Tuesday, December 17, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Imaginary Numbers by Seanan McGuire



Full Disclosure:  This work was read as an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) via my winning of a random giveaway thrown by the book's publisher in advance of the Book's scheduled February 25, 2020 release date.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply not review the book.

 Imaginary Numbers is the Ninth book in Seanan McGuire's urban fantasy series, InCryptid, and the beginning of a fourth arc* in the series.  InCryptid is one of my favorite ongoing series out there, with the right mix of humor, drama, and great characters to go with a very fun urban fantasy setting, featuring a family (the Price family) trying to preserve the lives of Cryptids (creatures and beings who should not exist) in North America and beyond.  When I found on my doorstep a surprise ARC of this novel, I couldn't resist starting and finishing it within 24 hours....despite having a glut of other library books to read including one book I was already 60% of the way through!

*Counting arcs solely by the novels.  There are several other story arcs which have been told over the course of McGuire's shorter fiction in this series, which are all great, but I'm not counting for this number.  

 Impossible Numbers does not disappoint, being easily the most family focused novel of the series but switching the main focus to one of our non-human protagonists, Sarah Zellaby, last seen in books 1-3.  It doesn't quite have as much humor as some of the other books, but it has a little bit, features probably the largest number of returning characters of any new-arc book in major roles, and more importantly all of the characters are strong and the plot takes some teased previous developments and expands them greatly.  It is most definitely NOT a book to start this series with, although you could try, but it's a pretty great addition...with a killer cliffhanger.

Note: This book also includes a bonus novella which essentially serves as an extra epilogue to the last arc in the series (Antimony's arc over books 6-8), which I enjoyed but will do nothing for those not invested in the series.  That's all I'll be saying about that in this review.

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Sarah Zellaby is not human.  She is a Jorhlac, aka a Cuckoo, a human-shaped telepathic race known for altering the minds of those around them to suit their own sociopathic whims.  And since every Cuckoo imparts their sociopathic mindset and memories with their telepathy into their babies at/prior to childbirth, they're practically the only Cryptid species the Price family believes is right to kill on sight.

But Sarah is not a normal Cuckoo - her adopted mother stripped Sarah's sociopathic programming via her mother's own telepathy to see if a Cuckoo could live a harmless life guided by normal ethics.  As a result, Sarah has tried to live as an adopted member of the Price family, satisfying her fascination with math by taking classes, and pining for her "cousin", the half incubus Artie.  All the time she has survived with at least one member of the family close at hand in case she ever succumbed to her evil base instincts.

Or at least Sarah did until five years ago, when she used her powers on a previously untried scale in order to save her cousin Verity.  The effort seemed to break Sarah and she has spent the last five years recovering, barely knowing at times who she herself is.

Now, Sarah feels maybe recovered enough to maybe rejoin the rest of the family, and strikes out on a trip on her own back to the family's homebase of Portland - where Artie and the rest of them all live.  But on her way to Portland she finds herself confronted with the worst possible thing - other Cuckoos, who don't seem set on leaving Sarah alone in peace.

For all these years, Sarah has been able to avoid the harm done by her sociopathic species, and the harm she herself could do to others if she tried.  She may not be able to do so any longer, and nothing will ever be the same.......
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The general formula for new InCryptid arcs has been pretty standard - after maybe a short prologue in which we see our new lead character with the rest of the family (and with other Cryptids) - we find our lead character away from the rest of the family aside from perhaps one other, dealing with Cryptid issues and their lives in their new locale.  Imaginary Numbers doesn't follow this formula: Sarah begins the book travelling TO the family, and the entire cast of major characters - Antimony, Elsie, Artie, etc - all have major roles.  And heck, one of these family members (not spoiling which) even gets significant page time as a secondary point of view character.

But despite the number of major characters from this series being present, this book belongs to Sarah and her struggle.  We've seen inside of Sarah's head once before (all the way back in Book 2), but always in the context of someone else's adventure.  Here we're dealing with her psyche and story in a way we never have before, and it's a pretty tragic one really, always living in fear of hurting others with her powers, with a family who may love her, but always has distrusted her just a little.  And being a natural telepath, Sarah can't help but sense that distrust, even when it isn't made obvious by being greeted with a gun or knife in the face by every family member she hasn't seen in a long time.  Add in Sarah's own distrust of her own abilities after her overuse of her power in New York, and it makes Sarah perhaps the easiest member of the family to empathize with yet, as she has the most reason to be lonely and miserable of any of them.  And this is a story where all those fears come to a head as the evils of her kind come search out for her, making it all worse.  It's what makes this easily the darkest InCryptid book yet (not that this series is that dark mind you).

Fortunately, as is a recurring theme in this series, love is there to provide some solace for Sarah, and it will not be a surprise to readers that that longstanding plot thread - Sarah and Artie's mutual love for each other which neither of the two believes is actually mutual - gets resolved.  This works really well, and functions as the counterweight to Sarah's misery to go along with the rest of the plot.  Add this to the greatness that is the rest of the family, which includes the new members brought home with Annie at the end of the last book, and you get a cast that's really great along with a plot that works really well from beginning to end....which ends with the series' most annoyingly brutal cliffhanger so far.

Really, the only complaints I have of this book are not even real complaints but due to my own curiosity - this book takes place sometime after the last book, and so the reunion of Annie with the family and the reveal of her two new companions all takes place off page, which is kind of a disappointment given how much I love Annie.  The bonus novella deals with the first part of this, and I suspect we may get a short story showing these events later if McGuire finds time to write it between the billion other things she writes, and this isn't really a complaint about this book, but damn did I want it.

But yeah, this is another great book in the series, up with the best of them.  I cannot wait for the conclusion to this one, which naturally won't be published till probably February of 2021.  Sigh.
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