Half-Off Ragnarok: InCryptid, Book 3

This, Seanan McGuire's third Incryptid book, has a very different feel from the first two, Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue-Light Special. A lot of that has to do with the central point-of-view character. In the first two books, it is Verity Price (the Arboreal Priestess, as she is known to the Aeslin Mice). Verity is a paint-outside-the-lines kind of girl. The POV character in Half-Off Ragnarok is Verity's older brother Alex (God of Scales and Silences). Alex, in the way of first children, is much more about painting inside the lines. Now, it must be realized that the lines we're talking about here are not those recognized by society in general, but only those of the Price family, which makes them quite generous. Still, there's no doubt that Alex is a relatively controlled presence compared to Verity.The second reason for the different feel is that McGuire has a different narrative problem to solve now. In Discount Armageddon, of course, she had the problem of introducing the entire Incryptid world. That includes telling us that the world is liberally infested with "cryptids", who are either monsters or specially gifted and peculiar people, depending on your point of view. In fact, many of the characters in the Incryptid books are themselves cryptids. So this means that, in addition to introducing her own urban fantasy world, McGuire needs to tell us all about a rather large bestiary of unfamiliar quasi-magical beings. And she also need to introduce the Price family and their main global antagonists, the Covenant of St George. Give this task to Verity and you end up with wild stories full of assorted mayhem.In Half-Off Ragnarok we meet no new beast types (well, maybe some minor ones). The main expository task is different -- it is now to better introduce the Price family. (By the way, the best way to get to know the Healy and Price families is to read McGuire's short stories, most available for free download from her web site. I have not read them all yet, but have read the ones not flagged "Best read after Half-Off Ragnarok".) In Half-Off Ragnarok we get to know the family of Alex and Verity's mother, Evelyn Baker, because Alex lives with his maternal grandparents Martin and Angela Baker, who are, as Luthe would say, not quite mortal. Martin is a revenant -- a re-stitched-together human. Angela is a Johrlac/Cuckoo telepath. (This, BTW, we already learned in Discount Armageddon.) They are not fertile, but have three adopted children: Evelyn and Drew, whom we do not meet, and Sarah, another Cuckoo, whom we met in Discount Armageddon, who was injured in Midnight Blue-Light Special and is now living with her mother to recover. We also learn, although it plays no part in this book, that Alex and Verity's paternal aunt Jane Rose Price is married to an incubus. That apparently is a fertile union, since Alex has two cousins, Elsinore and Arty. We have heard a lot about Arty since he and Sarah have a relationship.All right, what about the story? Well, it is actually a mystery story, a whodunit. I can neither confirm nor deny that it is a murder mystery, but it is something in that general ballpark. So, much more structured than the generalized supernatural violence of the first two books. Still a lot of fun, though.The character of Alex is a little annoying. He talks a lot about being a scientist. But he doesn't feel like an authentic scientist to me, just one who plays a scientist on TV (or in novels).

