Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant

[Greg]

Also in the book count thread.

A Killing Frost by Seanan McGuire

I could be reaching the end of my affair with Ms. McGuire. It's just more of the same. You start off with about thirty pages of exposition of who is who and why are they are mad at each other. Then there is the scene where Toby goes off on her quest leaving behind everyone she loves. There's a lot of bloodshed. People are unhappy with Toby. She almost dies. She loses more of her humanity. After the quest, she goes home with more threads dangling and lots of exposition about what needs to be done.

The new thing for me in this book is I saw some reasons for how certain characters behave. In real life, Ms. McGuire appears to have a fraught relationship with her mother. I just recently became aware of this through her twitter feed. In the books, Toby has a terrible relationship with her mother. A-fucking-ha.

In this book Toby needs to find her father to get permission to marry the King of the Cats otherwise there will be some sort of scandal or another. But her father is lost and out of his mind and treats everyone like an enemy. Because of prophecy, Toby can only take two people t help her. The book also takes place in no more than 48 hours which seems incredibly fast.

There is already another book out. My library has stopped carrying the series. I am unsure if I will spend the cash to get the latest book.

[Greg]

Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire.

Everything I said in the post for a Killing Frost is the same for Calculated Risks. Two different ongoing series. Same problems.

 Originally the InCryptid Series was a bit lighter and more sexy than the Toby series, but that is kind of going by the way side. Still too much exposition. Too much explaining of the different relationships. And the explanations are really repetitive. We know what has happened just get on with it. And again, the book ends abruptly, which she gleefully acknowledges in the end credit sections. It's a like a chapter in a much longer book. It really could use a good editor. And yes, we get Seanan that you believe in the family you make rather than your biological family.

[Greg]

Also in the Book Count Thread

Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire

The Wayward Children series of books continues. The series focuses on children that go through magical doorways to different lands and what happens to them once they come back. It's a loosely connected series. Some of the characters recur. Some times the books are stand alone with only thematic elements being the same. One of the big recurring themes is the fact there is a school where the children who have gone on adventures and returned can go and recover surrounded by people who understand them.

In Drowned Girls, Cora has returned from her journey as a mermaid in the Trenches world and keeps hearing the voices of the Dead Gods calling her. She wants to forget. She wants the opposite of the Wayward school. So she goes to the school that helps the magic kids forget the magic worlds. Cora immediately regrets this decision and works to solve the problem.

Like most McGuire books, McGuire is dealing with her own personal issues in the story and things she suffers . And unlike her other books where there is a lot recounting of the back story to start a book, that doesn't happen in the Wayward Children stories. It's up to the reader to remember what has gone before. I can't usually remember what has gone before. But it's okay. McGuire continues to be a good writer. The book are engaging if short at almost Novella length.

[Greg]

In the Book Count Thread 2022

When Sorrows Come.

When Sorrows Come by Seanan McGuire

Toby goes to her wedding. Mayhem ensues. As it does.

It's been building up to this for awhile. Toby finally gets to marry Tybalt, the king of the Cats. She has to travel to Toronto to do this because the High King and Queen requested they hold the wedding there.

As usual, the books stops every three or four chapters to explain who is who and who they are related to and why it's important. Plus, long descriptions of what kind of Fae they are. It takes awhile for the book to get going. You would think with all that explanation, I would be able to remember who is who but I don't. There are dozens of main characters at this point and it's hard to keep them straight. McGuire needs to simplify the stories and just deal with a few characters for a change.

That being said, this book was a stronger entry into the canon. I could follow the mystery of why people are trying to kill the High King. We only had to go back a couple of centuries for the reasoning. There were funny bits. There were a lot of speeches about what makes a family but it worked fine in this context.

The next volume comes out in the fall.

[Greg]

In the book count thread.

Spelunking Through Hell by Seanan McGuire (Book 11 in The InCryptid Series)

Another adventure in the InCryptid Series. I'm glad McGuire has this series that are all about the Price/Healey family and she keeps using different characters to narrate her books. Because of that each character doesn't have to spend the first quarter of the book catching everyone up like happens in the Tobey Daye series. And they seem to be funnier, although in this story Alice Price has a lot in common with Tobey Daye.

Alice is the crazy grandmother who has popped up or been name checked in the previous 10 books in the series. Alice has been hunting her husband for over fifty years after he was stolen away by the Crossroads. This time she goes on adventure that finally has a chance of actually finding Thomas Price and maybe bringing him back. There are plenty of science fiction elements to the story as Alice crosses dimensions on her quest. But there is a lot of woo-woo stuff as we talk about souls of planets and universes. It made me drift off when she got to those parts.

But the action is quick. The world building is good. She doesn't waste a lot of time filling us in, which is a blessing. It's kind of fun mapping McGuire's real life into the characters in the book. She does a lot of self therapy I think in her writing. I could do with a little less of the build your own family trope. But again, therapy. And she didn't leave the book on cliff hanger for a change. Although I thought that was were she was heading, but McGuire hurried through the last few chapters to wrap things up.

And there was a novella at the end that walked through how Alice and Thomas finally got together.

I'll say I enjoyed this more than the last Tobey novel.