★★★☆☆ Mary and metaphysics

Aftermarket Afterlife

Seanan McGuire

The novels of the Incryptid series are told from the points of view of the members of the Price family in turn. Usually when your turn comes you get two novels, then the series moves on to someone else. We just finished two (Spelunking Through Hell and Backpacking Through Bedlam) about Grandma Alice. In Aftermarket Afterlife we move on to Mary Dunlavy (The Phantom Priestess, as the Aeslin know her). Mary is special in many ways. Most important for the reader is that she has seen more of the family's history than any living person. Notice that I did not say "than any OTHER living person" -- that's because Mary is a ghost. Mary is the Price family babysitter, and has been for the many years of her death. She has responsibility for the children, or any member of the family who needs care, and she will come when they call with comfort and stern but kind discipline.

Mary is a splendid character, whom I have always loved. Mary's position in the Price family means that her novel is uniquely wide-ranging and intimate. They are all Mary's children. She knows and loves them all. Advice to readers: print out the Price/Baker family tree with which the book begins. Then scribble in the missing-because-recent family members: Verity's husband Dominic De Luca and their daughter Olivia, Alex's not-yet-wife Shelby Tanner and their daughter Charlotte, and Angela and Martin Baker's newest adopted child, Isaac. Every person on that family tree (and even some more distant found family such as Uncle Mike) plays a role in this novel.

The plot, unfortunately, is the default Incryptid plot: a conflict with the Covenant of St George, a venerable villain that will be familiar to every reader of the previous novels of the series. But this one is bigger. The Covenant has decided that the time has come to sterilize North America of ungodly abominations and race traitors. And the stakes feel higher this time. One feels that it is not just one family member in danger this time, but the entire family. In fact, two family members are killed, really dead and gone. One of them has been with us since book 1 of the series, thus a major death.

Aftermarket Afterlife has one serious problem. Mary explains far too much. At any moment, even in the middle of a fast-moving action scene, Mary will throw in for the reader's benefit two paragraphs (if not pages) of not-really-necessary metaphysical explanations. I don't know what made Seanan McGuire lose faith in her readers' ability to suss things out. McGuire clearly understands the danger of explaining too much. She is a spectacularly good short-story artist, and you don't become that without knowing the importance of economy of expression.

So, in summary, great characters, good plot, flawed story-telling. I enjoyed Aftermarket Afterlife, but it could have been so much better.

DREAMING OF YOU IN FREEFALL

As usual, McGuire follows the novel with a novella, Dreaming of You in Freefall. I can't say much about it without major spoilers for Aftermarket Afterlife. But I can tell you that it's told from Verity's point of view, and is a kind of epilog for her part of the story. It's good, but also suffers somewhat from excess explanation.

Thanks to NetGalley and DAW for an advance reader copy of Aftermarket Afterlife. This review expresses my honest opinions.

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