Review: Midnight Blue-Light Special (InCryptid, #2)

Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptic
Release date: March 5th 2013
Publisher: DAW
Paperback, 368 pages
Buy: The Book Depository

Cryptid, noun:

1. Any creature whose existence has been suggested but not proven scientifically. Term officially coined by cryptozoologist John E. Wall in 1983.

2. That thing that's getting ready to eat your head.

3. See also: "monster."

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 when her work with the cryptid community took her to Manhattan, she thought she would finally be free to pursue competition-level dance in earnest. It didn't quite work out that way...

But now, with the snake cult that was killing virgins all over Manhattan finally taken care of, Verity is ready to settle down for some serious ballroom dancing—until her on-again, off-again, semi-boyfriend Dominic De Luca, a member of the monster-hunting Covenant of St. George, informs her that the Covenant is on their way to assess the city's readiness for a cryptid purge. With everything and everyone she loves on the line, there's no way Verity can take that lying down.

Alliances will be tested, allies will be questioned, lives will be lost, and the talking mice in Verity's apartment will immortalize everything as holy writ--assuming there's anyone left standing when all is said and done. It's a midnight blue-light special, and the sale of the day is on betrayal, deceit...and carnage.

As hard as I try to keep them completely separate in my head, for reasons I’d rather not explain, Seanan McGuire and Mira Grant are obviously one and the same. Midnight Blue-Light Special, like no other book published under Seanan’s name before it, shows the sharpness and wit I’ve come to associate with the brilliant and irreplaceable Mira Grant. The urban fantasy genre itself may be a bit constricting compared to a post-apocalyptic future one can create from scratch, but Seanan found a way to make the best of it.

The worldbuilding in her InCryptid series is exactly what urban fantasy should be: rich, imaginative and never before seen. As always, McGuire paid so much attention to even the smallest things. The world of cryptids is a never-ending source of fascination and amusement, with creatures such as bogeymen and dragon princesses described in painstaking detail.

Bogeymen have extra knuckles, the better to creep you the hell out when they grab your ankles in the dark. It makes shaking hands with them a little bit disturbing, since it feels like you’re breaking fingers no matter how many times you adjust your grip.

In Midnight Blue-Light Special, the mighty and powerful representatives of the Covenant of St. George, not trusting the reports they’ve been getting from Dominic, decide to come to New York to do a purge. In other words, they plan to storm the city and kill every Cryptid in sight, and Verity right along with them. It’s time for Dominic De Luca, who was raised to be a Covenant boy through and through, to choose a side and stick with it.

Although it never took over the plot, romance was very much an essential part of Midnight Blue-Light Special. I loved the absolute honesty between Verity and her hot Covenant boy Dominic De Luca. They were raised (by the Prices and the Covenant of St. George, respectively) to be bitter enemies, but still they fell in love. So when the time came for Dominic to choose between the Covenant and the girl he loves, he was very honest about it from the start. He never claimed to have made up his mind until he really did, and this allowed both me and Verity to respect him even when they were seemingly on opposite sides.

When you decide to be the immovable object standing in front of the unstoppable force, you’d better pray that you’re right about being immovable, and they’re wrong about being unstoppable.

Although witty and imaginative, Midnight Blue-Light Special was by no means without problems. The sudden change in perspectives in the second half came as a complete shock, and while I understand McGuire’s decision to show us some events through Sarah’s eyes, I wish she’d chosen someone else. I never really cared for Sarah, and not because I harbor prejudices against cuckoos, but because I always thought of her as weak and indistinctive (her cuckoo powers aside).

Secondly, the pacing was all wrong when I expected better, especially from an author of McGuire’s caliber. Oddly enough, the first half was better than the second, at least in terms of pacing. In the second half, there were scenes that went on forever when they could have been cut in half without damaging the story, and the final big scene happened too quickly, forcing me to go back to reread because I failed to understand everything the first time.

However, all things considered, Midnight Blue-Light Special is undoubtedly worth your time, if only for its fascinating worldbuilding and refreshingly honest characters. Seanan McGuire’s crisp sense of humor certainly helps push through those scenes that are unnecessary to the plot. Plus, there are the talking mice. Did I mention the talking mice?

In the next book, we’ll be leaving Verity behind to join her brother, the cryptozoologist Alex Price, on one of his many adventures. It’s a risky move for Seanan since we’ve heard about Alex, but never actually met him, but I’m confident she’ll make it work. And besides, Verity deserves a break, doesn’t she?