Ah alchemy

 OK, so I somehow missed Seanan McGuire's next October Daye book dropped a while back (indeed a newer one is coming soon), but hey, Silver and Lead showed up at the end of my Incarnations of Immortality reread, so yay!

OK, so we're joining Toby and 8.5 months pregnant and confined to quarters while she's getting ready to give birth. Well, at least until the Queen manages to rouse Toby into action to investigate who the hell stole all the kingdom's treasures during Titania's illusion. 

Which, as seems to happen in these books, has Toby running around investigating, getting kidnapped, getting put in mortal danger, and even getting a Caesarian in the middle of a boss fight. (And at 8.5 months pregnant, I started hearing every character talking like they were from Fargo. 

By the end, everything is back to semi normal, and we spend the novella after witnessing Dianda give birth Undersea. 

While these pretty much have a formula of sorts the longer this goes on, it remains engaging and fun reading. 

Oops

 So, in Installment Immortality, Mary Dunleavy, formerly a Crossroads ghost, now a Caretaker ghost,. and always the babysitter to the entire Price-Healy clan and also now in service to the Anima Mundi...

Well, let's just say the world soul is a bit annoyed at the Covenant of St. George, who are busy locking up ghosts in bottles with things that hurt spirits, thereby effectively making ghost grenades. MAry gets suckered in to going East to stop them. Mary winds up taking Elsie and Arthur with her (the latter, who is falling apart after being reconstructed mentally from other people's memories, the former just pissed off at losing her mom and her brother). 

This leads the to Worcester, Massachusetts, where they find the Covenant, and a large society of ghosts who's roles are out of whack. 

Thankfully, none of our mains die by the end, but we do get some rather hard looks at ghost society and what's happened to the Covenant since the family blew up the training hall. 

And as a personal TW, there's an entire section on ghost dogs that really broke my heart. 

 I love this series very much.  

Oi. Ouch.

 So, Seanan McGuire's Aftermarket Afterlife dropped a few weeks ago, and I pushed myself to get through it, since I really love this series. This one is narrated by Mary Dunlavy, the babysitting host that's raised all the children in the family. Mind you, Mary's afterlife has changed a bit since the events at the end of Annie's narration, as the Crossroads no longer exist, so she's no longer obligated to try and make deals on their behalf. 

On the other hand, Mary is dealing with a fractious family reunion as Alice and Thomas return to the compound in Portland to be with their kids and some of the grandkids. (And reunite James and Sarah, etc.) While the usual fireworks explode, it leads to new fun as The Covenant of St. George launches a major offensive on the US cryptids, creating a lot of collateral damage. While we don't reach George R R Martin levels of homicide of major characters, there are a few semi-permanent retirements in here. 

Anyway, eventually Mary does manage to get most everything squared away as best as she can, but in the meantime, a lot of other things outside her control happen, and she also runs afoul of her dimension's Anima Mundi. 

It's fun reading, for the most part, since we're getting to see everyone at once, from Verity in New York, Alex in Columbus, Annie in Portland, as well as Sarah and Alice, all of whom have narrated a few books in here. It also has some really really rough emotional moments as the cost of war is brought home for everyone. 

I hope there's more to come in this series, since it remains an always good one.

And again, Titania is an ass.

 Finished Seanan McGuire's The Innocent Sleep yesterday, which is kind of Sleep No More extended out, starting when Titania changed Fairie and ending roughly 3 months after Halloween. However, it's written from Tybalt's point of view, so we get a better idea of what life was like during the revamp for folks who weren't locked up in Titania's illusions, like Undersea and the Cait Sidhe. 

Which is to say, mostly ugly.

Undersea is cut off from the land, and Simon of course got shunted back to being Amandine's loving husband, which is mildly upsetting to Dianda and Patrick, not to mention both of their sons being trapped elsewhere. The Cait Sidhe are pretty much all trapped in the various Courts of Cats, as only those of Royal blood can get on the Shadow Roads. Which leads to a bunch of starving cats and kittens. Eventually, this leads to a very fun heist cleaning out a few of San Francisco's Costco's to feed the courts. 

