Middlegame

DNF at 43%.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

DNF @ 8%

Seanan McGuire is hit or miss with me. I love the InCryptid series as well as Feed, and am on the fence with the October Daye series. So, going into this one, I wasn't sure what I was going to feel about it. By the time I got around to reading it, I had heard so many good things, so I was pumped!

The thing is, and the reason I won't rate this one, it just isn't my style. This is 100% a case of it's me not the book, because I know of people who would probably dig this. The hardest part is I can't firmly put a finger on what it is that wasn't working for me. Part of it was that I was confused about what was going on and I feared that there would be some time traveling going on. It was picking up when I finally put it down, but by then I was already skimming it.

I think I might try this one again at a later date, when I'm in the mood for this type of science-y fantasy. It really does have a lot going for it and feels very unique.

I'm not sure I understood most of this book the way the author intended, but I definitely enjoyed it. (It feels infinitely more intelligent than I am.) I will be picking up the next books in the series as intended, but possibly not for a little bit until I am in the right headspace for it.

I loved Roger. I loved Dodger. I wanted Leigh to die in horrible ways.

Y'know, the signs of good characters!

This one was darker than I thought it was going to be, but it's also my first foray into Seanan McGuire's work. I really do like how she writes!

Now... this was a bit muddled by the fact that I have been reading this book on and off for a couple of months, and I have been reading a lot of other books together with it. This one should be read by itself, and rather quickly.
Now I understand the cover, though I don't think it's a good choice.
I found the alchemy part fascinating. Seanan made it sound real, and I like that.
I also like the fact that she opened the door for further adventures while finishing the story. I love how Seanan McGuire makes me expect things I don't expect :-D I mean, she has a unique way of seeing things. Most solutions aren't obvious. The conclusions and choices the characters make aren't predictable. Most of the time. I like that. She also widens the concept of a “happy ending”. Seanan McGuire's books aren't rosy and unicorn farts. They are pretty dark and some very horrible things happen. But it's not necessarily bad. Or, of course, it's bad, but one can have a happy ending, be content and enjoy life and see the beauty of it, even though some very horrible things have happened. I believe that is important because that's what human life is. Everyone suffers in some ways, and experiences pain and disappointment and depression and “bad things”, even though one could argue some people's “pain” is nothing compared to some other people's pain. It's all relevant, isn't it? Anyway, that's not all there is, and life is beautiful, and Seanan McGuire makes me remember it. I love her books.

This book was all sorts of things to me - confusing, frustrating, engaging, interesting. At the end of it all, I'm not sure I understood 100% what the backstory was supposed to be - I'm not even sure if we're meant to understand. It was such a weird, weird journey. It was enjoyable and fascinating, definitely memorable though I wouldn't say particularly endearing or really giving one the warm fuzzies of a new love. This was like a mish-mash of the Wizard of Oz, X-Men, and Doctor Strange and/or Avengers.

I've only ever read three books in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series and have enjoyed those well enough. I went into this one expecting a very different vibe from that one given that I had the impression this was meant to be more horror, more outright fantasy. I was a little surprised that the tone, the vibe of this one was very much similar to Wayward Children, especially at the very beginning when our protagonists are young kids. I can McGuire's interest in exploring that theme of childhood development and psychology, the traumas and struggles that children go through and the coping mechanisms that they put into place without even knowing what they're doing, and which may sometimes spill over into adulthood. This is still a huge part of Middlegame and though our protagonists eventually have bigger problems to deal with after they've grown up, they never quite forget or leave behind the events of their childhood.

The writing is engagingly descriptive, as McGuire's writing has always been. There's a lot of vivid imagery around here, especially when there're so much to perceive and tell in this world, like how Roger and Dodger experience their existences in completely different ways and how they intertwine occasionally. I did find that the writing got sometimes a little too dramatic and a bit repetitive, but that might just be a personal preference thing. During certain sequences, McGuire repeated certain phrases over and over again in the same passage or chapter to bring a point across. If done very minimally, I think this could drive a point cross, but I thought this was done a tad bit too much here that it dilutes the importance of each “important” phrase. Details: I got a little tired of reading, “There's so much blood.” everytime we skip back to the Book 7 interludes, and honestly I'm not really sure that the volume of blood was really all that important to the crux of the plot. What I liked much more was a bit of that repetition of, “How many times?” which I found more impactful and more relevant to the whole thing about Dodger and Roger having repeated their lives so many times, but that wasn't dwelled upon as much as “there's so much blood” unfortunately.

On a smaller scale, McGuire also uses that repetition to underline an emotional moment, for e.g. pulling a completely unrelated example off the top of my head and not quoting from the book: “... and she doesn't look back. She doesn't look back.” That's fine, I guess, I'm just not the biggest fan of that and it always sounds a bit too dramatic to me.

