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 series, although I enjoyed the earlier short stories more than the 'modern times' stories. The comments were delayed because of the open awards.

Fun, but not well executed. Pacing of many sequences felt off (lots of quips and dialog while baddies stand around), villains on-screen behavior abruptly changes in last 10% bc it's time for the finales. Suffered by comparison to the previous Incryptid books

Thank you for providing this book as part of the 2020 Hugo Awards Voter’s Packet (finalist for Best Series).

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.

In Chaos Choreography we follow the exploits of Verity and Dominic as they deal with the impacts of evil magic releasing a snake god in LA. This time they are aided by Verity's new friends and a long absent family member. The book started out a bit slow for me, (perhaps because neither dance nor reality shows about dance competitions interest me) but about half way through it picked up speed, dead bodies and much suspense, and by the climax it was zooming past at Mach 7 to a literally explosive and satisfying conclusion.

We've moved back to Verity from Alex, which I will admit was a slight disappointment as, I'm not going to lie, I far preferred the science geek to the ballroom dancer. However, this also put Verity squarely in her comfort zone with a dancing competition, so was quite interesting just on that basis alone. But being the Price family, dancing is not the only thing Verity has to concern herself with. And when dead bodies with strange and complex markings drawn in blood start appearing... and then disappearing without a trace... Verity's life gets significantly more complicated.

As with all of these novels, I loved the humour and the wit throughout. McGuire draws snarky, strong female leads very, very well. Having very little interest in dancing, the basic premise of the novel didn't interest me as much as the science nerd approach of Alex's point of views, but I was interested enough to follow it through. I loved the inclusion of Grandma Alice, who we have heard a lot about but never really seen in action. I admit, the snake cult drawing sacrificial runes on people they'd killed felt a bit repetitive, as we saw almost exactly that plot in the first novel. It saves itself by having this snake cult being significantly more competent and not confusing a giant dragon with a snake God, but I would have preferred a narrative that didn't replay what had been seen before.

I'm still whole-heartedly in love with the Aeslin mice and think they are one of the best set of side characters I have ever read about. I appreciated that McGuire made more of an effort to bring various cryptid species back into the novel as well, as the previous book was almost completely dominated by werewolves. Here we got quite a few little side shows with the dragon 'princesses', a family of ghouls and a few interestingly new humanoid cryptids performing with Verity on stage. A lot of the world building that was side-lined in the last novel came back to the fore here which was excellent.

So there were good and bad elements to this. It wasn't my favourite in the series, partly because of the focus on dance and partly because of how the plot felt recycled in parts. But it was still a heap of fun to read and I devoured it in less than a day.

I'll be honest, I am completely biased with regards to the InCryptid books by Seanan McGuire. I LOVE them! So you should just go buy them all and read them yourself to decide If I'm right or completely right about this book!

Chaos Choreography is book 5 in the InCryptid series. With this book we are returned to the life of Verity, for whom an old door had re-opened and opportunity beckons with sequins and stage lights.

But we're talking Verity here, so opportunity also seems to feature plenty of blood, death and gore!

Welcome to Reality TV, the show is Dance or Die - and someone is taking the title quite literally!

This book has everything. Glitz, glamour, diva meltdowns, talking religious mice! Go now and read this book, the Arboreal Priestess & God Of Hard Choices In Dark Places command it!

This book is so FUN! Verity heads for Hollywood to appear on a dance reality show and has to combine all her time on camera with stopping a snake cult. I liked how much and how well she works with others here: Dominic is a constant and (surprisingly) welcome presence, and Malena and Pax are great additions to the team. That is not to forget Alice, Verity's grandma, who shows up to be super badass. I had an absolute blast with the book, and the wonderful Aeslin mice were a sweet bonus!

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

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.

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.

Seanan McGuire is a treasure! I love the Incryptid series - I prefer it to October Daye (which is not to say I dislike Toby). I voted for this series for best series Hugo and I will vote for it again in two years.