A Roane in Undersea makes a prophecy letting all parties know that around Moving Day is when any moves to break the illusion must happen. Given that Moving Day is roughly 4 months away from the first part of the narrative, one can imagine the amount of angst involved. We do eventually get to a point where the previous narrative of these events starts intermingling with this newer perspective, and we finally get a few answers to things not stated in the past volume. 

After the narrative ends, we get a novella about one of the Octopi Fey native to the seas. Dianda's protector, actually. The book is downstairs, and I'm not attempting to spell her name or race without it sitting in front of me.) By far the biggest reveal in this is that Dianda is probably having a new girl baby pretty soon, fathered by both Simon and Patrick. Why the girl is so important we don't know, but I'm guessing it will eventually tie in to one of the last missing threads, what happened to the Other Queen (Maeve) after Janet broke the ride. 

Fun story, worth reading.

Titania is an ass.

 So, finished Seanan McGuire's Sleep No More yesterday, which finally sort of resolves the cliffhanger from the last book. Essentially, we pick up 4 months after Titania was found and essentially remade most of north and central California in her image of what a perfect Fairie would be. Which isn't exactly what anyone living in Fairie would particularly want, beyond certain elder pureblood sidhe.

As such, in this version of Fairie, October is living in Mom Amadine's tower with Dad Simon and Sister August, being a nice subservient changeling girl who knows her place among the purebloods. Quentin is now an utter asshole who likes tormenting her on the rare occasions she enters Shadowed Hills. However, it's a trip to the Hills that leads to October being taken to Tamed Lightning where the local Dryad April gets awakened and begins the long slow process of unraveling the Umbridge-esque pink of Titania's illusions. 

Oh, but it's fun. With the few mixed breeds and a few free changelings living well outside of San Francisco, all of Maeve's descendants either exiled or missing, and much of the kingdom being returned to the state it was in at the outset of the series (including at least 3 dead/elfshot characters coming back for the fun), and everyone's favorite sea witch being trapped in a tree...

Quite a bit is going on here, and the fact that the Summer Queen is a master of illusions means we're not entirely sure of how much of what's returned is real. (Indeed, the finale has a character observe something is up, but what that something is never really gets quantified, so I wonder if that will be the plot hook in the next book.) 

The author states it's fun writing stuff down finally that's been in her head since the outset. And it's fun to read. And I'm happy she didn't start here, since the series has given us characters whom we've come to know and love, and therefore are much more emotionally involved with as this apocalypse happens.

Whne crazy meets crazy

 One of the major themes running through Seana McGuire's new InCrypted nove Backpacking Through Bedlam revolves around the difficulty of reintegrating during homecoming, and it kind of struck a nerve, particularly in the bonus novella tucked in at the end of the book. 

We pick up where the last volume ended, with Alice, Thomas, and Sally leading refugees from the Crossroads bottle dimension to hopefully a new home dimension. Which involves Alice and Thomas learning to love each other again after 50 years apart, and Alice learning to find a way to deal with Sally, who was more or less adopted by Thomas during the exile. 

About halfway through, after visiting the dimension where Sarah ended up dropping a college, they wind up back on Earth, where Rose and Mary wind up sending the trio to New York to help Verity and Dominic chase The Covenant out of New York and away from the dragons. 

The novella concerns James learning that Sally has been rescued, and dealing with his feelings therein. 

While the first half of the novel really doesn't quite feel as intense as previous novels in the series, the second half and the novella strike the chords I've come to love from this particular series. Really fun read.

A nightmare at midsummer.

 So, I actually finished Seanan McGuire's Be the Serpent Friday, but it's been a week. 

So, October and Tybalt are married and in bliss. Other than being summoned to Muir Woods for the debate on waking up Rayseline, who was last seen (awake) trying to kill off most of the court. Mind you, when October entered her dreams, a promise was made, which comes to the fore after she's wakened. Which is, essentially, Rayseline comes to be October's servant for a year, giving her a chance to heal. 

Which is all well and good until two of the court seers (sisters of Toby's best friend) start screaming in terror. Which leads to finding out one sister is dead, and the brothers are ok. 

Which is pretty much where the plot gets going, as we start digging deeper into the true nature of Fairie, and indeed, just about everyone in here ends up going off at Oberon at some point in time. (Frankly, he kind of has it coming.) 