The pacing of the book was OK, though I always kept wondering if this could have been any shorter. This is a pretty long read and while the action never quite stops and nothing is really draggy, I feel like a large part of the length has to do with the style of narration and descriptions kinda dragging things out a bit. It's not a major problem, though I feel like it could've been perhaps more compact.

Roger and Dodger are the center of this book's universe in more ways than one. We spend almost all our times with them and watching them grow up, taking only an occasional jaunt to catch up on the book's antagonists. I did really like how fleshed out they were for most of the book, where we really delved into how childhood environment and circumstances can impact the way people, even those who are almost identical in every way, grow up. As the plot develops, they both kinda lose a bit of that human colour a bit when they become more aware of their talents, but I don't think I minded that because I was looking forward to some epic magical showdown. Erin was also a surprisingly complex character - dare I say even the most complex one in the whole lot? Leigh and Reed are fairly one-dimensional but we don't spend a lot of time with them so it's OK.

This is a very minor point but I was also kinda amused and just very slightly annoyed by how this book was meant to be encompass the world, the universe, reality itself - but we're so so centered in the United States. Heck, even when we were supposed to be separating twin babies “as far apart as geographically possible” (a paraphrased quote from the book), here I was expecting them to be somewhere in like Nepal and Canada, maybe. In fact, when Roger first says he's in Cambridge, I thought, huh having them in the USA and UK is kinda uninspired but okay. But no, he's actually in Cambridge, Massachusetts, so apparently “as far apart as geographically possible” simply meant on the opposite coasts of one country. There are other less obvious bits in the story that just felt very, very America-centric. I'm in two minds about this - on one hand, if McGuire didn't feel up to writing a character growing up in a completely different culture from her own experience, it makes sense that she just stuck to what she knew and I'd prefer that to half-baked attempts at trying to stick in, say, a South African upbringing if inadequate research was done. On the other hand, the cosmic scale this plot is supposed to be operating on just falls a little flat if we're just boxed up in a single country.

The ending was fine, although I actually kinda wanted to see a lot more, but I suppose it's not a bad thing if we didn't have some miraculous deus ex machina. Spoilery thoughts: I wanted to see Dodger and Roger really come into their manifestation and start pulling Leigh and Reed apart by math and reality alone, but I suppose it's not unrealistic that, still being human in some way, they couldn't possibly grasp the knowledge of how to use all their powers right from the get-go, even when they realized their potential for it. I liked the addition of Kim and Tim to their weird little family in the end, and I suppose that they'll have more of a role to play in the sequel.

This book is such an adventure. I love the characters, I think the concept is super creative and unique, the writing is the high quality I have come to expect of McGuire. This is probably her greatest book so far. Thoroughly satisfying and unlike anything else I've read.

Roger and Dodger are alchemical creations. Born with a single purpose. To break the natural rules of the world and reach the impossible. Their creator, Reed, has tried over and over again to produce a pair of children able to change the world. And time and again he has failed. But then everything changes. Separated at birth, Roger and Dodger begin to show signs of success. A connection previous pairs have been unable to achieve. As they begin to realize their abilities, Reed manipulates their lives to serve his purpose. Moving the children as if they were chess pieces, risking their mentality, their health, their very being. Whatever the cost, the impossible will be his.

The overall tone of Middlegame is dark, edgy, and willing to push the limits of the genre. There is a mixture of horror elements bound together to make it an unsettling read. And by listening to the audiobook, the brilliant narration of Amber Benson helped embody the ominous presence of the characters. Not only did she capture various dialects, but she also pitched the voice of the alchemists in a way that made your skin crawl. Between the writing style and the narration, Middlegame became a disturbing and fascinating alchemic story.

The alchemy build up and explanations did take a while for me to process. Not all the pieces of the story were presented upfront. The timeline switched between various points in the main characters' lives. And while it fed into the overarching plotline, I struggled to understand it all. When listening to chapters focused on the alchemists, my mind would drift. Their use of alchemist verbiage and constant talks of the Doctrine lost me. Unfortunately, their sections did make up a large part of the book, so often the story hit a lull for me.

However, when Roger and Dodger were the focus, I was swept up in the complex and interwoven story of their lives. Both children are highly talented in their own ways. Roger is a master of language, granting him the ability to easily communicate with others. Dodger on the other hand sees the world through a Math lens. Numbers and calculations form their own sort of language for her, yet it also keeps her apart from her peers. When their minds begin to connect the ways in which they balance one another are artfully portrayed. Then again, so are the ways they can spiral and disconnect from the world when they are no longer supporting one another. It's a delicate balance and the scales often tip to one side, showcasing the horror of what happens when the experiment begins to go wrong.

