SF/F Review: Discount Armageddon (InCryptid #1) by Seanan McGuire: https://t.co/6TYU5cVuOk - Short Review: 7.5 out of 10 (1/4)— garik16 (@garik16) October 20, 2017
Short Review (cont.): The 1st in an urban fantasy series featuring a Human family fighting to preserve the lives of Monsters/Creatures (2/4)— garik16 (@garik16) October 20, 2017
Short Review (cont.): who try to live peacefully among humans is pretty witty, with a bit of action and a nice pace, & just plain fun. (3/4)— garik16 (@garik16) October 20, 2017
Discount Armageddon is the first novel in Seanan McGuire's second Urban Fantasy series, InCryptid. I have a mixed track record with McGuire's work - I greatly enjoy (if not love) her October Daye Urban Fantasy series, but have not been a fan of her two Wayward Children novellas. That said, I've actually read some of the InCryptid series before - earlier this month I read through most of the prequel short stories that are on McGuire's website, and I enjoyed them a lot. So I had good expectations going in.
For the most part, those expectations were met. The InCryptid universe is similar to the October Daye universe in that it very much has an "all myths are true" attitude, except in this case it's with mythological creatures, not faeries and magic. It also features some fun unique characters and a decent first person narrator. That said, the book isn't quite as solid as the typical October Daye novel, but well, it's the first in the series, so that's kind of unsurprising.
More after the jump:
-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------------
The world is stranger than is commonly known. Living amongst humanity - and separately in nature - are Cryptids - creatures that science cannot explain. Some of these creatures are sentient like humans, others aren't; some seem to the basis for mythical creatures (gorgons, boogeyman, tanuki), while others are just strange (talking mice, frogs with feathers, etc.). And for ages, an organization known as the Covenant of St. George has scoured the globe, hunting and killing every Cryptid they could find. But about 80 years ago, the Healy/Price family broke away from the Covenant and fled to America, where they vowed, as Cryptozoologists, to catalog but protect Cryptids and preserve them in their environment as long as they did no harm to human beings. The Covenant of course, considers the Price and Healy families to be traitors who must be eliminated.
In present day Manhattan, Verity Price, one of the newest Price generation, isn't sure she wants just to be another family Cryptozoologist. Instead, she harbors a passion for ballroom dancing, which she competes in under an assumed name, all the while trying to help the Cryptid community of New York at the same time. But when a member of the Covenant - a Dominic De Luca - shows up, seemingly to scout ahead for a purge of New York's cryptids, things look down. And things look worse when sentient Cryptid females begin disappearing from the streets and strange monsters appear beneath the City. In order to set things right, Verity may be forced to hook up with the covenant agent Dominic in order to save the Cryptids of New York.
And by "hook up," well, I mean surely Verity can't fall for someone who's pledged to kill the very people, and her very family, she's sworn to protect? Could she?
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Like the October Daye series, Discount Armageddon is told from a first person point of view, that of Verity. Verity's a pretty strong character, self-aware and witty, and she's pretty fun to read. Much of the supporting cast is also excellent in this one - Sarah, Verity's cryptid cousin, is particularly amusing and the wide variety of other cryptids who show up are generally pretty well built up.
The book is pretty fast paced, and again, is pretty witty - definitely more so than the October Daye series. For example, each chapter begins with a description of where we are, except that opinion includes Verity editorializing about where that is ( "In the sewers under Manhattan, doing something stupid" is such a description). It's really cute and works very well. There's some points where Verity seems to be telling the story from the perspective of someone retelling a past-story, and the book doesn't really explain that, but it mainly just adds to the charm.
The book definitely feels like a first in a series novel though, with some weaknesses that I'm guessing are hardened out later in the series. The arc of the love interest Dominic and his relations with the Cryptid community didn't quite work for me - he goes from true believer for partially religious reasons to being a bit more tolerant (if not totally converted) by the end, and it's didn't quite read as believable to me. And one character who plays a big part in the ending action just sort of pops up from nowhere (despite a quick mention earlier) to be highly important, and she feels kind of out of place.
That said, again, this is a damn fun book, and I've already reserved the sequel from the library.
Like the October Daye series, Discount Armageddon is told from a first person point of view, that of Verity. Verity's a pretty strong character, self-aware and witty, and she's pretty fun to read. Much of the supporting cast is also excellent in this one - Sarah, Verity's cryptid cousin, is particularly amusing and the wide variety of other cryptids who show up are generally pretty well built up.
The book is pretty fast paced, and again, is pretty witty - definitely more so than the October Daye series. For example, each chapter begins with a description of where we are, except that opinion includes Verity editorializing about where that is ( "In the sewers under Manhattan, doing something stupid" is such a description). It's really cute and works very well. There's some points where Verity seems to be telling the story from the perspective of someone retelling a past-story, and the book doesn't really explain that, but it mainly just adds to the charm.
The book definitely feels like a first in a series novel though, with some weaknesses that I'm guessing are hardened out later in the series. The arc of the love interest Dominic and his relations with the Cryptid community didn't quite work for me - he goes from true believer for partially religious reasons to being a bit more tolerant (if not totally converted) by the end, and it's didn't quite read as believable to me. And one character who plays a big part in the ending action just sort of pops up from nowhere (despite a quick mention earlier) to be highly important, and she feels kind of out of place.
That said, again, this is a damn fun book, and I've already reserved the sequel from the library.
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