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booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
IMAGINARY NUMBERS is the kind of book you wait all series to get, but can only achieve so triumphantly with the necessary eight books of prelude to make it all so satisfying. The cryptids all other cryptids fear have turned their attention to Sarah with a problem only she can solve. Is anyone truly ready for the answer?
This is my favorite so far. I think I've said that for the past few reviews, and I still love Antimony as a narrator, but I've been waiting for everything in this book since the beginning. It has Johrlacs, it has Sarah, it has Artie. It has Artie and Sarah! I've wanted Sarah as a narrator since she was first introduced to the series, Babylon 5 lent her a moral code and it gave me my love of telepaths, so this was very exciting for me personally. I'm glad to meet Artie in the context of Sarah, since the series has teased the reality of their close friendship and the potential of a romantic relationship so much without giving many details about what Artie is actually like. It was a little strange to be centered around a different branch of the family with everyone's titles shifting around, but I got used to it pretty quickly.
This wraps up a few things left hanging from the last book, but the main thing that is does in terms of continuing existing plot threads is finally introduce Sarah's perspective, and give a lot more information about Johrlacs. I've been waiting for Sarah's in particular for a long time, basically since she first appeared at the beginning of the series. The main storyline starts here and wasn't present in the last one, but the setup before the inciting incident is the culmination of events from almost the beginning of the series. I'm having a little trouble assessing whether it has a major thing introduced and resolved here, because it has a real "part one of two" feeling, especially given how it ends. Lots of major things are introduced, and then transformed, but not all the way resolved. It's far enough into the series that I'm very happy about this, it's time for a cliffhanger and the series can handle it (whether I can handle it is a separate question, I need the next book immediately). The narrator changed, we actually get two narrators this time. I won't spoil who the second one is. Occasionally I had trouble telling who was narrating when it switched, but I generally knew within two pages. It only switches at chapter breaks, so that helped. This would not make sense if someone started here and didn't know about the series already. As I mentioned previously, this follows up something that had a very dramatic start early in the series and has been developing in the background for a long time. It then uses that to set up a bunch of information that anyone who's been reading along will be very excited to learn... but would feel like a massive and possibly unwieldly infodump for anyone who tries to start here. Sarah's story has been so important to the other stories, even if she's just in the background (like in Antimony's books) that this will read very differently to anyone who tries to make this their starting point.
I loved the new information about the Johrlacs, it's spread out through the text enough to be very satisfying for anyone keeping up with the series. It's everything I've wanted to know and more, and it's all so so relevant to the plot.
This has a really great and funny way to casually learn that a minor character is queer, it's a tiny moment but I think it's my favorite non-traumatic thing in the book.
I think the ending is perfect for the book, but it's emotionally terrible for me because I hate having to wait for cliffhangers, so I'm glad I'm reading this when the next book is already released. It's truly the best way for this to end, because the stuff set up here is too much to have fit neatly into one book. It needs room to breathe and this gives it that narrative space... and I'll be reading this next one as soon as I possibly can.
This is my favorite so far. I think I've said that for the past few reviews, and I still love Antimony as a narrator, but I've been waiting for everything in this book since the beginning. It has Johrlacs, it has Sarah, it has Artie. It has Artie and Sarah! I've wanted Sarah as a narrator since she was first introduced to the series, Babylon 5 lent her a moral code and it gave me my love of telepaths, so this was very exciting for me personally. I'm glad to meet Artie in the context of Sarah, since the series has teased the reality of their close friendship and the potential of a romantic relationship so much without giving many details about what Artie is actually like. It was a little strange to be centered around a different branch of the family with everyone's titles shifting around, but I got used to it pretty quickly.