Any rate, we get pretty deep into what actually caused the Broken Ride, or at least another perspective on it, and a hell of a lot of dirty laundry about the Courts and Claims of Oberon, Janet, Titania, and Maeve. We also get a really BIG freakin' cliffhanger after the main plot is mostly resolved. 

Then we get a really cool novella that explains the binding of Antigone the Sea Witch and how it came to be. 

While most people who've finished complain about the cliffhanger, I'm enjoying it, since I can't wait to find out what happens next. Particularly since the teaser we got prior to the book being released had me assuming this would be the book in which Antigone actually tries to kill October. It's not. Yet. 

Always fun, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Grandma Alice Kicks Some Butt

 Seanan McGuire returns to InCryptid with Spelunking Through Hell, this time focusing on dimension hopping Grandma Alice Healy. 

Grandma Alice has been seeking her husband, taken by the Crossroads, going on 50 years. Her Snake guy mentor keeps sending her in particular directions, and hunting bounties, but with the Crossroads dead, Alice ends up going another way with a chart she finds in another dimension (with voyeuristic intentions). 

What she finds is fascinating, and winds up with a happy reunion in a bottle world. You know, a roach motel dimension, where you get in, but can't get out. 

It's all very exciting, and that elderly people with some kind of magic can appear to be much younger. 

It's again, well written, and I look forward to the next book.

Wedding Bell Blues

 Seanan McGuire's When Sorrows Come finally completes the long time coming nuptials of Tybalt, King of Cats, and October Day, one of three known Dóchas sidhe, albeit by a human father. Given how long this plot has been simmering, it's nice to see a payoff on it.

Mind you, the wedding's in Toronto, and just about everyone who's not dead, imprisoned in a deep fairie realm, or in enchanted sleep shows up for it, just in time to get suckered into an attempted coup on the High King of the West by doppelgangers acting under orders from another shadowy figure. 

Which means we're basically reading Buffy the Vampire Slayer Gets Married. Which is not a bad thing, as Buffy (despite Joss Whedon's recent revelations) remains some of the best TV made. 

But, it does mean that much of the narrative is essentially a case of let's solve a mystery while we get to the grand event at the end, which climaxes with Toby and her wedding party facing down archers while wearing formal dress. It's an awesome spectacle, cheesy as can be, but none the less deserving of a bucket of popcorn and cheering. And the sheer numbers of cameos throughout the main book (and the novella at the end, which is less a novella and more an epilogue, since Toby narrates the reception), bring a lot of plots covered in the prior 14 book back to the forefront, showing Toby how her unusual choices have lead to better outcomes for people who would otherwise not have had them. 

As to where this goes next, I cannot say. McGuire has stated she knows where October's story ends, but this seems much more of a resting point than a finale. I look forward to how this continues.

Bad Jhorlac!

 I'm always so happy when Seanan McGuire releases a new book, and Calculated Risks did not let me down.

Picking up where Imaginary Numbers left off, Sarah, the Price family Cuckoo is tied to a chair in another dimension surrounded by people who have forgotten who she is. As such, most of the action takes place over roughly two days, as they try to find survivors among the University of Iowa campus that got transported with them, find the locals, and figure out how to get home. All while dealing with Clydesdale sized spiders, locals who while humanoid, aren't, flying millipedes, and the remnants of the Jhorlac race, all of whom got reduced to burnt out husks by the spell that crossed the dimensions. 

Through the course of this, we get more details on Cuckoo/Jhorlac and Lilu (incubus/succubus) history and physiology, as well as Sarah finally figuring out that the family will like her regardless. We close with a novella set before book 1, as Antimony, Sarah, and Artie go to emerald City Comic Con with Verity in tow to track down a siren. 

This is a wonderfully weird series that never fails to charm. Sarah, despite not being wired like a normal human, remains relatable none the less, and her pain is well conveyed through the narration. 

Well done. Read this series.

A rose in winter stilll smells of rose

 I actually finished Seanan McGuire's A Killing Frost last week, but given I was on vacation...

 Again, we're back in October Daye's liminal world of fairie, and we're still waiting on our Dochas Sidhe changeling to marries her cait sidhe suitor.  