While the story didn't always keep my attention, the amount of apprehension and friction Roger and Dodger experienced as they discovered their true purpose kept me reading. I want to know more about these two characters, even if the foundations of the alchemy that created them don't interest me as much. I'll give book two a try now that Middlegame has laid down the foundation of the world. And I would still recommend those who enjoy dark fantasy stories that focus on mental health and experimentation to give this try.

i went absolutely feral over this book

I was excited to start on another of McGuire's fantasy series after finishing Wayward Children. This book was good, can't-stop-reading material, but I wonder how there's possibly going to be a sequel, it seems so self-contained and finished.

I couldn't put this one down. I didn't what was happening most of the time but I throughly enjoyed it. It's creative, intriguing, mysterious, and confusing. The middle dragged a little but the ending made up for it. This is my first read from this author and I'm convinced to read more.

starting 2021 with a bang

An interesting 3.5, to which I'll give the benefit of the doubt and raise to a 4. At times this was very good, but at others...something I can't put my finger on just missed its target. The ending in particular felt unsatisfactory; the conclusion felt like it came to early. I wanted a glorious finish but this felt like the minimum necessary to wrap up the story.

An intriguing sci-fi premise that gave me ‘Umbrella Academy' vibes quickly devolved into a muddled time hopping gimmick.

DNF'd after 250 pages. Wasn't going to give this one anymore of my time. The characters were flat, the plot was scattered, and the burn was way too slow.

2.5. Started slowly & got better, but was often repetitive and sometimes tedious

4.5 ⭐️This review can also be found on my blog.This is going to be one of those books you're SO lost reading when it comes to plot, but it's okay because Seanan will take your hand and guide you to an ending that will make about as much sense as it can be expected to. I had been intending to read something by Seanan McGuire (or Mira Grant, another pen name of hers) for a while now and while Middlegame wasn't what I expected my first book of hers to be, I'm so glad I picked it up!While it's impossible to get into the plot while still remaining sensical and avoiding spoilers, let's just say this book will reel you in. It struck the perfect balance of maintaining a complexity that required me to follow things closely while also giving me enough information to keep me completely interested. At no point did I feel like things were lagging or forced; this book was perfectly set-up and perfectly paced and I'm so impressed by it.In order to balance out a largely confusing plot, the characters and their relationship were so, so endearing. We start off during Roger and Dodger's childhood and I was impressed to find that Seanan was able to write them in a way that felt realistic without feeling immature or irritating, which I often find to be the case with younger POVs. They both felt like such truly real people and it was wonderful watching their growth.Overall, I just found this to be such a satisfying read and wouldn't be surprised if my 4.5 tips over to a 5, depending on how well it sticks to me. I'd definitely recommend this to lovers of sf/f.content warnings: attempted suicide, graphic descriptions of blood/gore/deathBlog Twitter Instagram Facebook Ko-fi

It took me awhile to pick up what this book was laying down, but once I got into it it was very compelling. I love this flavor of metafiction (even if this one was a bit darker than my usual reading preferences).

Rather 2.5 stars than 2.
Couldn't really get into any of the characters. I could not understand half of the stuff that was going on; to be very honest, did not enjoy it entirely.

4/5 stars

Review to come

This started out as 4 star book but ended up with only 3 stars. Maybe 3.5 if I still think about it in a month.

within 30 pages this writing was already grabbing me by the throat. from there it was just a ride i enjoyed every second of. from the characters and their development to this whacked out world to trying to figure out what the heck was going on, this book held my attention and stole my heart. one of my favorites forever

Took me a minute to get into this book, but after about 50 pages I wanted to know more. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but there were aspects of it that I felt were more plot driven than character driven, which I enjoy in equal parts. I was also confused from time to time that I had to accept to move myself forward, but I would have rather had been fully understanding to give it five stars.

This beautiful, strange and impossible book affected me in unexpected ways. I won't be able to stop thinking about it for a while, U suspect! Quite possibly one if my all time faves.

Except for where the narrator sacrificed understandability for textual accuracy, damn this was good. The story is complete in this one book but I would love to listen more in this world.

It took me a minute to get through this. It's a long book. Actually, I began to think of it as multiple books. First we have, at the beginning of each section, an excerpt from Over The Woodward Wall (don't skip them if you are reading this!) Then we have the story of little Dodger and little Roger who find friendship when they need it most, then we have them as teens, and then we have them as grad students. Finally we have a showdown between Good and Evil. It was quite a ride.
I listened to the audio book, which was narrated by Amber Benson and I have to say she did an amazing job. I loved Leigh and Erin grew on me.
What I forget, continually, is how funny Mira Grant can be and there were some laugh out loud moments here that were great for breaking the tension.

Middlegame may be the Best Book I've ever read. Intense, smart, with an implacable understanding of humanity that is driving the storyline. You need to read this book. That is an order. A command. An adjuration.