Monday, February 24, 2014

Book Review: Half-Off Ragnarok (InCryptid #3) by Seanan McGuire

Half-Off Ragnarok (InCryptid #3)
by Seanan McGuire
Paperback, 368 pages
Expected publication: March 4th 2014 by DAW

When Alex Price agreed to go to Ohio to oversee a basilisk breeding program and assist in the recovery of his psychic cousin, he didn't expect people to start dropping dead. But bodies are cropping up at the zoo where he works, and his girlfriend—Shelby Tanner, an Australian zoologist with a fondness for big cats—is starting to get suspicious.

Worse yet, the bodies have all been turned partially to stone...

The third book in the InCryptid series takes us to a new location and a new member of the family, as Alex tries to balance life, work, and the strong desire not to become a piece of garden statuary. Old friends and new are on the scene, and danger lurks around every corner.

Of course, so do the talking mice

Alex Price travels to Ohio to oversee the breeding program for the Bisilisk's and while doing that, bodies start turning up but they're not just dead, they've been half turned to stone.

This is the third book in the InCryptid series and I think it would probably be better to read the series in order because I was a little lost starting off with this one first. But I found the world this author has created to be wondrous and full of creatures I've never heard of and some I'd love to see.

I think the highlight of this book for me were the talking Aeslin mice. They see Alex and the other Price men as gods and do what he asks, but the chemistry between Alex and the mice was one of mutual respect and admiration. The mice are not just mindless, squeaking rodents but intelligent personable creatures that I truly liked.

I loved how the mice would cheer when Alex brought them food, it was really cute. The interactions with the mice were some of the best interactions in the book for me.

These characters had some peculiar quirks that made reading this story fun. One such quirk was the fact that Alex's grandma would drink her coffee with ketchup and black pepper added to it. Or like one of Alex's friends with rattlesnake venom.

Not all the characters in this book were human, some like one of Alex's friends was called a Gorgon which is human looking but with snakes on their head instead of hair. Think Medusa and you might have a fair understanding of what a Gorgon would look like but without never being able to look them in the eye without being turned to stone. Another character is a little girl, but she is much more than that as her father is a very large cobra. I found her very interesting and we get to know her well as she visits her fiancé who happens to be a snake at the zoo.

While there are a lot of great creatures and non human characters there's also a mystery as to who is killing people. This book has a lot going on and a lot of characters but the author did a good job of keeping the flow smooth and having a storyline that kept my attention throughout the entire book.

If you're interested in herpetology, mythical creatures, reptiles, science and a little mystery then you might like this book.

I give this book 4 sheep!



About the Author:
Seanan McGuire was born in Martinez, California, and raised in a wide variety of locations, most of which boasted some sort of dangerous native wildlife. Despite her almost magnetic attraction to anything venomous, she somehow managed to survive long enough to acquire a typewriter, a reasonable grasp of the English language, and the desire to combine the two.

Seanan is the author of the October Daye urban fantasies, theInCryptid urban fantasies, and several other works both stand-alone and in trilogies or duologies. In case that wasn't enough, she also writes under the pseudonym "Mira Grant." For details on her work as Mira, check out MiraGrant.com.

In her spare time, Seanan records CDs of her original filk music (see the Albums page for details). She is also a cartoonist, and draws an irregularly posted autobiographical web comic, "With Friends Like These...", as well as generating a truly ridiculous number of art cards. Surprisingly enough, she finds time to take multi-hour walks, blog regularly, watch a sickening amount of television, maintain her website, and go to pretty much any movie with the words "blood," "night," "terror," or "attack" in the title. Most people believe she doesn't sleep.

Seanan lives in a creaky old farmhouse in Northern California, which she shares with her three cats, Lilly, Alice, and Thomas, a vast collection of creepy dolls and horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard. She has strongly-held and oft-expressed beliefs about the origins of the Black Death, the X-Men, and the need for chainsaws in daily life.

2 comments:

  1. I have read the first book, and did not really like it. I will have to try her other series, that is also much loved.

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    1. This was the first book of hers that I've read. It was different from what I usually read.

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