This is a direct sequel to Imaginary Numbers and is not the best book to jump into the series with. Due to Sarah having to erase herself from everyone one with her to use that part of their brain to make the math work on the jump to the other universe there is quite a bit of backstory given about how the characters backstory. Now she has to figure out how to get herself, her cousins that don’t remember her, and several other cuckoos including children that had nothing to do with her kidnapping and get them back without a working copy of the math that got them there and not melt everyone’s brain doing it. They find a few surprises along the way about the dimension they are currently in along with having to fight off the zombie cuckoos that got Sarah in this mess before they were brainwiped during the travel.
There is a novella after the end of this that has Sarah, Artie, and Antimony that is set way before this book that shows just how close the three of them were and how much Sarah lost when she had to remove herself from their memories. What I like about the novella is that is set at a Comic Con and after a year of no conventions I was really nostalgic for them.
Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Netgalley

Calculated Risks is the tenth book in the Incryptid series that follows a family of cryptozoologists (study of mythical, not so mythical creatures) on their adventures as they try to avoid the Covenant, a group of people bent on killing the cyrtid population, and help the Cryptid communities in the United States. This series, you do need to read in order to really get what is going on, and every few books it switches to a new member of the Price family. Calculated Risks is Sarah’s second book.

Sarah is a Cuckoo, a form of cryptid that is normally a little evil and killy, and tends to hijack the minds of the people in their vicinity. However, she was raised by a good Cuckoo and has all kinds of rules for herself so she doesn’t go all evil. So, when she transports her boyfriend and part of a college campus to a different dimension, erasing herself accidentally from the minds of everyone who knew her, she can’t just insert herself back into their minds. That would be bad not to mention incredibly rude.

I struggled with this story in the series a little bit because no one remembers Sarah, except for the mice and so the way Antimony and Artie treat her is difficult since they don’t remember her. The way Sarah thinks of herself sometimes, the hate she has for what she is and her longing to just be human, was hard to take. Plus, Artie was a big jerk for a really long time in the book and since they’ve been in love forever it was really hard to read since I just wanted Artie to remember Sarah. I think I got distracted by waiting for everyone to remember Sarah, so I didn’t focus in on the story.

The dimension they are in is pretty cool though. There are huge millipede looking things that float in the sky, large preying mantises and huge spiders. Some of the things are dangerous and others have been tamed, so to speak, and are even ridden by the indigenous people, who we also meet. That actually was the most interesting part of the book, meeting the people who lived on this planet.

Sarah has a big task to do if she is going to do the Math that is going to get everyone home again and it is dangerous; she might not survive. But it is worth the risk to get back to her family.

I still had a good time in this book but it definitely wasn’t as strong for me as the others of the series. The dialogue with Antimony was still great, she is funny no matter what but Sarah’s banter with Artie and her family was missing since they didn’t remember her. Still Greg, the Spider, is a great addition to the cast of characters and I enjoyed the story a lot more when he entered the picture. InCryptid is a solid UF series full of crazy creatures, magic and now dimension hopping. It is really imaginative and different if you are looking to expand your UF reading.

“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.”

Another excellent adventure in the ongoing InCryptid series! This one picks up right where #9 left off, and features alternate dimensions, world-busting equations, telepathic powers, and leaping giant spiders. Plus all the characters and intricate relationships we know and love. Don't miss it!

Love this continuation of Sarah's story. Excellent adventure and dialogue. Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire is a winner, I recommend you read it after you read the previous book, Imaginary Numbers.

The Incryptid adventure continues! Picking up immediately after Sarah Zellaby sacrificed everything to save the world from the evil equation her Jorhlac relatives forced her to enact, Calculated Risks begins with Archie, Antimony, and James having lost all memories of Sarah. This is highly inconvenient, because they have all been transported to a new dimension and need to work together to survive. A fun continuation of Sarah's story with some great moments, Calculated Risks develops her character alongside her power, leaving a confident telepath where the damaged woman of prior books was.

Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series has always been about family: the ones we’re born into, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we willingly leave behind. The series’ rotating narrators (mostly the Price siblings, Verity, Alex, and Antimony) spend copious amounts of time ruminating on the joys and tribulations of family life – the expectations, love and support as well as the fights, favoritism, and claustrophobia – when they aren’t hip-deep in battle protecting local Cryptid populations from the Covenant of St. George and other threats (and sometimes even when they are hip-deep in battle with the Covenant and other threats). But I don’t think anyone in the cast has been quite as well placed to talk about losing family as Sarah Zellaby, the narrator of the previous book, Imaginary Numbers, as well as this present installment, Calculated Risks, which releases on February 23rd.

WARNING: Because this is a review of the TENTH book in a series, there will be mild spoilers for previous books. If you haven’t read them yet and don’t want to be spoiled this is your chance to click away from this review.

Sure, other members of the Price clan have been separated from the family. Antimony spent the better part of the three books preceding Imaginary Numbers infiltrating and then on the run from the Covenant (the organization that not only wants to wipe out all Cryptids but also the entire Price-Healey clan), which necessitated staying out of touch to protect her family. Grandma Alice is absent more than she’s present, hopping between dimensions in search of her missing husband. But even when completely out of touch, Antimony and Alice know they still have a family that loves them and misses them. In Calculated Risks, Sarah must deal with beloved cousins who have forgotten her very existence as well as the real possibility that they may never remember who she is nor welcome her back into the fold.

As a supporting character in previous books, Sarah has always fought an internal war between what her genetics tell her to be (a homicidal predatory wasp in human shape) and who her adopted family has taught her to be (a caring and cautious telepath with an endearing love for ketchup and math). Sarah’s race, the Jorhlac (referred to by the Prices as “cuckoos” because of their predilection for leaving their young in the care of unsuspecting humans, with usually disastrous results), are ruthless telepaths who use their powers to control humans and rewrite their memories. Sarah’s adoptive mother and father raised her not to use her telepathy that way, raised her to be mindful of others’ privacy and never take advantage unless it meant saving someone’s life. The nature versus nurture question is writ large across Sarah’s life and in previous books nurture has won out – although barely, in the case of the cliffhanger at the end of Imaginary Numbers that leads directly into the start of Calculated Risks. The questions Sarah has always had about who and what she is mirror what so many of my friends who were adopted have felt (although I’m pretty sure none of them have turned out to be alien wasps in human form). And as Sarah’s powers have grown, so has her struggle. Even though most of that struggle has been seen through the eyes of her cousins, she has still become one of my favorite characters (and in this series, that’s saying a lot). So when Seanan announced that Sarah would finally be the narrator of a book or two, I was both excited and concerned. The narrators of these books always get put through the emotional and physical wringer, and Sarah has already been through so much (for instance, using her powers to rewrite some bad-guys’ memories of the Price clan, a task which shattered Sarah’s mind and left her a shell of herself for a long time – but which also led to her current predicament). Imaginary Numbers pushed her even further, almost shattering her again – and yet, Calculated Risks manages to top even that, by stripping her of her most valuable support system.

Sarah has always depended on her cousins to support her and understand her personality quirks (see the ketchup thing). To have that support torn away so completely and possibly irrevocably – to suddenly be the target of their suspicions, anger, and fear because of what they know of the race she was borne of – is the most devastating emotional abuse the character could suffer. There were moments, especially early in the book, that were downright painful to read and brought tears to my eyes – a testament to how much McGuire has gotten me to love Sarah, but also to just how damned good the author is at writing emotional conflict and internalized pain.

