SF/F Review: Midnight Blue-Light Special (inCryptid) by Seanan McGuire https://t.co/hX2eBsP3op Short Review: 8 out of 10 (1/3)— garik16 (@garik16) November 28, 2017
Short Review (cont): The 2nd inCryptid Novel follows directly up from the 1st one, as Verity Price finds that the monster-exterminating Covenant of Saint George has come to Manhattan, seeking to kill her & destroy her inhuman allies. Fun & oft-witty Urban Fantasy (2/3)— garik16 (@garik16) November 28, 2017
Midnight Blue-Light Special is the second Novel (though not story) in Seanan McGuire's inCryptid series, following the first novel, Discount Armageddon, which I previously reviewed for this blog.
For those new to the series, inCryptid is an urban fantasy series focusing upon the Healy/Price family, a family of cryptozoologists who attempt to preserve and help Cryptids in North America - Cryptids being the name for beings that are unknown/unexplainable by modern science (think Monsters/Mythological creatures like Gorgons, Bogeymen, Dragons, and Talking Mice). The family also tries to help save the Cryptids from their former organization, the Covenant of Saint George, which has a strictly "kill-on-sight" policy toward Cryptids, no matter how harmless, or how helpful, they might be to ordinary humans. Despite the seriousness of the conflict, members of the Healy/Price family tend to be sarcastic/deadpan-snarkers, and so the series has a lot of humor in its tone.
Midnight Blue-Light Special is the second book following Verity Price, one of the youngest generation of the Family who tries to juggle her Cryptozoologist work with her love of Ballroom Dancing, all the while living in one of the biggest Cryptid communities you can find: New York City. It is very much a direct sequel to Discount Armageddon, and while McGuire spends part of the early narrative rehashing what a new reader might need to know that was explained in the first novel, you probably shouldn't start the series here with this book.
More after the jump, with spoilers for Discount Armageddon ahead:
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Things have been going well for Verity Price since the discovery of William at the end of Discount Armageddon. Sure her ballroom dancing career hasn't gone anywhere, but she's still doing a fine job as Manhattan's local cryptozoologist, not to mention engaging in a fun relationship with her kinda-boyfriend Dominic De Luca. Of course Dominic is still a member of the Covenant of Saint George, but he hasn't seemed to have been hunting sentient Cryptids lately, so everything's okay right?
Or well, it was, until Dominic gives Verity a warning: the Covenant has dispatched three agents to New York to assess his progress and begin a purge of Manhattan's cryptid community. Even worse - one of the three agents is a distant cousin whose hatred of her family is even more intense than usual for Covenant agents, and who might be able to recognize her family features. And Dominic can't guaranty which side he'll take in the oncoming war.....
To survive, and attempt to save the local Cryptid Community, Verity will need to call in her allies - her Cuckoo cousin Sarah Zellamy, her cryptozoologist Uncle, and several other Cryptid allies. But even if they stop this band of covenant agents, the Covenant will only send more in their place....how can they both survive AND save the local Cryptid community from terrifying destruction? And can Verity survive the efforts of her evil cousin? Yeah that might even be the bigger problem.
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Like the first book, Midnight Blue-Light Special is told from the first person perspective of Verity, who's a very sarcastic and witty woman which helps give the book a pretty amusing tone. The book actually does take a few chapters in the middle to switch the narration to the perspective of that of Sarah, who isn't quite as irreverent, but it still works even in those chapters. The flippant tone of the book extends once again to both the family quotes at starts of chapters as well as the location descriptors at the start of the chapters. This tone works extremely well and makes this book a quick and enjoyable read- I began and finished this book within a day, as I never really wanted to stop reading.
The book improves upon its predecessor IMO in the character development department - the first book featured a minor character becoming an important ally sort of out of nowhere near the end, whereas this book introduces all of the minor characters much earlier so they don't feel like they come out of nowhere, and they're developed fairly well. We meet Verity's "Uncle Mike," an older ally of the family and he's a solid addition, and the other side characters are amusingly developed further.
This is not to say this is an altogether surprising book - you could see Dominic's eventual decision coming from the very beginning (although the doubt that the other characters have about it is rational, you'd have to be genre blind to think Dominic is going to go in the other direction) and I (and thus some readers) will see the eventual solution to the crisis coming in advance. That said, the impact of the solution is not something I could've predicted, and things do take a swerve around 60% of the way through the book which I did not expect.
Moreover, the ending is pretty satisfying - this is not a book with a cliffhanger ending, and the ending would seem to wrap of the end of Verity's arc (the next book instead is centered around her brother) in Manhattan. In short, like pretty much all of McGuire's urban fantasy works, this is a pretty fun story with solid enjoyable characters and is definitely worth a read if that's the type of book you like.
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