Chaos Choreography is the fifth inCryptid novel, but resides in an odd place in terms of it's potential to be read as the first in the series. Both Books 1 (Discount Armageddon) and 3 (Half-Off Ragnarok) are the starts of arcs centered around different characters and thus can be used as a new reader's introduction to the series By contrast, Chaos Choreography returns after a two book absence to Verity Price (the protagonist of Book 1), even if it takes place in a different city, and thus kind of serves as a third book in an already completed plot arc (and a continuation of that plot arc in some ways can be found in a bunch of fun short stories on McGuire's website).



This wouldn't matter too much if this was a stronger book - but for reasons I'll lay out after the jump, Chaos Choreography is the weakest inCryptid novel. It's still a well-paced read with several fun moments (despite you know, people being horribly murdered). But it feels oddly duplicative of the first book in the series, Discount Armageddon, even though it ends in a way to set up a drastically new status quo for the series.







--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------

Years ago, Valerie Pryor competed on the hit National reality show, "Dance or Die," where her ballroom dancing won the hearts of America.....until she came up just short of winning at the finale. For a normal dancer that would've been the thing to start one's career....except Valerie Pryor doesn't exist - she was simply an alias for Verity Price, a member of the cryptozoologist Price-Healy family that has spent the past five generations living in hiding while trying to protect and preserve North America's cryptid populations. Verity still loved dance, and tried to see if she could make it work, but after her encounters with a strike team of the monster-hunting Covenant of St. George in New York, she knew she couldn't deny her calling to be the latest cryptozoologist of the family. Of course, she did manage to get a husband out of that horrible experience in the ex-Covenant agent Dominic de Luca.



But when Verity receives an email from the producers of Dance or Die asking if she would return to the show for an All-Star Season, she couldn't pass up the chance. And so Valerie Pryor is reborn. But when two eliminated contestants are found dead in the fashion of a ritual slaughter, it seems the worlds of Valerie and Verity won't stay so neatly apart this time. If Verity can't figure out who is doing the killing and stop them, things could get very very bad.



Fortunately, Verity has support not only from Dominic this time, but her Dimensionally-Traveling Heavily-Armed grandmother Alice Price-Healy. Well, perhaps "fortunately" isn't the right word to describe help from a crazy woman who looks in her 20s and whose idea of a welcome is to lob a grenade.....

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Chaos Choreography returns to the first person point of view of Verity Price, our narrator for the first two inCryptid Novels. That said, we're no longer following her in New York - this story takes place ostensibly in Los Angeles, where the reality competition takes place. Verity is still a fun character to follow, as is her husband Dominic (who surprisingly gets a smaller part than you'd think). And Grandma Alice, previously only referenced in the novels (and whose short stories so far take place early enough in her life to not really give us a good impression of who she would become) is a fun new character to add to the party.



Still this story almost feels more like one of the inCryptid short stories than a novel - even though it's novel length. There's no reason why this book is set in L.A. - it could've been set in any other city, unlike the first two inCryptid novels which do take advantage of being set in Manhattan. The story is more direct than the prior inCryptid novels (or at least it feels that way), with the climax occurring and resolving extremely quickly. I enjoy those inCryptid short stories a lot, because the characters are generally very fun, but it's weird to feel that same format in novel length.



Really though, the problem with this book is that it feels like it isn't doing anything new. For the second time in three books, our villain for Verity is a Snake Cult that's killing people. The book attempts to set up THIS Snake Cult as being far more dangerous because it actually knows what it's doing, but the climax is so quick that it never really feels like it's more dangerous than Discount Armageddon's snake cult at all. We've been here done that with all of this, and the "mystery" element of who is behind the Snake Cult isn't really done well enough (two of the culprits are obvious; the third doesn't seem to leave any clues behind) to make a difference.



The story does end with a major change to the status quo of the series, which portends a new era for the series going forward. But does that major change really justify the rest of the book? Not really. Again, the book isn't bad - like the rest of the series, it's a fun well-paced ride. But it's a low point for the series nonetheless.

I don't dance...but the competition in this book seems to have been inspired by the one dance/reality show I actually watched a bit of and enjoyed. So that's a nice touch. And I love the mice. And Dominic. And Grandma Alice. This book was a wild ride, and I enjoyed it.