McGuire also show us Sarah’s strength. As much as she’s hurting, she knows she still has to help her cousins, and the unfortunate other humans and cryptids transported with them, to not only survive this new dimension they’ve entered but also to get home. And because her love for those who have forgotten her is more boundless than her greatly expanded powers, she’s willing to die for them if that’s what it takes. Her efforts to get her family to trust her again, even if they don’t remember her, show just how strong and in control of herself Sarah is. Yeah, she could force them to accept her – but she’d never forgive herself if she did.
I realize this review so far makes the book sound like an absolute tear-fest from page one to the end. I promise it is not. This is an InCryptid book. There’s a ton of action as the characters explore, and are threatened by, the new dimension they’re in, and the danger doesn’t just come from the Cuckoos mentioned in the cover copy. The fight scenes are fast and cinematic, the new threats creative and complex. There’s the usual amount of pop culture snark in the dialogue from the usual suspects (mostly Antimony and Sarah this time out), and there are the Required Adorable Scenes featuring the Aeslin mice (I have no doubt the Aeslin would indeed capitalize those words if they were speaking this sentence). There are a number of intriguing character and world-building developments to tee up future books; I’m hesitant to spoil any of them here but I uttered “oh, that should be important” several times.

Of course, I will also not spoil the ending, but I don’t think anyone will be disappointed in it.
There’s also a bonus novella, “Singing the Comic-Con Blues,” which is a flashback to happier days for the characters. The story is a road-caper for Antimony, Sarah, Artie, and Verity that really shows how well and fully these characters love each other (even when they don’t like each other very much in the moment), as well as how Sarah being adopted and not even human was never an issue for anyone in the family. After all the heaviness of the family aspects of the main novel, the novella is a pleasant grace note.

Oh, and DAW, if you’re reading this: since the next book in the series is narrated by Alice, don’t you think it’s about time to bring all of Seanan’s Alice-and-Thomas short stories together in a nice paperback edition? A collection of the Fran-and-Johnnie stories wouldn’t hurt either. I’m quite sure they’d sell well.

This review was written based on an electronic ARC received via NetGalley.

Note: Calculated Risks releases on February 23, 2021, but is available for preorder.

The book has a prologue of when Sarah first met Artie, a cute scene, but also one that grounds us in Sarah’s loss. The first chapter starts right where Imaginary Numbers ends, as though a year hadn’t fallen between the two releases. Imaginary Numbers and Calculated Risks form a duet, or perhaps more accurately, a two-part episode in the style of television shows. There are reminders of what happened before, but where the InCryptid series can be read as individual, if related, stories, these two cannot.

Oddly, Calculated Risks can also serve as an introduction to the series as a whole. Sarah realizes in those first moments that the adopted cousins she’d grown up alongside, trained, and even fell in love with, no longer remember her existence. She’s gone from family and more to irredeemable cryptid that should be killed on the spot, cutting the emotional ground from beneath her feet.

She spends the first three chapters tied to a chair, desperate to make her case without manipulating them further. Explaining their memory loss is all her fault doesn’t help them trust her, but it does offer the opportunity to remind readers what happened in the first book. Sarah didn’t mean to change their memories. Instinct drove her to save them from the pain of realizing the equation had killed her…only it didn’t.

The book is not lacking in action. They encounter the various species native to this dimension, along with more troubles Sarah brought with the campus. The indigenous sapiens are similar to Earth hominids, while other species bear some commonalities and significant differences. Also, natural forces in this dimension, including those governing magic, are not the same as on Earth. There’s a lot to explore. However, like the previous book, this is more of a personal story, but remains in Sarah’s perspective throughout.

Sarah learns more about her species, including how many assumptions the Price family has been basing their actions on, but it’s not cryptozoology like how Alex details a discovery. This is her life, even more so with all family members in the new dimension having no memory of her. Worse, their recent connection with Mark, another cuckoo, is unaffected. They remember Mark survived puberty without losing his feelings for the human family that raised him. He’s safe and comfortable while she’s the enemy.

Nor did Sarah’s protective instincts spare Artie or their brand-new status as a couple.

She’s not used to being isolated. The Prices are forever finding new people in need of family, always growing. But in her case, it shrank with Sarah on the other side. This is the heart of the story. Her trying to convince them she’s their beloved cousin while taking responsibility for the fact that they can’t remember her…or having consented to her using them for the equation.