This time, she gets sidetracked by a quest out of the Kingdom of Saltmist, as Dianda points out her fey father Simon (who was good, then lost his way again) has to approve or he can claim insult. This sends Toby running around stirring up several hornet's nests to find Simon again, then figure out how to give him his way back. (Which involves finding something REALLY important, which becomes the point of the book by the end.) 

Anyway, since it is October, everything works out fairly well in the end, with quite a few surprises along the way. Hopefully the next book shows us more of what the repercussions of those are, since I'm kind of curious as to what happens now.

Cocoa for Cuckoo puffs!

In a nice break from the current situation, I finished Seanan McGuire's Imaginary Numbers, book 9 in her InCryptid series. Here, we're following our favorite Jhorlac, Sarah, who is mostly recovered from wiping the memories of most of New York City 5 years ago. For the most part. We also spend some time with Cousin Artie, the half-Lilu incubus, who's relationship with Sarah borders on soap opera.

So, we start with Sarah traveling from Cleveland to Portland and the family compound. When she lands in Portland, she runs into another Cuckoo, whom she promptly beats the crap out of. That order of business taken care of, Sarah reunites with Antimony and her gang at Roller Derby. She and Artie drive back to the compound, having an accident along the way caused by the Cuckoo from the airport.

Long story short, Sarah gets lured out of the compound by the hive of Cuckoos in Portland, who are trying to make her evolve into a Queen. Sort of. (Jhorlacs are sort of humanoid wasps from another dimension, so there are a few insect metaphors in here that get more complex as the plot begins to resolve. For the sake of keeping this simple, run with this.)

Anyway, this all happens after Sarah and Artie finally admit to their feelings and kiss. Which is when Artie becomes the focus of the narration for a while, as he and the family deal with the fake Sarah in the living room and the great Cuckoo rite they're trying to get Sarah to run.

Eventually, Artie and Sarah start trading chapters as somehow everyone ends up in Iowa and Sarah starts the metamorphosis into her fourth and final instar. We end on kind of a cliffhanger, although based on several mentions of the Aeslin mice in both the main novel and the Follow the Lady novella tucked in at the end, one expects that they might be able to resolve some of the conflict unanswered at the end.

Said novella takes place between the last book and this one, as Antimony, Sam, James, Fern, and Cylia break down near the Healy family hometown in Michigan and meet Grandma Alice. While the main novel is very good, the novella has the gut punch for me, as Antimony finally discusses how she feels like the expendable spare in the family.

Once again, a great entry in one of my favorite series.

Fi-diddley-dee, a sailor's life for me

So, book 13 of Seanan McGuire's October Daye novels finally landed, and I finally finished The Unkindest Tide.

The basic set up is Octopber and friends travel out to a knowe/demesne out in the Pacific so that Luidaig can keep her promise to restore her children, the Roane, from those who wear their skins, the Selkies.

What we end up with is a mild murder mystery topped with the overthrow of Saltmist by Dianda's brother. We also get to meet the Firstborn of the Merrow in the process. Oh yes, and a bonus novella at the end shows us Raj's fun while everyone is at sea, and gives us a date of 2014 when all this is going on.

Honestly, it's a fun read, which again succeeds in humanizing the Sea Witch, and giving us a few plot hooks for future volumes, as October has to make a deal with Luidaig to go save Saltmist early on.

I'm always amazed as how entertaining this series is as it stretches onwards among the author's many projects.

(As a side note, while I did start a new book, if I don't finish it by Monday, it will be paused as I read a different book as part of an online book club. Updates may be spotty.)

That Old Black Magic

I was happy to see Seanan McGuire's That Ain't Witchcraft show up at the library this past week, finishing for the time being Antimony's part of the larger story. that there's a bonus Novella at the end bringing us back to her brother Alex was just an added bonus.

Anyway, We pick up with Antimony and her cohorts after fleeing Lowryland at the end of the last installment. Somehow, Cylia, the jink, has managed to get them a house to rent for a few month in Maine while the owner goes to Europe. This works out well, as Fern, the Sylph, has a bedroom she won't float out of and Antimony and Sam have a private bedroom.