This wraps up a few things left hanging from the last book, but the main thing that is does in terms of continuing existing plot threads is finally introduce Sarah's perspective, and give a lot more information about Johrlacs. I've been waiting for Sarah's in particular for a long time, basically since she first appeared at the beginning of the series. The main storyline starts here and wasn't present in the last one, but the setup before the inciting incident is the culmination of events from almost the beginning of the series. I'm having a little trouble assessing whether it has a major thing introduced and resolved here, because it has a real "part one of two" feeling, especially given how it ends. Lots of major things are introduced, and then transformed, but not all the way resolved. It's far enough into the series that I'm very happy about this, it's time for a cliffhanger and the series can handle it (whether I can handle it is a separate question, I need the next book immediately). The narrator changed, we actually get two narrators this time. I won't spoil who the second one is. Occasionally I had trouble telling who was narrating when it switched, but I generally knew within two pages. It only switches at chapter breaks, so that helped. This would not make sense if someone started here and didn't know about the series already. As I mentioned previously, this follows up something that had a very dramatic start early in the series and has been developing in the background for a long time. It then uses that to set up a bunch of information that anyone who's been reading along will be very excited to learn... but would feel like a massive and possibly unwieldly infodump for anyone who tries to start here. Sarah's story has been so important to the other stories, even if she's just in the background (like in Antimony's books) that this will read very differently to anyone who tries to make this their starting point.
I loved the new information about the Johrlacs, it's spread out through the text enough to be very satisfying for anyone keeping up with the series. It's everything I've wanted to know and more, and it's all so so relevant to the plot.
This has a really great and funny way to casually learn that a minor character is queer, it's a tiny moment but I think it's my favorite non-traumatic thing in the book.
I think the ending is perfect for the book, but it's emotionally terrible for me because I hate having to wait for cliffhangers, so I'm glad I'm reading this when the next book is already released. It's truly the best way for this to end, because the stuff set up here is too much to have fit neatly into one book. It needs room to breathe and this gives it that narrative space... and I'll be reading this next one as soon as I possibly can.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Blood, and Gore
Moderate: Kidnapping, Car accident, Gun violence, Violence, Torture, Child death, and Death
Minor: Ableism and Death of parent
wardenred's review
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Human morality is only absolute because the humans won the war to see who would be the dominant species of this planet. We live by the moral and ethical standards of a species whose dominion is built on bones.
InCryptid has never been my favorite out of all Seanan McGuire's series, but I've found it enjoyable. The Antimony books in particular pulled me in. At this point, however, I'm finding myself a bit... fatigued?
On one hand, this book had plenty of cool stuff. All the family dynamics between some of my favorite characters, getting to finally learn more about Cuckoos, the mathematical descriptions (I'm the opposite of a math person, but I love watching how mathematically inclined minds work)—plenty to love! At its core, however, it was the same story I've already read by McGuire, within the same series and beyond. Nature vs nurture, what is a monster, the morality of a dominant species isn't the only morality out there, family sticks together, hold on, you're coming home. Those are all concepts that touch me deeply. I love them in books. I constantly look for stories that show them at new angles, explore them through different lenses. Here, though, I felt like I got nothing new or different.
There were other things I found issue with, like the way all that new exciting information was constantly rehashed, injecting just a bit novelty into each new conversation about instar. Also, how weird is it that a bunch of biologists/people constantly surrounded by talkative biologists didn't know what instar was until they googled it or asked each other or stole it from someone's mind? I know the equivalent of the word in my native language, and I know it from school. It was somewhere in grade 8, I think, that we studied the stages of insect development. Biology wasn't my best subject, I was never interested in it and I got very average marks, so I assume that's not something advanced. Then again, maybe it's a school system difference or something.
Come to think of it, though, the book was overall full of those heavy-handed "As you know, Bob" conversations that were obviously only needed to cue the reader in. There was very little reason for people with a more or less similar degree of knowledge in a subject to start half of their conversations with, "So here's a crash course into this and that area. While I monologue, you can sit around and think about how you grew up learning these things." This kind of thing really breaks immersion for me, because while as a reader I appreciate getting crash courses into some of these things, I get this feeling that the characters are suddenly dropping everything in the middle of tense moment of their lives and stage a show to educate me instead of moving on with the tension and letting me worry for them. Seeing this, to such an extent, in a book by an author I genuinely love and admire and always name as my absolute favorite was a bit jarring. I'm not sure if I may have been more forgiving if it was a book by an author I didn't already hold to a very high standard, or if, instead, in that case I would simply quit in the middle. The sad thing is that I'm leaning toward the latter.
I still liked parts of the book, and I'm curious about how this arc continues—the ending was very open, to say the least. But I guess I should accept that the InCryptid series is super hit or miss for me, and while the "hit" books hit super hard and make me love them forever, the "miss" books are just really off the mark.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Death
Minor: Torture
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