Without specifics, I’ll say the relationships form the foundation of this book. Not only those destroyed and built in these pages, but also those that came before. The biggest plot thread is how Sarah functions with her family, and the love of her life, having forgotten she exists while they still depend on her, as a cuckoo stranger, to get them home.

Imaginary Numbers ended in a cliffhanger, but this one has a satisfactory conclusion. There are still consequences to be dealt with, but the big questions, the urgent questions, are all resolved one way or another. Still, this book opens the possibility for many more stories, whether novels or novellas, meaning the series still has room to grow. One such novella appears in the back of this book, even.

P.S. I received this Advanced Reader Copy from the publisher through NetGalley in hopes of an honest review.

Calculated Risks is the tenth and most recent novel in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series. Sarah's story continues here, in an otherworldly experience that only a Cuckoo could make a reality. This novel makes me so grateful for getting caught up on the series, for it really has been such a blast.

Sarah Zellaby is a Cuckoo by birth, and a Price by adoption. When she was forced to choose between the two, she forged her own path forward. One that she hoped would save her family, and the world.

Unfortunately, her choice got her trapped in another dimension. Yes, literally. And she's not alone. This is actually a good thing in this case, as she wouldn't stand very good odds at finding her way home otherwise.

The problem is, the family that is with her doesn't remember her. Their memories of her have been wiped from their minds, and that's going to make trusting her, a Cukoo so much more difficult.

“My name is Sarah Zellaby. I'm an adopted member of the Price family, a mathematician, a cryptozoologist, and a Priestess of the Aeslin mice. I am not human.”

Wow. Calculated Risks is arguably the most intense read of the entire series, with Sarah feeling on the out more often than not. She's learning about herself, her heritage, and her adopted family, all in one go. Oh right, and the other dimension they've accidentally traveled to.

This book answers just about every question I had about Cuckoos – and about a million that I never would have thought to ask. For that reason alone, it's an absolutely fascinating read, and one I would recommend to any fans of this series.

It's also pretty different from the rest of the InCryptid series so far, which I sort of expected. Being that it's set in another dimension and all. But it's not just that, even the characters are different than I expected, something that will make sense as one reads the book.

“Being a telepath in a non-telepathic society is a great way to learn how much you don't like people or ever want to be around them if you have any choice in the matter, FYI. I don't recommend it.”

There were a couple of new characters introduced in this plot arc that I really grew to appreciate. I hope that we'll see more of them, even if Sarah isn't the leading perspective for the next novel (I have no idea yet, so only time will tell!).

Honestly, Sarah's plot arc did go so much farther than I expected, both in the literal sense, and in a more figurative sense. I feel like her story has really come full circle, and been completed in a way that many of the others haven't been. Not that I would complain if we got another book or two revolving around her.

“Sorcery is just physics gone feral. We're psionic. It's no the same thing.”

Was Calculated Risks worth the read? A hundred times yes. But there is a downside, at least for me. I just spent the last week and a half binging (and loving) this series. So...what do I do now? I feel like there's something missing now. At least I have all of the short stories to read, that'll help.

Singing The Comic-Con Blues
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
Singing The Comic-Con Blues is included at the end of Calculated Risks, the most recent InCryptid novel by Seanan McGuire. As you might guess from the title, this is a fun and light story, especially in comparison to everything that Sarah just went through.

This short features (as you can probably guess) Annie, Sarah, and Artie, and is set nine years before the events that take place in another dimension. It makes an excellent contrast, and really gets us back into the fun and quirky parts of the Price life. It also makes me want to go and read the rest of the short stories, in hopes of getting more moments like these.

This urban fantasy is the 10th in the series and the immediate follow up to the previous book which had Sarah the Calculating Princess and gang stuck in another dimension. They have to figure out how to survive, as well as get back to Earth. Wiped memories, local aliens and giant spiders (love Greg!) all made this a memorable installment to the series. It's a fun read! (

I’m a big fan of Seanan McGuire/Mira Grants characters and worlds. The inCryptid series is a fun addition about a family of monster hunters turned monster protectors. Sarah, the main character of this story and the previous book Imaginary Numbers, is a “monster” herself struggling to live a life as a good person despite her peculiar abilities.