Unfortunately, This doesn't work out as well as everyone would like, since James Smith, the cousin of the landlord, is A) a sorcerer with ice powers, and B) wanted dead by the Crossroads. Which, since Antimony made a deal with said magical entity towards the end of the last book, means she gets tasked with killing him. And Aunt Mary, the Crossroads ghost, gets banished by said entity and replaced by Bethany, who read a bit like a ghostly Harley Quinn. That we find out she's Aunt Rose's sister later on....

And then Leonard shows up. Leonard, who's in line to take over the Covenant of St. George.

By the end of the main story, we have quite a bit of teaming up as we find out the true nature of the Crossroads in the InCryptid setting.

The Novella, The Measure of a Monster, focuses again on Alex and his fiancee Shelby, and some missing Gorgon children. Which is also a lot of fun.

I'm glad this series is going strong, even if I do worry about the next volume, focusing on Sarah, the Cookoo/Jhorlac cousin. Given the species love of higher maths, I'm hoping calculus isn't a requirement for the plot.

Again, can't recommend this series highly enough. There have been a few missteps, but it's still fun reading that never fails to entertain.

Salt and moonlight

I'm happy Seanan McGuire hasn't retired October Daye yet, and Night and Silence is more evidence that the series still has legs 12 volumes in.

We pick up not long after the events of the last volume, with Tybalt and Jazz (October's fiance and her fetch's girlfriend, respectively), unable to process being kidnapped and locked into their animal forms at the hands of October's mother. Her Liege, Sylvester, is still unhappy about his brother Simon. And, as we open this volume, October's estranged daughter has been kidnapped again.

We find out about Gillian's kidnapping when October's ex husband and his new wife Miranda show up on her doorstep not long past dawn. What we have is a blood filled car, vandalism of both Gillian's car and her residence, and a really intrusive roommate. Oh, and all of Gillian's stuff at Berkeley has sachets of anti-fae herbs, making everyone in the party sick.

Along the path of tracking down Gillian, we meet a Baobhan Sith who had been trapped as a booby trap, and find a place that shouldn't exist that features a house on chicken legs.

Oh yes, and we get more on how the Roane became Selkies and Maeve's Last Ride.

All in all, othe rthan the villains being from out of left field, it's an excellent addition to a fabulous series.

It's a small world after alll

I was happy to see Seanan McGuire's new InCrypted volume was being released, even if the library wasn't getting a copy, requiring buying a copy which leads to the more targeted advertising e-mails. Which is neither here nor there.

Once again, Tricks for Free centers on Antimony Price, the youngest of the Price siblings, who was last seen hitchhiking towards Florida after burning down a carnival that the Covenant of St. George was targeting for a purge. Now, we find her getting a job at Lowryland (a competitor to DisneyWorld) thanks to some HR intervention on behalf of a random encounter with a cheerleader she went to high school with. Thankfully, she's now sharing company owned apartment life with a sylph and a Pliny's Gorgon, with whom she shares some background thanks to her brother Alex's work with Gorgons and with her own Roller Derby days.

Unfortunately, a late night roller skate through the park with Fern (the sylph Roller Derby girl), ends up with them stumbling across a dead stabbing victim, which in turn leads to attention to Annie from the cabal of magic users who run the park. Including a sorcerer who offers to train Annie to keep her from accidentally setting guests on fire or some such.

Which is fine, since control means not having to deal with night fires. Unfortunately, this also leads to such things as finding her magic is missing when unfortunate events start cropping up in her vicinity, like hot fryers exploding on workers, parade floats collapsing and killing guests and workers...

Aunt Mary (a crossroads ghost) ends up bringing in Annie's furi boyfriend Sam to Florida, and Fern ends up getting a Roller Derby jinks involved in what ends up being free for all vs the cabal behind the scenes at Lowryland.

As an added bonus, we get a novella tucked in at the end detailing parts of the journey of Mork and Mindy, the Aeslin mice Annie left in Sam's care with instructions to get them back to Portland, which also details Sam's encounters with Aunt Mary.

Again, a fast moving and fun entry into the series, which again ends with some seeds for whatever is coming next.

I knew Oregon was bad....

I found out a while back that Seanan McGuire had written a novel based on an RPG game and my interest was piqued. While I've never played DeadLands, I know enough people who have to have a very general idea of the setting, and hey, it's Ms. McGuire, who's writing I enjoy.

