All of Seanan's books are fun, and I and my staff at The Portal Bookshop regularly get someone new hooked on the series

I received a copy of this book as part of the 2017 Hugo Awards voter's packet and therefore won't be reviewing it on NetGalley.

I read this series for the 2020 Hugo (Best Series) awards and felt it was the best of the nominated series, although I enjoyed the earlier short stories more than the 'modern times' stories.

received as part of the Hugo packet when the series was nominated for Best Series. I had never read the books and read every novel and every short story available in under a month. Wickedly funny banter, delightful characters, intriguing cryptozoology. They continue to be books I buy pretty much immediately.

Listen, I long ago joined the church of Seanan McGuire, when I read Rosemary and Rue for the first time with Felicia Day's Vaginal Fantasy book club. From that moment on, I was completely hooked. Seanan has never failed me. So when this series was nominated for a Hugo and I received the first eight books in the series as part of my Hugo voter packet, I was beyond pleased. This series gives me the same warm and fuzzy feelings that I get when reading Toby Daye books, but just ever so slightly lighter and I love the kind of monster-of-the-week feeling. One of my favourite parts about this series is that we get to follow different characters, which I honestly was skeptical about when I first got to a book not from Verity's point of view. But it really widens the possibilities of the series. The Aeslin mice are my favourite. As always, the balance of character building and world building is pretty close to perfection.

When we get to the later books in the series, I think she straddles the line perfectly of reviewing what has happened previously in the series (a kind of "previously on" but for books) while also moving on with the series. If I wasn't reading them all in a row, I'm sure I would appreciate that even more, as so often I feel like I have to completely re-read a series in order to remind myself of what's happened before I read the newest installment, which tends to mean that i put off that reading.

Overall, really pleased to have finally started this new-to-me series from McGuire and equally pleased to look forward to future books to come.

Ok, I went into this with a fair bit of trepidation as I absolutely adore Seanan McGuire's Toby Daye series, and often find that I'm disappointed when I go into other series in the same genre. They just don't quite live up to the hype that I've built. This was thankfully an exception to the rule, and whilst I didn't fall quite as hard as I did for Toby, I still really enjoyed the novel as a whole.

I like the way that McGuire has run with a whole different take on the 'unnatural and weird' here. From the fae, which are otherworldly, but reasonably easy to organise by blood, you go into the weird and wonderful world of the cryptids. An unholy chaotic blend of every creature you may or may not have heard of in folklore, mythology and tales to scare small children. But with science to back it up.

I also enjoyed Verity's perspective on the world; she's got the same kind of sassy attitude as Toby but has less of the benefits being wholly human and therefore wholly breakable. Not that she sees it that way. Verity is a Crytozoologist, someone who researches, helps and sometimes hunts the cryptids of the world. She's also a ballroom dancer and a waitress at a bar full of cryptids of all shapes and sizes. And she enjoys challenging the forces of gravity on a daily basis, by free-running over the rooftops of Manhattan. Because her life isn't busy enough as it is.

Her family is in constant hiding though, having split from the Covenant some two or four generations ago, depending on which side of the family tree you start counting from. Where the Price family aim to serve the cryptid community, the Covenant exist solely to hunt them down and eradicate them from the earth forever. Which is a problem for Verity as there is a Covenant agent in her city and she's the only Price on the ground (or roof) to stop the city from being purged.

Her only back up? Her admittedly exhaustive training in how to shoot, throw and generally not get killed and a splinter colony of talking, uber-religious mice who worship her as a Goddess. Let's just say, I love those mice. Along with an attitude problem and some serious dance moves, Verity has her hands full in trying to keep her city safe... and her insides where they belong; inside her body.

This is a fast-paced and highly entertaining spill across the rooftops and sewers of Manhatten, that I flew through in just under a day. If you like your fiction spiced with basilisks, bogey men, ahools, gorgons, dragons (and their princesses) and other critters reptilian, mammal and somewhere in between, then this may just be the series for you.

The first of the Incryptid series, introducing Verity Price, aspiring dancer and cryptozoologist. Read to determine the also-rans for the 2020 Hugo Awards Best Series. A light and fluffy Urban Fantasy, displaying Seanan McGuire's well crafted prose, pop culture smarts and effective pacing, which keeps the pages turning over, even if it takes some time to get a feels for the characters and the point of the story in the first place. I was impressed by the application of conservation to imaginary non-human creatures, even the dangerous ones. I may return to the series some time in the future, but it certainly does not warrant a 'must read' status.

