The InCryptid Series, Part 2
by Seanan McGuire
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted July 17, 2025
Click here to read my thoughts on the first five books in this series, and on Seanan's name above to see links to other reviews.
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Another series I'm behind on. Magic for Nothing, the sixth of Seanan's InCryptid novels, was published in 2017. The series started in 2012, but I didn't read the first five titles until last year. So far, fourteen have been published, with a fifteenth due next March, and for the third time they are a Best Series Hugo finalist this year. When I stopped reading her October Daye books after the first six, then started again earlier this year, I found out she consider that book a new beginning in Toby's story. Something similar happened with InCryptid after the fifth book. It concluded with Verity Price outing herself on national TV, and challenging the Covenant of St. George to a confrontation of idealism. A war between the two groups is now anticipated, along with a major purge of cryptids in North America. The Price/Healy family had committed themselves to protecting innocent cryptids, while also learning about harmful species, and training to fight them. The Covenant, on the other hand, considered all cryptids to be harmful and unwanted, a blemish on the world which was supposed to be humanity's domain. They also felt any humans who protected cryptids were no better, thus their enemy.
This book features another first-person narrator, the third for the series so far, following Verity Price and her older brother Alex. Now it is Verity's younger sister Antimony, Annie for short, but she has used other names. The few brief times she had been mentioned in earlier books it seemed she resented being the youngest, thus the least respected and utilized member of the family of cryptozoologists. She was prone to quarrels with her siblings, and awkward confrontations with her parents. I'm not sure of the timelines, but they may be occuring at approximately the same time as the year they were published. Annie is an adult, I think somewhere between eighteen and twenty, perhaps a bit older. On several occasions Annie says she loves Verity, but doesn't think she will ever like her. Now Verity has thrown the whole family into a frenzy, having to anticipate the Covenant's retribution. The last thing Annie expected was for the rest of the family to decide she should be the one to infiltrate the Covenant in England in an attempt to learn their plans.
One thing that would make that easier is that Annie looks nothing like any other woman in her family, all the rest very similar in appearance. Using the alias of Timpani Brown, and taking a roundabout series of travel by bus, train, and plane, gets her to England. Her cover story is she wants to join the Covenant to avenge her family who had operated a carnival until all were killed by an invasive species of cryptid, Apraxis wasps. She says she had been away at college at that time, so she is the sole survivor of her family, or anyone else associated with that carnival. She had previously trained with another carnival, perfecting skills on the trampoline, a little bit of trapeze work, as well as knife-throwing, but no high-wire or tightrope. She also plays on a roller derby team. The Covenant does take her into the fold, although it would take a long time for her to be fully trusted and accepted. Something that was a bit too serendipitous, her first field assignment was to be sent back to the States to investigate disappearances that were suspected to be connected to another traveling carnival in the Midwest.
That convenience of plot makes this my least favorite of the series so far. What are the odds of something so close to her supposed cover story happening that quickly, unless of course someone in the Covenant knew her true identity, and they were just stringing her along in order to get closer to the other Price family members. One of the operatives she trains with is the distant relative Margaret Healy, who was in the second book, but mind controlled by Sarah to forget contact with Verity. Unless they had been aware of who she was, it didn't make sense they would give her a field assignment so soon, as well as letting her work at the carnival without supervision other than nightly call ins. If Margaret and another agent were observing her closely, they either were bad at their job, or again, stringing her along to see what she would do, how she might incriminate herself. Days go by, sometimes several weeks between chapters, with little to report, although Annie does eventually discover a dangerous cryptid, then has to convince the Covenant the other members of the carnival knew nothing about it. The last thing she wants is for them to purge everyone, human or cryptid, but how can she stop them if that is their intent?
I won't identify how many cryptids she is working with, or their type, or their fates, and not much of anything else either. One of them may recur in a later book, but I won't search for that information. Some other very convenient things happen. Annie could have easily been killed, or captured, to be returned to England, but as it is she is on the run, on her own, not wanting to lead the Covenant back to her family. Even though this was my least favorite, I will continue with the series at some point, not sure when. I only know the title of the next book, but no details, not sure who the narrator will be next time, but because of the title I suspect it will be Antimony again. Stay tuned.
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