Someone is killing off moon gods, and it's up to the remaining human incarnations of the lunar deities to find out who in Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire, the third of her Alchemical Journeys series.

Like the other books in the series, Tidal Creatures takes place in a world of powerful elemental forces that manifest themselves as human beings. Human beings who often find themselves hunted by the ruthless alchemists who seek to usurp their primal powers for their own. Such appears to be the case at first with the murder of the moon goddess Aske and her human host. But as other Lunars investigate Aske's killing, the truth turns out to be more complex and more sinister.

Unlike Seasonal Fears, Tidal Creatures is more of a direct follow-up to Middlegame, although it does take place after the events of both those books. Roger, Dodger, and several other prominent characters from Middlegame return, and unlike their brief cameo in Seasonal Fears, in Tidal Creatures they take a far more active role in shaping the plot.

Which I unfortunately think is to the book's detriment. Tidal Creatures introduces us to some genuinely loveable and compelling new protagonists: like Kelpie, an alchemically-created young woman with deer hooves, a tail, and bright orange skin. Or Judy, who is busy balancing the demands of being a full-time grad student and part-time moon goddess. Yet these characters and others are pushed to the side the moment the protagonists of Middlegame appear, leaving them side characters in their own narrative. Honestly, it makes me with Seanan McGuire would just go ahead and write the next story about Roger and Dodger that she so clearly wants to, instead of inserting them into what are ostensibly other peoples' stories within the same world.

Personally, I found myself let down by Tidal Creatures for the reasons above, although to be clear I did still enjoy reading the book. If you liked Middlegame and Seasonal Fears, you'll probably like this one too. Just make sure you temper your expectations accordingly before diving in.

Moon gods, metaphysics, and sneers

Tidal Creatures is the third novel in Seanan McGuire's Alchemical Journeys series, or the seventh if you include the Up and Under books. The unifying principle behind the series is the personification of things that are not persons, objectively or scientifically speaking, such as the Doctrine of Ethos (Middlegame), Winter and Summer (Seasonal Fears), and now the Moon. Five of the main characters are Moon goddesses (Aske, Change'e, Artemis, Diana) and a Moon god (Máni). We also meet Kelpie, who is not in fact a Kelpie, but a personification of Artemis's Hind. Each of the gods/goddesses is in fact two persons -- a god/dess and an ordinary human whose body the two share. McGuire explains the relationship at length.

Roger Zelazny began his career by writing about thirty stories, which he sent to all the Science Fiction magazines, for which purpose he had made a comprehensive list. In this way he collected 150 rejections and no acceptances. He then sat down with all his stories, read them, and tried to figure out what the problem was. He decided that he was explaining too much -- that he would be insulted if an author told him so much, rather than letting him figure it out. So he stopped doing that, and immediately his stories began to sell.

McGuire knows this lesson. As a short story writer she is beautifully economical. But she seems somehow to have unlearned it to write Tidal Creatures. Unnecessary explanations of folklorical metaphysics go on and on.

But there was another thing that bothered me even more -- the sneering. I first noticed it when Judy (that's Chang'e's human) visits Prof Roger Middleton, and thinks this

"As she watches him, she realizes she doesn’t really know much about the man; she’s read his published papers, which are meticulously researched, and precisely as petty as any other academic work..."*

This amounts to an implication that all academic works are petty, and all equally petty. Once I started noticing the sneers, I couldn't stop. They're EVERYWHERE.

For instance, one of the main characters is Isabella, an hechicera. Isabella works with a circle of would-be witches who meet at the home of Catrina, who is one of them. Isabella seldom thinks of Catrina without a sneer. There are pages and pages of this. The problem with this is not that it diminishes Catrina -- we are meant to hold Catrina in contempt. The problem is that it diminishes Isabella. There are few point-of-view characters in Tidal Creatures who don't despise someone else and reveal that contempt in sneering thoughts.

The story is essentially a murder mystery -- moon goddesses are dying. (That's not a spoiler -- the publisher's blurb tells us "someone is killing them".) I think this could have been a rather good story. But the overexplanation and sneers really drained a lot of the fun out of it for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and TorDotDom for an advance reader copy of Tidal Creatures. Release date 4-Jun-2024.

*Quotes are from an advance reader copy of Tidal Creatures and may change before publication. This review will be corrected if necessary on the release date.

Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire, a fun read that ties back in to previous books. Which came first the moon or the moons avatars? who can say and how do certain people want to turn it to their advantage?

This is the third book in the series, and the first one that feels tied to Middlegame versus being in the same world as Middlegame. That means things go over my head occasionally but I enjoy them anyway.

There can be a sameness to the way the characters speak (across her books too; there's a length and structure that happens a little too often to feel natural to so many characters), but I'm used to it now. I have only two criticisms of the book, of which that is the major one. The other you'll guess when you read the book, and you should read the book.

I just flat out haven't liked the continuation of this series. I loved Middlegame. It is a near perfect book. (Except for the audiobook, narrated by Amber Benson, which is actually a perfect book and performance.)

That said, Seasonal Fears didn't work for me for a variety of reasons. I decided to give this one a try, and DNFed around 40%. McGuire's writing is truly overwritten at this point, with every sentence seeming to need an aside, an observation of the nature of the universe, or some sort of metaphor. All of the characters act like metaphors (even the ones who aren't). I still am annoyed that Seasonal Fears undid several major plot points from Middlegame.

I want to like this world and the magic system but I just can't. Unfortunately I just can't recommend this series to anyone.

Please, go read Middlegame. Then pretend the other books don't exist.