My lack of familiarity of with the setting was a bit of an issue for a few bits in Boneyard, although I caught the gist of the timeline changes. (The biggest one was that in this setting Deseret never became Utah and became a sovereign nation.)

Anyway, the plot mainly concerns Annie Pearl, Mistress of Oddities at the Blackstone Family Circus. Her daughter, Adelaide, is mute, but learned to sign from a Sioux who traveled with the circus. Annie has a past hidden in the City of Salt Lake, but no one in the circus is aware of it. Indeed, when we join the circus, they're traveling from Idaho to Oregon for what promises to be the last show of the season in a settlement known as The Clearing. Set into a bowl, The Clearing has a bit of a reputation, as most acts come out with full coffers, but rumor holds that about one in four acts that go through have problems.

And this being a novel, Blackstone is one of the tours that has issues.

Chief among those issues are the monsters that sweep out of the woods and kidnap several members of the circus. Not that Annie is there for this, since Adelaide wandered off into the woods on her own earlier. However, Annie gets joined in her search for her daughter by one of the circus roustabouts, Martin, who's girlfriend Sophia wound up being kidnapped by the monsters. Out in the woods, Annie's pet Lynx, Tranquility (a gift from her ex husband), protects them during an attack long enough to get Martin and Annie to the door of Hal, once one of The Clearing, now a hermit in the woods. And his story is a doozy.

Seems that the woods are filled with spirits of hunger that possess people and fill them with the urge to eat people. (Because People who eat people are the loneliest people...) AKA they become Wendigo. Hal's wife and daughter became Wendigo after he got hurt in the woods.

Adelaide, on the other hand, a few adventures later, is found amongst the wolf like things that also haunt the woods.

And then there's Annie's still current husband, Michael, who comes to Oregon from Deseret to take back his daughter for the benefit of their other daughter. (This is another place the setting needed a bit. Seems there's a bit of Steampunk in the world, since the wagons are steam powered.) His employer, Dr. Hellestromme, seems to like Michael's work.

In the end, one of the scenes I expected is played out, although not in a way I predicted it, and we again deal with one of the themes of golem creation: sometimes, man is the monster, particularly when the monsters are just filling their role in the world.

While the book is really readable, there are a few bits where you can hear the dice rolling in the background. And a bit more exposition on setting would have helped. 

Death be not proud

I forget what drew me to check out Seanan McGuire's Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day, but it wound up being pretty good for being a particularly slim volume.

So, the story concerns Jenna, who died in the 70's, not long after her sister Patty died. As a ghost, Jenna ran off to New York City from Mill Hollow, Kentucky, to try to find her sister. Now in the modern age, Jenna works as both a barista and a suicide prevention councilor on a phone line. She has a rent controlled apartment owned by a long dead Jewish landlady and a collection of elderly cats.

Ghosts in this setting have the ability to give and take time. The terminology gets a bit confusing, but essentially amounts to say, taking a few years off of one person making them younger then giving them to another person, making them older. When a ghost starts approaching the age they should have died at, a red flag appears to them and they have the choice of stealing time or going on to what awaits. (Ghosts are just as clueless about the afterlife as the living.)

Jenna tends to give youth in increments of how much time she gave to people on the suicide line. (Like a waitress whom she takes 47 minutes from after keeping a caller on the line for 47 minutes.)

Jenna tends to hang out at a cafeteria after work, which is how she knows Brenda, a Corn Witch; and Sophie, a Rat Witch.

Eventually this leads to the realization that Jenna and her landlady are the only two ghosts left in New York City, and her one ghost friend Danny (who like me if I were a ghost in New York City, works at Midtown comics) has fled.

This leads to a road trip to find out what's going on, and an exploration of some of the other ghost myths floating around. (Mainly one about covering mirrors to keep the dead from getting trapped when they die.)

It's really a bittersweet read, with the theme being one of homecoming. It may be short, but it packs a mean left hook.

Tying up loose ends by unravelling others

So, Since I guess there's been some local chatter about the drop in posts since the last one, I've had bronchitis, which put me on antibiotics and cough syrup. Neither of which makes me all that excited to focus on anything other than my eyelids. Also, bronchitis fills me with the urge to read Steven King's The Stand, although the only copy I have at the house in the original, not the later complete edition. And believe me there is a difference, although one could only wish that the original had cut some of the journey back to boulder. No, it's just as long and overdone in both version.