Calculated Risks is the tenth (10th!) book in Seanan McGuire's second urban fantasy series, InCryptid. It's also the second half of a duology featuring Sarah Zellaby as its main protagonist, following from last year's "Imaginary Numbers" (Reviewed Here). The InCryptid series has had its dark moments, but in general this series about a family trying to help the Cryptid (non-human creatures/beings science doesn't recognize as existing) community survive in a world where humans are dominant has had a really fun and often very witty tone, from its sardonic heroes/heroines to its hilarious hyper-religious mice that follow the protagonists around. But Imaginary Numbers was the series' darkest novel yet and it ended on a really dark cliffhanger, which set kind of a different tone.

Calculated Risks tops its predecessor in darkness - there are moments of humor here, but again they're not nearly as extensive as earlier in the series. Instead we get a book where Sarah - our protagonist from a species known for being sociopathic telepaths - has just had her dreamed-for moment of bliss stolen away from her in dramatic fashion and is forced to cope with the aftereffects all the while being also the only person who can possibly save everyone she cares about. The characters here are still compelling, and the ending kind of cheats a little at the end to give a happy ending, but the darker tone makes this probably my least favorite of the series - though still well worth your time if you've enjoyed the series so far.

Note: This book comes with a novella set prior to the novel, which can be read before or after the main story, and I'll include a very quick review of that below:

---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Just when Sarah Zellaby had what she'd always wanted - the boy she loved, half-incubus Artie Harrington, revealing the feeling was mutual - everything was torn away from her: she was kidnapped by her biological mother, forced to metamorphize into the next stage of Cuckoo/Johrlac evolution, become a Queen....and to wield the massive calculation of Cuckoo magic to destroy the Earth and send the Cuckoos all into a new dimension. It was only through the efforts of her family, and Artie in particular, that she was able to do the impossible - contain the math, limit the damage, and survive.

But she did not realize the cost: bringing a large chunk of Iowa with her into a world in a different dimension, with seemingly no way back home. And even worse: while those she cares about - Annie, James and most of all Artie - are alive and with her, they now have no idea who she is, with Sarah's efforts having removed all memory of her from their minds. And so all they see now in her is the Cuckoo who nearly destroyed their world and got them lost; just another member of the one species of Cryptid on Earth the Prices have felt okay hating and destroying.

To survive long enough to think of a way to make things right, Sarah will have to convince her closest friends and family that she really is a member of the family. But can she find a way to undo all her damage when the boy she loves now not only doesn't know her, but can barely stand to look at her?
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Calculated Risks, unlike its predecessor, never leaves Sarah's point of view to go to other characters (last book we got snippets from Artie's perspective). And as I note above, Sarah's voice is a tragic one: she's one of two members of her species who she believes isn't a sociopathic asshole, has always feared people only like her due to her innate telepathic powers, and now finds herself with the only people who DO like her having forgotten all about her - and worse, since those people also know her species is made up of sociopathic monsters, they now think she is too.

The result is that a large portion of this book is Sarah struggling to convince her allies that she is worthy of their friendship and love, allies who she normally would be able to count on without fail. And it's heartbreaking to read, especially with regards to Artie, whose existence was so bound up in hers that the loss of Sarah in his memories causes him to be....well, still Artie, but now more depressed and bitter, as those memories are now of solitude and loneliness. And he naturally resents that of her. You might think that this book would develop in a way where Artie would fall in love with Sarah again despite meeting her essentially for the first time again....but McGuire doesn't take the book in that direction and its heartbreaking to read at times. Sarah's voice mind you is still compelling - McGuire is a master at character work - but at the same time, the heartbreaking nature of this book - up till it finally gets a happy ending that kind of cheats a little bit - makes it probably my least favorite of the series just because it's so different in tone than its predecessors.