After two novels focusing on Alex Price, Seanan McGuire returns to the protagonist of the first two novels of the Incryptid series Verity Price. Verity has given up her dreams of competitive dance and has turned to the family trade of being a cryptozoologist, dedicated to preserving and protecting those non human creatures the rest of the world only believes are myth (if even that). That is, until she gets a call to participate in an all-star season of Dance or Die, the reality dancing show she was once a runner up on.

Chaos Choreography is the fifth Incrytpid novel, so by this point you have a really good idea of what you're going to get. For a fifth novel, this is a surprisingly good place to jump into the series since McGuire does enough of the work to smooth the ride. Sure, you won't be nodding your head in understanding certain callbacks, but you have what you need. If you haven't been following the series, you get: a good dose of "weird" creatures being perfectly normal, conspiracy, action, murder, cultural understanding (and misunderstanding), attempts to be better, wise cracks, tension, and excitement. We learn more of Verity's family and the wider crytpid world. It's a delight.
Score: 7/10

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2019/02/nanoreviews-breath-of-sun-chaos.html

I received this work as part of the 2018 Hugo Voter Packet. This is the expected mix of pop culture, magic realism, and humor which have characterized the earlier books in the series. I find that I prefer the author's October Daye series, which manages the snarky humor without being flippant. Readers will need to read the earlier books first to enjoy this one. Recommended for fans of urban fantasy and pop culture.

I don’t binge read series. I don’t. The craft behind the writing becomes too apparent to me, making even well-written books predictable. So why did I pick up the next InCryptid? Well, I was in a specific mood that the InCryptid series fills. The way the main character and locations change, there is more a shared experience than a fixed series feel. It’s an interesting way to run with a concept.

I stated before that Alex is my favorite of the Price family so far because I identify with his approach the most. What I’d forgotten is the way Verity’s determination and enthusiasm whether performing Latin dance or hunting down strange beings in the reservoir draws me in. I might not be inclined to dance professionally, but I can empathize with how she’s pulled in two directions and how the dance calls to her.

As you probably guessed, main character shifts back to Verity for this novel. She collects an ensemble cast of Dominic (ex-Covenant and now her husband), Malena (a chupacabra), Pax (a Ukupani), Brenna (a dragon princess), and the infamous Grandmother Alice. That isn’t going into the main characters for the dance competition except where they cross over just as Verity becomes Valerie. It’s a lot of characters to keep track of, but each is distinct enough I didn’t mix them up at all. Oh, and of course, the mice made their presence known, as how could they not.

Seanan McGuire has a way with characters that makes you want to see them succeed. It’s the right blend of empathy, determination, and sheer idiocy that allows the Prices to leap into danger again and again. They risk life and limb to protect the world, the cryptids, and even humans who aren’t trying to tear everything apart.

This novel is no different.

Sure, it’s supposed to be Valerie (Verity’s alter ego) who holds center stage, but where Verity goes disaster sure seems to follow, if it wasn’t there already waiting to be uncovered. She goes about things the way she always does, making friends, making enemies, and all the while planning to play loose with the rules. It works because she usually has more than her self-interest at stake.

That’s what draws me back to the series when I need a break. It’s the blend of humor with serious situations and an underlying understanding that being evil is a choice, not a species. Besides, I got to meet Grandmother Alice, who was not what I’d expected at all, though maybe I should have guessed some of it.

There were some perfect notes like when Verity realizes her Valerie disguise couldn’t have fooled most of the staff. The persistent statement that the dragons trying to purchase a young male to raise as a husband for their daughters is something so alien humans struggle to understand it jarred though. (This is well within the dragon culture and would preserve their future when only one surviving male is known to exist.) Human history is littered with mostly female, but some male, children being bartered in marriage. The period where this is less common in Western cultures is both short and very recent.

Ultimately, the issues were small and the strengths huge. I enjoyed the actual differences in various cryptid mentalities compared to human and the way Verity takes on the world to protect those she considers friends. Though she’d do it for anyone in need. As to the mystery, I pinpointed some of those involved, but not with confidence, so the need to identify the true enemies carried me through to the end where some were eliminated from my list through surprising twists.

It’s a fun read with some beautiful cultural moments and characters you feel for.