A pretty good start to a great series. Verity's different enough to Toby that she takes some getting used to, but she's still plenty likeable.

Thank you for the chance to review prior to Hugo voting. It was very helpful to get the full series on NetGalley!

Verity Price is a young woman living two lives in New York City. The life of her family profession and the life of her heart. One is looking after the city's cryptid population, the other is ballroom dance. She is willful, witty, compassionate, and resourceful. This book is FUN. The characters and their relationships are authentic and though treated with a light touch, have very real interactions. I especially am fond of the Aeslin Mice, (HAIL)

This is a book I am accessing via Netgalley for the Hugo nomination packet. Due to this, I will not be reviewing this book via Netgalley at this time.

Delightful tale of a young woman trying to make it as a dancer in Manhattan, while trying to save and study other nonhuman beings. She comes by it naturally, she's from a family with multigenerations long history of cryptozoologists. The tale begins with our girl saving a coed from a ghoul out for a snack of that very coed, and blossoms into a full search of who's making young girls disappear from all types of nonhuman backgrounds. Along the way of this mystery we meet many humanoid beings while learning about her family as well. Enjoyable tale, talking mice, good and bad guys, and the mystery gets solved. Looking forward to the next in this series.

This book is quintessential McGuire! We get to enjoy the exploits of cryptozoologist Verity Price along with her family, enemies, friends, and coworkers as they defend and save New York (and themselves). As usual, McGuire dishes up humor, adventure, suspense, and a delightful world of supernatural creatures that are more human than human living among us. I am very happily looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Thank you so much for providing this book as part of the Hugo voting packet. When I have read this book my review will be posted to my blog, Goodreads and retail websites.

I read this book because I was feeling October-Daye-withdrawal. I didn't like it quite as much as Toby's books, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.
I liked the plot and the supporting cast, especially Candy and the Aeslin mice, and I liked the balancing act Verity has to pull off between her life as a cryptozooologist and her life as a professional ballroom dancer.
I was less convinced of her little romance with the Covenant guy. I thought he treated her badly, even quite apart from his genocidal tendencies.
My overall first impression of this series was still good, however, so I will keep reading in the hopes that I will really love the next one.

My second read pretty much confirmed the impression I got during my first read, and only made me more curious about the cryptids and Price family members lurking in the background, just waiting to be explored.

The always excellent McGuire is at it again with the Incryptid series. An enjoyable romp with a lot of potential.

This book started out a little slow for me but really grabbed me the further I got into it. The main character seemed really ditzy but as the book went on you get to see the depths that the character really has. Great read!

Discount Armageddon is the first novel in Seanan McGuire's second Urban Fantasy series, InCryptid. I have a mixed track record with McGuire's work - I greatly enjoy (if not love) her October Daye Urban Fantasy series, but have not been a fan of her two Wayward Children novellas. That said, I've actually read some of the InCryptid series before - earlier this month I read through most of the prequel short stories that are on McGuire's website, and I enjoyed them a lot. So I had good expectations going in.

For the most part, those expectations were met. The InCryptid universe is similar to the October Daye universe in that it very much has an "all myths are true" attitude, except in this case it's with mythological creatures, not faeries and magic. It also features some fun unique characters and a decent first person narrator. That said, the book isn't quite as solid as the typical October Daye novel, but well, it's the first in the series, so that's kind of unsurprising.

-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------------The world is stranger than is commonly known. Living amongst humanity - and separately in nature - are Cryptids - creatures that science cannot explain. Some of these creatures are sentient like humans, others aren't; some seem to the basis for mythical creatures (gorgons, boogeyman, tanuki), while others are just strange (talking mice, frogs with feathers, etc.). And for ages, an organization known as the Covenant of St. George has scoured the globe, hunting and killing every Cryptid they could find. But about 80 years ago, the Healy/Price family broke away from the Covenant and fled to America, where they vowed, as Cryptozoologists, to catalog but protect Cryptids and preserve them in their environment as long as they did no harm to human beings. The Covenant of course, considers the Price and Healy families to be traitors who must be eliminated.