HAIL! Welcome to the celebration of the defeat of the petrifying one and the introduction of a future priestess to the Gods of Scales and Silence. Gather round as honorary acolyte Robin of Bridge Four recites the tale.The God of Scales and Silence was summoned by the Elder Heartless One to Ohio to help heal the Younger Heartless One after she heroically saved the Aboreal Priestess from capture by the Covenant. Luckily there was also a zoo in need of our God’s services and a secret program to mate creatures that can turn you to stone.It was a time of many nights of Science Rules - “no rejoicing, no dropping what you’re working on to race off and join a spontaneous parade in honor of the Violent Priestess, no asking complex theological questions when you’re supposed to be focusing on your job.”. The Petrifying beast stalked the place of exotic animal cages for his quarry and lo some victims were found and our god was in danger. Hail! That our God was up to the challenge because in the words of the god of Unexpected Situations*** “Yes, that’s a brilliant idea. Choose the career path most likely to lead to an early, painful death, and you’re sure to find job satisfaction.” ***With the help of the potential Priestess Shelby and the assistant with dangerous hair our God set out to find the beast and slay it.The potential Priestess did not like the Heartless Ones and thought to save our god. The Elder Heartless one disliked her immediately but the Younger Heartless one liked her and won her over to believing that she would not brainwash her.*** “She saved his life, Angie,” said Grandpa gently. “Put the crossbow down.” “I like her,” said Sarah. “Blonde ladies with guns remind me of Verity. I miss Verity. Will she be back from dance camp soon?” ***Much running around was done and there were negotiations with the people of Snake Hair to find the petrifying beast. Not all told the truth and there were some lies. But our God was brave and smart and even though someone tried to turn him to stone, burn him like a candle and take the potential priestess away he persevered until the perpetrator was found.The rest of the sermon will be delivered after Cheese and Cake and a Disney inspired dance number.Um so if you didn’t get the Alex and Shelby are dating, someone is turning people around Alex to stone and since he is a Price he has to find them and put a stop to it before the Covenent notices and sends someone to look into it as we are running out of single Prices to throw at them for conversion by relationship. They sleuth around a bit to find the perpetrator and then there is a big showdown.Very cool things of note in this book were:The church Griffin Crow – Alex’s pet and a mix between a Cat and Bird.*** (Crow got his name from my youngest sister, Antimony. I originally called him “Poe,” as in “Edgar Allen.” Antimony took one look at him and demanded to know how I could be so uncreative as to name a black-feathered griffin “Crow.” It annoyed me enough that I defended my name choice without pausing to consider the fact that it wasn’t my name choice, and it stuck. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure that was her intention all along. My baby sister is devious enough to make your average bogeyman seem like an open book.) ***Then there is Chandi who looks like an eight year old girl but comes to the zoo to visit her big cobra looking Fiancé (not kidding)There is also all this time with Sarah as she is recovering that was both hilarious and sad all at the same time. I loved most of the things she said even when some of them seemed like nonsense.*** “What are you doing here? This isn’t your room.” “The moon doesn’t approve of the screaming in the cornfield,” she said. She sounded entirely reasonable, as long as I ignored the fact that she was talking like a book of Mad Libs. “Have you seen the Queen of Hearts today? Does she have the treacle tarts?” ***It did take me a minute to get used to Alex as the PoV but then I was totally into the change up in the story and loved it. Plus Shelby is kind of awesome so I’m totally in for the next book in the series. I actually like this series more than October Daye.

I really enjoyed reading this book, the sense of tension is teased through twists and turns, hitting you with the unexpected right when it matters.An easy buy if you've read the previous entries in the series.

This series of books is interesting and you will also find this author's other series very good too. This book was interesting and a good amusing read.

After two books with Verity Price, a cryptozoologist, ballroom dancer and all a round bad ass, it's time to meet another member of her eccentric family, her elder brother Alex Price. Unlike Verity, Alex stays under the radar making sure to do nothing which would draw the attention of any enemies the Price family have, he works as an amphibian specialist at a zoo caring for the zoo animals and at the same time looking after any cryptic (supernatural species Gorgons, Basilisks, Bogeyman etc). For the last three months he has been eating a colleague from the zoo named Shel!ey, who works with the big cats and is on secondment from Australia, all has not been well in the relationship as he keeps having to duck out on dates and fudge the truth to hide his work with the cryptids. He cannot even invite her to his home since he joined in with his grandparents to help them care for his cousin Sarah, a Cuckoo, who was injured severely in the last book. He keeps waiting for Shelley to get red up with him and call their relationship quite knowing it's only a matter of time as he can see the signs that she is getting fed up with his constant excuses. Then everything changes, a co worked is found dead, he's been partially turned to stone which means the death is the result of a cryptid and as it occurred on the zoo grounds it's unlikely to have been accidental. That's just the beginning of a rollercoaster ride of excitement, thrills, danger and humor . Alex is just as entertaining as his sister, we get to meet the grandparents (no spoilers) who are amazing and Shelley is another strong determined female who can well good her own in Alex's crazy world. I found this whole series a fantastic read such an interesting spin on urban fantasy it makes a change from all the vampire and shifter stories. The next book is laid an Alex story and then we get the books I'm dying to read Verity and Alex's younger sister Antimony who sounds (on paper) absolutely amazing with her out traps and poisons. Only complaint i had to go elsewhere for the next three books in the series as they are not available on kindle.

Well, I enjoyed the first two, so despite some lukewarm reviews I bought this one anyway, and I'm really glad I did. The characters are strong, well-written, work well together, there are some splendid new creatures, and to compensate for a shortage of Aislin Mice we meet Crow, who is magnificent. Waiting for the next one with reduced patience now.

This read better than the other books in the Incryptid series, partly because the background didn't really need to be established as in the earlier books, but also because there was no attempt to introduce quite so many cryptids (or monsters!) and we learnt much more about the ones who did feature - they did develop as characters. I loved Alex's grandparents! It was good to see Sarah's story continued from a different slant.