InCryptid novel by Seanan McGuire, that I can’t resist giving the series one more hurrah. I wasn’t crazy about the last book, Pocket Apocalypse, so the fact that I loved Chaos Choreography made me deeply relieved.
The first two books in the series (Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue-Light Special) are told from the viewpoint of Verity Price. Verity was born into a family of cryptozoologists. They study cryptids (like dragons and bogeymen and the ever-fabulous Aeslin Mice). Whenever possible, they protect cryptids. When cryptids pose an on-going and irresolvable threat to human life, they eliminate crytids. Verity spends her time divided between trying to build a dance career and fulfilling her inherited obligations to the cryptid community. Verity also falls in love with Dominic, a fighter on the side of the Price Family’s sworn foes, so she has to figure out her love life while dancing and fighting and brokering deals with dragons. While this isn’t a romance series, Verity and her brother Alex have solid romances in their respective books.
The next two books, Half-Off Ragnorak and Pocket Apocalypse, are about Verity’s brother, Alex. I thought Half-Off Ragnorak was OK, though not great, but in Pocket Apocalypse things fell apart for me. In all of these books, the narrator speaks directly to the reader, and in Pocket Apocalypse, Alex explained EVERYTHING to the reader whether it was relevant or not. The last straw came when Alex, who was on a plane, explained at length that it is important to walk during a long flight so you don’t develop thrombosis. This wasn’t foreshadowing. It had no relevance to the plot. He just felt a deep need to explain thrombosis. This dude is so insufferably smug that he feels a need to tell the reader how to conduct his or herself on even the most mundane international flight. While my personal sense that Alex is unbearably smug may be subjective, the over-explaining of irrelevant issues was sloppy and it took all the momentum out of the story.
Luckily, with Chaos Choreography, the balance has been restored. There’s more momentum and more focus on character and plot. There’s still a lot of exposition, but when Verity explains things to the reader they are things that are interesting and at least somewhat relevant, so that’s fine. McGuire does a ton of research, and I really do want to see the work as long as it’s important to the story. I loved seeing more of Verity’s life as a dancer as much as I loved seeing her life as a cryptozoologist.
In this book, Verity is competing on a TV show named, ominously, Dance or Die. She and Dominic (who is her husband by this point in the series) realize that the dancers (some of whom are human and some of whom are not) are being targeted by an evil cult. The book has scenes in which Verity is shopping for knives at the flea market with her time-traveling grandmother and scenes when she’s rushing to apply her makeup between performances. Verity struggles to make her two lives (dancer versus cryptozoologist) mesh and while it’s awful for her, it’s pretty darned entertaining for the reader. The dynamic between the dancers and their manipulation of the reality show oeuvre was as fun to read as the scenes in which Verity and her grandmother go knife shopping. Verity is relatable in her virtues and her flaws, and there’s a lot of humor and action both on stage and off. The book also makes a point of humanizing the victims of the cult.
Reading the InCryptid novels and the Parasitology series (which McGuire writes under the name Mira Grant) has been a great education in writing and editing. When the knowledge, creativity, and attention to detail shine through in a natural way, it’s a wonderful thing. It makes the worlds and the plots feel grounded and realistic even when they involve talking mice. Th greatest strength of the InCryptid series is the meticulous creation of a variety of species, and the details behind how the Price family manages their lives and their roles in the community. Thanks to the balance of information and restraint in Chaos Choreography, I’m absolutely looking forward to the next book.
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I’m buying this today. Quite looking forward to it. I love me some InCryptid.
P.S. I agree about Alex. I mostly found him okay, but he has a severe case of needing to show rather than tell. And he does have good taste in pets. I want a little winged griffin.
I didn’t like Alex either, which is funny, because I like Dominic very much. And Shaun from ‘Newsflesh’.
I’m a chapter in, and it’s nice to be back with Verity again.
Poor Alex got no love from me, either. I’ll be picking this one up at the library today. Glad to hear that it is back on track. All hail the Aeslin Mice, who are the coolest thing ever–and must must be a real pain to live with.
It’s spelled “RAGNAROK”.
And just reading about the infodump special… *HEADDESK*
Here’s a question. Can you read this one without reading the fourth InCryptid book?
I loved the first book in the series, really liked the second, but the third was a long, slow slog for me. I skipped the fourth. Alex just did not do it for me as a narrator (nothing against Seanan McGuire or her writing — the whole October Daye series is one of my absolute faves). For whatever reason, Alex was just a big “no” for me. So, do I have to suck it up and read Pocket Apocalypse, or can I get away with skipping it?
You can dive into the series with any book – skipping book four is totally fine.
Hmm, interesting. I read the first two but lost interest, because the hook for me was the ballroom-dancing angle and that seemed to be simply handwaved. As someone who’s been a competitive dancer (and amateur at that, with much lower demands), I know full well what is involved, and this specific double life is therefore a tough one for me to suspend disbelief on. And the other elements, though well done, were not enough to make me carry on with books 3 and 4 since I could tell from a sample that I wasn’t going to like Alex. 🙂
If the dancing is genuinely important to the story and not just a picture hung on the wall of Verity’s character assembly, I might give it a try.
HAIL THE RETURN OF THE NOISY PRIESTESS! Actually, HAIL Seanan McGuire in general. I completely missed that this was out, and I’m going to go one-click now. And get some cheese and cake for the mice.
I love this series. HAIL THE AESLIN MICE! But it really hurts to have to pay more for an ebook than I’d pay at various discount bookstores for the paperback–which I can read, lend, give away, sell or whatever. Sigh! I’m still mulling if I want to do that.