I had more I wanted to say about this novel, but I’ve lost track of where I was going with a few of the paragraphs I started. Which is annoying. I could spend another two weeks to figure out what those points were going to be and get further behind, or I could post this with a lot of what I wanted to talk about and be able to move on with my To Write list.
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Calculated Risksby Seanan McGuire Mass Market Paperback, 353 pg. Read: February 26-March 3, 2021 |
“I have so many knives,” said Annie. “I am the Costco of having knives. You really want to provoke me right now, cuckoo-boy?”
“I am not a good place to store your knives,” he said. “I don’t know how many times I need to tell you this, but sticking knives in living people just because they say something you don’t like is the reason no one likes you or the rest of your fucked-up family.”
What’s Calculated Risks About?
So, the cliffhanger ending of Imaginary Numbers led to Sarah Zellaby transporting herself, her adopted cousins Artie, Annie, James, and a fellow cuckoo, Mark, to an alternate universe. Part of that transporting resulted in Sarah being deleted from their memories.
Which is a pretty inconvenient thing to do. Sarah has to spend a lot of time convincing the Prices (and friends) to not kill her. And then she has to earn their trust. Just so they can all survive long enough to allow her to attempt to return them to their home dimension.
Of course, they have to learn how magic works in this reality, find ways to survive the indigenous flora and fauna, and try to keep the humans that were dragged along with them alive, without breaking their minds by realizing where they are.
The Mice!
You can’t talk about an InCryptid novel without talking about the Aeslin Mice. As usual, they were a delight. But better than that, their presence is important for the plot. But not important enough—they almost vanish for most of the book, but what they do at the beginning of the novel allows everything else to happen (and is frequently invoked), so it’s hard to complain. But I’d have like to see them a bit more.
Nature vs. Nurture
One of the givens of this world is that the Johrlac (aka cuckoo) are nasty, territorial, apex predators that must be killed. With the exception of Sarah and Angela Baker. And now, Mark. Something about their circumstances has allowed them to not fall into the mind-controlling sociopath mold that every other one has been fit into.
So…why? What’s made them different? It can’t be something inherent in them, as we’re told time after time after time, the various members of this species are so similar that they’re practically interchangeable. So is it something in their environment? Or are they just individuals like humans, gorgons, or dragons? And as such, shouldn’t the Prices abandon their stab first-ask questions later approach to these? Sarah starts to ask questions like this in this novel, and I’m hoping it’s revisited soon.
So, what did I think about Calculated Risks?
I hate it when people tell me not to be afraid. They never do that when something awesome is aout to happen. No one says “dont’ be afraid” and hands you an ice cream cone, or a kitten, or tickets to Comic-Con.
This was a fun adventure—making up for whatever reservations I had about Imaginary Numbers—and together they serve as a good follow-up to the Annie-trilogy that preceded it.
The last chapter was a perfect way to end it, a great mix of magic, hope, and heart. My heart didn’t grow three sizes or anything, but it was certainly warmed.
I have no idea where this series is headed, and I don’t care, I’m eager to find out. There’s nothing like this in Urban Fantasy, McGuire tells different stories with this series, the kind that show what the genre is capable of when it breaks outside the typical mold (nothing against that mold, I love it).
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