In present day Manhattan, Verity Price, one of the newest Price generation, isn't sure she wants just to be another family Cryptozoologist. Instead, she harbors a passion for ballroom dancing, which she competes in under an assumed name, all the while trying to help the Cryptid community of New York at the same time. But when a member of the Covenant - a Dominic De Luca - shows up, seemingly to scout ahead for a purge of New York's cryptids, things look down. And things look worse when sentient Cryptid females begin disappearing from the streets and strange monsters appear beneath the City. In order to set things right, Verity may be forced to hook up with the covenant agent Dominic in order to save the Cryptids of New York.

And by "hook up," well, I mean surely Verity can't fall for someone who's pledged to kill the very people, and her very family, she's sworn to protect? Could she?

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Like the October Daye series, Discount Armageddon is told from a first person point of view, that of Verity. Verity's a pretty strong character, self-aware and witty, and she's pretty fun to read. Much of the supporting cast is also excellent in this one - Sarah, Verity's cryptid cousin, is particularly amusing and the wide variety of other cryptids who show up are generally pretty well built up.

The book is pretty fast paced, and again, is pretty witty - definitely more so than the October Daye series. For example, each chapter begins with a description of where we are, except that opinion includes Verity editorializing about where that is ( "In the sewers under Manhattan, doing something stupid" is such a description). It's really cute and works very well. There's some points where Verity seems to be telling the story from the perspective of someone retelling a past-story, and the book doesn't really explain that, but it mainly just adds to the charm.

The book definitely feels like a first in a series novel though, with some weaknesses that I'm guessing are hardened out later in the series. The arc of the love interest Dominic and his relations with the Cryptid community didn't quite work for me - he goes from true believer for partially religious reasons to being a bit more tolerant (if not totally converted) by the end, and it's didn't quite read as believable to me. And one character who plays a big part in the ending action just sort of pops up from nowhere (despite a quick mention earlier) to be highly important, and she feels kind of out of place.

That said, again, this is a damn fun book, and I've already reserved the sequel from the library.

I received this work as part of the 2018 Hugo Voter Packet. This is a quirky and humorous mix of pop culture and magic realism, set in a modern-day New York City with dragons and fae and other supernatural creatures. I find that I prefer the author's October Daye series, which manages the snarky humor without being flippant and less of the all-pop-culture, all-the-time of this series. Recommended for fans of urban fantasy and pop culture, who will likely really enjoy this.

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire is the first book in the author's InCryptid urban fantasy series. I've previously read many books and stories by Seanan McGuire (and her alter ego Mira Grant) but this is only my second foray into her urban fantasy novels.

Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night... The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity—and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren't for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family's old enemies, the Covenant of St. George. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed. To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone's spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city...

When I was pressed for time towards the end of Hugo voting season, I decided to make my last few decisions by reading the first couple of chapters of the remaining books, this one among them. After that I had to get back to other (review) books, but when I had the chance, this was the book I wanted to pick up the most. It was the sentient, religious mice that really won me over.

The protagonist of this story is the scion of a family that used to be part of the "exterminate everything supernatural" society (aka the Covenant) until her great-grandparent defected. Now they study and protect the supernatural and stop the more aggressive members of that group from preying on humans. Verity in particular is well trained in fighting and enjoys cryptozoology and ballroom dancing. She's making a go of in New York: dancing, waitressing in a strip club (hence the cover art) and keeping the peace. The main story happens when a chap from the Covenant shows up, intent on a purge, but not responsible for a spate of recent disappearances...

This wasn't a complicated read but it was a fun one. As I said, I really liked the mice and most of the other characters also made for fun reading (basically, except for the bad guys). I felt a bit meh with regards to the romantic storyline, which was simultaneously a bit underdeveloped and predictable — the latter partly because there weren't many other male characters around. (On the other hand, yay for lots of female characters!)

I quite enjoyed this book and found it enough of a fun read that I am definitely interested in continuing with the series. I definitely recommend it to fans of urban fantasy looking for a fun read with a bit of a scientific take on different supernatural creatures. As it happens, I picked up book 2 on sale in paper (urgh) several years ago, so I already have it waiting on my shelf, huzzah. So I will be getting to that just as soon as I can bring myself to read a paper book again.

4 / 5 stars

First published: 2012, Daw
Series: InCryptid book 1 of 7 so far with more on the way
Format read: ePub
Source: Hugo Voter Packet (in this case, from the publisher via NetGalley)