This does not mean that this book is in any way bad - just that I probably won't reread it as much as I do the rest of this series. McGuire uses the new dimension to further showcase the skills and character traits of our main characters - Annie is still very fun in a side role for instance - and to showcase a new utterly bonkers world (you'll never think of giant spiders necessarily the same way again). Again, the characters are great, the world expansion is great, and there are still moments of the series' trademark wit which have helped make this series one of my favorites to look forward to. So yeah, if you enjoy this series, you'll enjoy this one, and I don't know how you'd read this book if you didn't already enjoy the series (or read its predecessor). It's still pretty great in general.

Every InCryptid arc generally (Chaos Choreography aside) follows a different character, and each of these characters - First Verity, Then Alex, Then Antimony, Now Sarah (and even earlier if you count the short stories - acts differently, with their arcs having different tones accordingly. Annie's arc was perhaps my favorite and I loved her the most (and I really still love her in this book here too) but with this book, I find Sarah's arc was my least favorite: Sarah's story is tremendously tragic, and while we end on a happy ending and the character developments are well done, I'm glad to be moving on. Which doesn't mean I still don't love this series or that I can't wait for the next book, as we get into Grandma Alice.....oh boy.

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This novel also contains a free bonus novella - "Singing the Comic-Con Blues". As you might imagine from the title, its a lot lighter than the novel, featuring Annie as the narrator as she takes Artie, Sarah, and (unwillingly) Verity to Emerald City Comic Con just before the start of the books, ostensibly to stop a murderous Siren....but mainly to try and get Artie out of his basement to a Comic-Con with Sarah. It's a good bit of fun - I love Annie's voice - and a nice antidote to the darkness of the novel, even if it was disappointingly too short for me: I wanted more! Oh well.

At the end of the previous book, Sarah and her allies are taken to another dimension. This book picks up immediately where that left off. Sarah did not expect to survive the mathematical equation that was in her mind. She offloaded some of it into her companions. By doing this she wiped their memories of her entirely. Now she is stranded in a strange dimension with people who see her only as a dangerous predator.

It is an interesting set up for a book. It sows distrust in a group of people who need to work closely together to get home. It causes increased stress on the person who needs to prove that she is an ally, even if no one can remember her.

Most of the book is actually the psychological drama. Not a lot happens otherwise. They do meet some of the local people who conincidently have been visited by people like them before and who have the answers they need. Very convenient.

I did love that all the fauna in this world is based on invertebrates. I loved Greg the giant spider who Sarah bonded with! He's wonderful.

Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm a bit funny when it comes to publication quirks. I will willy-nilly make adjustments in my head to combine certain titles and split up others and call it a day no matter what the official publishers might say.

So in this case, I'm ignoring the whole book #9, #10 publication orders and calling this ONE SINGLE BOOK. No cliffhanger, just a complete story.

So what does this mean for the enjoyment of both, either? Nada. I love the whole thing. Period.

In fact, I've been chortling with glee with a bunch of spoilerish scenes that are totally related to enormous muppets that would have made John Carter of Barsoom scream.

Plus, I had to calm myself down with all the multiverse huge consciousness-eating sentient math stuff or I would have blown my SF-loving mind.

And this is supposedly a UF. It has all the earmarks, the so cute relationship stuff that is neither overblown nor overdone. I mean, how awesome is it that we have so much puppy-love between two species that are naturally immune to each other's 'love me forever' charms, whether it is powerful incubus pheromones or Cuckoo telepathy? And let me be honest here. I bawled.

Seanan is rather goddess-like. Anyone else trying to pull this off probably would have fallen face-first in bugmud, but not her. All these elements are not only perfect together, but we also have to deal with the aftermath of being erased from people's memories, zombified telepaths, and enormous flying mantises with Barsoomian warriors riding them. You know, details. And a local NY college.

