Monday, December 5, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Backpacking Through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on March 7, 2023 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Backpacking Through Bedlam is the 12th main-series novel in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series, her urban fantasy series following a family, the Price/Healy family who tries to protect cryptids - sentient and non-sentient species whose existence isn't believe by science and who are hunted by human-centric killers.  This is also the second novel to feature as its protagonist Alice Price-Healy, grandmother of some of the first few protagonists, after last year's Spelunking Through Hell.*  I'm a huge fan of this series, and am a big fan of Alice as a character from earlier short stories and features, so I basically read this book in one day the moment I got it through NetGalley, despite having older stuff on my TBR that I needed to read first.

*I'd noted in my review of that book that Alice's present-day story appeared to be a one-book arc - this was apparently incorrect, so here we are with book 2.*

And well Backpacking Through Bedlam is still enjoyable InCryptid, as it combines the fight against the Cryptid-hunting Covenant of St. George with Alice's difficulty reuniting with Thomas and figuring out how to act after 50 years apart.  The character beats between Alice, Thomas, and Sally are very good, and the bonus story at the end does the same with James Price as it deals with the impact of last book's epilogue.  Still, this doesn't quite reach the heights of the series as it trods some well-traveled ground in its plotting, as the book again features Alice joining Verity in New York City to hunt the Covenant, and while I enjoy the return of some of Verity's supporting cast, this series is always best when we meet new Cryptids and their communities, which isn't really the case here.  But that familiar setting works to ground the character development, which is topnotch, and Alice is delightfully violent and fun, and it all mainly works.  

----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
After fifty years, Alice has done it - she has found Thomas, her one true love, and rescued him from a bottle dimension with seemingly no exit. It cost her almost everything - the friend in Uncle Naga she thought she really had but who was really just exploiting her, her relationship with her two children - especially Jane, who hates her for abandonment - and a normal life in time, aging along with the rest of the Earth. But finding Thomas should have made it worth it, right?

But to Alice and Thomas' discomfort, in the fifty years of their separation, the two of them both have habits, tendencies and bits of their character that are unfamiliar to one another, with Thomas being seemingly more understood by his essentialy adopted daughter Sally. Alice can't help but feel pangs of jealousy about all this, and is desperate to find the time the two of them can stay together in peace to reconnect in the ways they once had.

Yet even after Alice, Thomas, and Sally rehome their refugees from the bottle dimension and return to Buckley, the three of them barely have time to get any rest - for the Covenant is waging almost open war on North America thanks to their family, and both the Cryptids and Gods of North America demand that Alice and Thomas do something about it. And so they find themselves heading to New York City, where 3, maybe 4 Covenant Strike Teams are hunting the Cryptids protected and looked after by Verity, and who would do anything to hunt down and kill members of the Price Family.

To survive and win, Alice, Thomas and Sally will need to find a way to work together, and to understand one another in the ways Alice and Thomas once thought they did prior to their separation....or else their return to our world alive will be cut deadly short......
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Backpacking through Bedlam continues the story of Alice from the last book, which seemingly ended on a happy conclusive ending - Alice having rescued Thomas, with them bringing back Sally as well and planning on staying home once they returned the refugees to their various worlds, with them able now to reunite with the family Thomas was separated from and Alice estranged herself from essentially in her mad quest for Thomas. I certainly thought it was a one and done novel (although prior story arcs like Verity's and Alex's had first novels that were also self contained with happy endings, so I probably should've expected this).

But McGuire does something smart here, and recognizes that the relationship between Alice and Thomas can't simply resume as it was after their 50 years. During that time Alice drove herself mad in searching for Thomas, Recklessly throwing her body at enemy threats; meanwhile Thomas found himself the leader of refugees and essentially a surrogate father to Sally, who knows Thomas as he is now honestly better than Alice does. The two of them still love each other, but they aren't the same people anymore and their connections will take time to rebuild, something that Alice struggles with...especially as she both sees the connection that Sally has with Thomas that Alice doesn't have anymore and is a little jealous and Thomas makes errors in speaking to her by asking her to be careful, words he should know she absolutely hates, even if they're well meaning. And of course, even though we never see Thomas' perspective here, we can see how Thomas is fearful and afraid of how Alice will throw herself still recklessly into things and not recognize that she needs to protect herself and possibly others now that she has things once more to protect.

And so Backpacking through Bedlam works really well as it explores these issues through a plot that throws Alice, Sally, and Thomas back into the meat of things in the series - the family's struggle against the Covenant as it wages war on the Cryptids of North America. The story returns us to Manhattan eventually, where we see a bunch of Verity's side characters, and the resulting war - think book 2 but on a much higher level as there are now 20 Covenant agents instead of 3 - is a lot more dangerous and threatening. And McGuire makes this plot compelling as she weaves in the old characters with Alice's crew of her Thomas and Sally, deals with Sally and Thomas' return to the modern world (its own issue, which Alice is not the right person to help them deal with), and of course has some new fun with the Mice. This is a very series myth-arc intensive plot, and it works to that extent.

That said, Backpacking through Bedlam also feels in many ways like kind of a retread in where the plot winds up going. As I've stated in prior InCryptid reviews before, the best books in these series feature new side characters, new Cryptids with new quirks of biology, and new interactions. Here, the first third takes a quick detour to a dimension last seen in Sarah's arc before the final half of the book takes place in Verity's old hauntings in New York City, with Verity's supporting cast in tow. I like that supporting cast, but it's nothing new, and them dealing with covenant hunters is also something very done before, so it does kind of feel like we're replaying greatest hits a bit, even as Alice's character arc is still really good alongside those greatest hits to prevent this book from ever being a disappointment. I WILL add that this book does a FAR better job than Verity's books at actually making its portrayal of New York City feel like it is New York City - Verity's books felt like they almost could just be a generic city, whereas here we actually have the subways and aspects of the City that are unique to New York and I really appreciated that.

All in all the main story of Backpacking through Bedlam is really well done as it shows Alice & Thomas' character arcs continuing in ways that really work. And I should add that the novel's bonus novella, "The Mysteries of the Stolen God and Where His Waffles Went" is really great, with similar character development for both James Price (in light of Sally's return in last book's epilogue) and a few Aeslin Mice characters, who are just a lot of fun and are really interesting in their society. Definitely value added there and highly recommended for fans of this series.

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