None of which has to do with the novel and novella I'm actually reviewing here.

Seanan McGuire wrote another October Daye Novel, The Brightest Fell, which also contains "Of Things Unknown", which concerns April O'Leary of Tamed Lightning.

The big section concerns Toby being sent on a quest not particularly willingly by her mother Amandine. Who wants Toby to find her sister August, who wondered off on the Babylon road about 100 years prior seeking to open the gates to Deeper Fairie and Oberon. In order to guarantee her cooperation, Amy forces Tybalt into Cat form and Jazz into Raven form and locks them in cages.

This requires waking one of her nemesis from elf shot to gain his assistance. That would be Simon, who turned her into a fish for several years at the beginning of the series. Simon is also August's father, and thus the best choice to assist in finding her.

Simon's twin brother, Sylvester does bind him prior to waking, ensuring his cooperation.

From here it gets ugly. The quest takes them from Amy's tower, through pixie land (where we find out Simon had helped relocate the pixies) , to Blind Michael's realm and to Anwyn, last seen being locked off to trap a psycho duchess. In the course of this journey, we catch up with characters still dwelling in these realms. Including a police officer who's been trapped in Anwyn since the realm was sealed again.

And back into San Franciso, where August is eventually found, another deal with the Luidaig is sealed, and some very ugly conclusions are reached.

And then we move into "Of Things Unknown", where in CyberDryad April figures out a way to release the souls trapped on servers to their bodies. What she succeeds at doing will likely have repercussions down the line.

Again, it's a well written a book in a well written series. I'm kind of curious which of the new threads she intends to start weaving with next.

I sense a motif in my reading

Seanan McGuire returned to her InCryptid series with Magic for Nothing. Which I have now finished, sitting in the backyard enjoying 70 degree weather.

Unlike the previous five volumes, this one doesn't center on Alex or Verity, instead we're following around their youngest sister, Antimony Price. You know, the one who build traps for fun.

We pick up not long after the conclusion of Chaos Choreography, with Verity killing a snake god on live TV then declaring war on the Covenant of St. George.

Which winds up causing issues for Antimony, who gets pulled out of Roller Derby practice to be given her marching orders. As the one in the bloodline who looks least like the rest of the family, she gets sent to England to be recruited to join the Covenant and find out what their plans are for the Price-Healey family.

Which she eventually does, giving us probably the clearest picture of another sect of monster hunters since Alex's trip down under. (Given the covenant has been kind of a Boogeyman since the outset, this has been kind of necessary, particularly given their only other antagonistic appearance back in Book 2.)

Antimony goes undercover as Timpani Brown, lately of the Black Family Carnival, who were taken out by Apraxis Wasps. She does eventually get into the Covenant, where we get a better picture of the Covenant and their European ideas on Monsters, regardless of intelligence, needing to die to protect humanity. And Antimony, and we as readers, get to see them as humans instead of cardboard bad guys.

At the end of her training, Antimony gets sent to infiltrate the The Spenser and Smith Family Carnival, currently in Madison, Wisconsin, to figure out whether or not the Carnival is somehow involved in the mysterious disappearances of some of the local boys.

Antimony ends up growing close to the half Monkeyboy Sam, grandson of the owner. All of which comes crashing down in the final few chapters as the Covenant comes in to Purge the Carnival.

It's really well written, and Antimony makes a good character, better than the occasional references thrown out in previous books. While a few of the twists were expected, the way they came around were not only mostly natural, but unexpected in the forms they took, which is an added bonus. That she manages to add in bits of surreal humor in really serious passages helps quite a bit as well. (Case in point, as the action approaches the climax, Antimony drops in on the Carnival's resident Wadjet [males are giant cobras, females are fairly human looking], only to observe one of the males on the bed watching NetFlix on a tablet. The mental pictures she provides of a giant cobra using a stylus between its coils is perfection.)

I'll admit, while I was amused by this series from the start, other than a plot trigger in book 2, I'm happy the series has come this far and look very much forward to book 7, which will evidently also center on Antimony.