I'm LOVING this series now. I can't believe it, but it has gotten even better than October Daye for me. :)

Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I love pretty much everything Seanan McGuire writes. Seriously, she's one of my favorite authors and she's highly prolific at releasing content. She writes at least one installment in each of her three main series (Incryptid, October Date, Wayward Children) every year, along with short stories and novellas every month, comic books, and usually at least one other novel a year. So there's the caveat - I'm a fanboy, so you'll probably see me raving over the books even when they have flaws. :)

This one picks up like half an hour after the last one ended, give or take. And boy is this one a doozy - they've ended up in an unexpected place and in a very unexpected situation. Yikes, the situation is bad. Annie, Artie, James, Sarah, and Mark have to navigate the new territory while also navigating each other, which adds some fun to the mix. But as someone who has high levels of empathy, it was also hard to read because I kept feeling so bad for Sarah! Trying not to spoil anything here.

So basically, this book involves all the usual fun of Incryptid - witty banter, great characters, weird situations... but for the first time we've got zombies (okay, sorry Annie, "husks"), giant bugs (sorry if you're afraid of spiders... Calculated Risks might exacerbate that greatly), and multiple-mooned-orange-colored skies.

Basically, it was a lot of fun, with a minor annoyance of the repetitive discussions on good and bad cuckoos.

This series is HIGHLY recommended - but please start at the beginning.

I love Seanan McGuire’s books - she is one of my favorite authors, hands down, and for good reason -she consistently writes numerous excellent, honest, and fun books every year. I was thrilled when DAW and NetGalley gave me an eARC of her newest Incryptid novel, Calculated Risks, which is the tenth novel in the series. In order to get ready for it, I binge read books 7, 8, and 9 immediately beforehand. Calculated Risks was fantastic, but there were a few things about it that gave me pause. Spoilers to follow.

To recap, the Incryptid series involves a family of cryptozoologists that work to protect the natural diversity of the hidden world. Every few books, the point of view narrator shifts to another member of the same family, which has the added benefit of keeping the series fresh and invigorated. Books 9 and 10 are told from Cousin Sarah’s POV. Sarah is from a species of selfish telepathic wasps, more or less, and book 9 ended with her saving the earth while simultaneously transporting an entire college campus to another dimension, during which she also erased herself from the memories of the family members that she was with. The logical result of that was that the first half of the book consisted of family members angry and yelling at each other while confined in a small space, which was not exactly what I was looking for in escapist reading during the pandemic. Once the characters rebuilt some trust with each other, the story became more fun and enjoyable to me. The adventure in the other dimension was interesting, but some things felt a little too convenient, and I would’ve preferred to spent more time exploring the other dimension and less time with the early chapters’ squabbling. Finally, at the end of the novel, Artie, one of my favorite characters, allows his mind to be wholly erased in order to save everyone and get them all home to Earth, leaving his body a shell. Sarah is then able to “restore” his mind from his parents’ memories, his sister’s memories, and Sarah’s own memories, and whatever amount of Artie’s psyche was shared with Sarah through her telepathic bond. However, based on everything explained in an earlier chapter about how Sarah reconstructed a memory of one of Artie’s childhood birthdays, this restoration could not have fully worked - the Artie that was “restored” could not possibly be the Artie that existed before, and it felt like that was ignored in favor of a happy ending. It reminded me a bit of the Illyria plot in Angel when Fred was killed and replaced. I assume that this will be dealt with in a future novel or short story, but it left me feeling unsatisfied. I don’t want anyone, however, to take this critique as meaning that I didn’t like this book. I loved it! But I was bothered by these things.

Sarah accidentally moved the entire campus to another dimension in the previous book and now needs to figure out how to move it back. ARC from NetGalley

"The tenth book in the fast-paced InCryptid urban fantasy series returns to the mishaps of the Price family, eccentric cryptozoologists who safeguard the world of magical creatures living in secret among humans.

Just when Sarah Zellaby, adopted Price cousin and telepathic ambush predator, thought that things couldn't get worse, she's had to go and prove herself wrong. After being kidnapped and manipulated by her birth family, she has undergone a transformation called an instar, reaching back to her Apocritic origins to metamorphize. While externally the same, she is internally much more powerful, and much more difficult to control.

Even by herself. After years of denial, the fact that she will always be a cuckoo has become impossible to deny.

Now stranded in another dimension with a handful of allies who seem to have no idea who she is - including her cousin Annie and her maybe-boyfriend Artie, both of whom have forgotten their relationship - and a bunch of cuckoos with good reason to want her dead, Sarah must figure out not only how to contend with her situation, but with the new realities of her future. What is she now? Who is she now? Is that person someone she can live with?

And when all is said and done, will she be able to get the people she loves, whether or not they've forgotten her, safely home?"

I believe this is the first Seanan McGuire book of the five hundred she plans to publish this year. Number probably actually me rounding down.

After saving the world from the destruction wake of an alien exodus, you'd think a girl might get a break. Instead Sarah finds herself in an alternate dimension, surrounded by friends and family who no longer recognize her. Trying to regain enough trust to save anyone will be hard, but Sarah's absence from Artie's memories might just be what breaks both of them. Sarah will have to use her hyper-math-processing brain and her new powers to navigate a new dimension and get everyone safely home - hopefully this time intact.

This series just keeps getting better and better. I was so excited to start Sarah's journey in Imaginary Numbers and it was great to see it conclude (for now) in Calculated Risks. Granma Alice is up next folks - and that will be quite an adventure.

Y'all. I made a mistake.

I've been really good at going to bed recently. I'd hit the sack between ten and eleven o'clock, maybe closer to midnight if I'm going a bit late. But for this book? I started reading and didn't get off the couch until I was done, somewhere after two am.

As a quick note, Calculated Risks is not a good place to start this series. The best place to start would be at the beginning with Discount Armageddon, or perhaps with one of the many short stories on Seanan's website. Calculated Risks picks up directly where Imaginary Numbers left off, stranded in an alien dimension by semi-sentient math.

Trust me, it makes sense in context.

Sarah is a delight to read because she's so aware that's she's different - non-human, raised as a Price - and circumstances have her viewing her own family from the outside. They're as weird and scary as you would expect from a paranoid set of cryptozoologists. We get more understanding of Sarah and her species, and we get to explore a whole new world. Seanan manages to weave together the familiar and the fantastical into a cohesive if sometime confusing whole, and I loved it.

This book had me riveted to the very end and immediately after finishing I wanted to go back and read it again, so this makes this an easy five stars.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

Electronic ARC provided by NetGalley.

"Calculated Risks" is the second InCryptid novel featuring Sarah Zellaby as the narrator, and it picks up directly after the rather terrifying cliffhanger in "Imaginary Numbers." The story follows Sarah, Artie, Antimony, James, and Mark as they figure out what has happened to them and what to do next. Since this is a Sarah book there is a lot of talk about math. There is also a lot of discussion of consent, since Sarah is a member of a telepathic species who find it almost too easy to interfere with the minds of those around them. In this case, the interference has led to Sarah unintentionally erasing herself from the minds of Annie and Artie, two of her favorite people in the universe. Now she's stuck in another dimension with family members who no longer trust her, and feral cuckoos who could be hiding anywhere.

While the InCryptid series started off feeling sort of close to reality (Verity's first outing was in New York, so, a bit familiar at least. Even with the dragons.), the series has now reached time travel, other dimensions with alien life, and super powered telepaths. The great thing about a Seanan McGuire series is that she plans her series so carefully and paces them so well that you barely even notice how far over the edge you've gone until you look back at the very beginning of the story.

I loved Sarah as a narrator. She's having a tough time in this book, for a number of reasons, and it's great seeing her forced to actually confront her limits and figure out where she draws the lines on her powers. Her relationship with Artie is particularly heart wrenching here, though I do trust Seanan to not put her characters through emotional hell without payoff. It'll be interesting to see where Sarah goes after this, and how she deals with her new powers back in Portland. I've heard that in the next book we're finally getting Alice's perspective, and I seriously can't wait to see what kind of insanity she gets up to.

(Just as a side note, one of the before chapter quotes said something about how "the difference between sacrifice and slaughter is consent", and that is so true and something that I feel like so many people do not get.)