Calculated Risks

InCryptid, Book 10

By: Seanan McGuire

Narrated by: Emily Bauer

Just when Sarah Zellaby, adopted Price cousin and telepathic ambush predator, thought that things couldn't get worse, she's had to go and prove herself wrong. After being kidnapped and manipulated by her birth family, she has undergone a transformation called an instar, reaching back to her Apocritic origins to metamorphize. While externally the same, she is internally much more powerful, and much more difficult to control.

Even by herself. After years of denial, the fact that she will always be a cuckoo has become impossible to deny.

Now stranded in another dimension with a handful of allies who seem to have no idea who she is - including her cousin Annie and her maybe-boyfriend Artie, both of whom have forgotten their relationship - and a bunch of cuckoos with good reason to want her dead, Sarah must figure out not only how to contend with her situation, but with the new realities of her future. What is she now? Who is she now? Is that person someone she can live with?

And when all is said and done, will she be able to get the people she loves, whether or not they've forgotten her, safely home?

©2021 Seanan McGuire (P)2021 Audible, Inc.

A great end to Sarah’s story

This is book 10 in the Incryptid series. While each book can be read as a standalone, these books are best read in order. The previous book in the series, book 9, Imaginary Numbers, ends on a cliffhanger - a number of the main characters are suddenly in another dimension- which is where this story begins. Therefore, to enjoy this book to the fullest, you should really read Imaginary Numbers. As in most of the books for this series, Emily Bauer is once again the narrator and she does a fantastic job bringing the story to life. This story is told from Sarah Zellerby’s (a non-human) perspective. Sarah’s species is colloquially called a cuckoo because cuckoo mothers place their infants in other family’s homes to be raised by them, much like cuckoo birds do. Sarah is not like most cuckoos who are normally telepathic murdering sociopaths. Sarah was found as a child by Angela Baker after the accidental death of her first “real” parents. Since Angela is also a cuckoo, though she is a non-receptive telepath and as a consequence is fairly harmless, she removed the murdering time bomb in Sarah’s head before it could go off at adolescence turning her into a murdering sociopath and raised her to be more human and less cuckoo. Sarah was raised with her “cousins”, Verity, Alex, Annie, Elsie, and Artie. Sarah’s family are the Prices who believe incryptids (non-humans) who are not harmful to humans or other species should be protected. Sarah and Artie (an incubus), have been in love with each other for decades but never acted on it. The book begins with Sarah, Artie, Annie, James (a newly “adopted” adult Price sibling), and Mark, another cuckoo, on an Iowa college campus that has been transported to another dimension with an orange sky with giant millipedes flying in it. Sarah is tied to a chair, the others do not remember Sarah and therefore believe she is a regular telepathic murdering sociopathic cuckoo and the cause of the current problems. The reason they do not remember Sarah is that she inadvertently erased their memories of her while using their brains (along with thousands of cuckoo’s brains) to process a complex, massive equation that was supposed to destroy the earth, transport all of the cuckoos to a new dimension, and kill Sarah in the process. Sarah thwarted the world ending part of the equation but as a result, transported the campus to a new dimension, and erased their memories of her. This book follows the group as they struggle with not remembering Sarah while trying to figure out how to get themselves and the campus transported back to earth and not dying in the process. I loved the story and the interplay amongst the characters as they navigate their memory gaps, the strange and sometimes dangerous creatures in this dimension, mindless zombie cuckoos, and Sarah’s grief over her lost family and her guilt over being forced to solve the equation. This book, like all the books in this series, made me laugh, cry, gasp, and grit my teeth. The book concluded Sarah’s story arc beautifully but left enough unresolved issues to allow plenty of room for more Incryptid books starring the Price family. And the possibility of more Price books is a fantastic thing.

Enjoyable Installment

Overall the book is enjoyable, though I think that the author's main characters (in this series at least) are written to sound mostly the same. When a character is a side character, they get a different writing approach.
Have enjoyed the series, and this was an interesting foray and I truly liked the way that the author explored what it means to be human versus what it would mean to be a different species. It reminds me of conversations that I have had around the gaming table.
Enjoyable popcorn level reading.

wonderfully read

Having finished a few duds recently it was great to return to incryptids to be reminded what good reading is. Perfect intonation really brings out the book’s tone. The story itself was good, but nothing new. A decent finish to the previous few, but not that mind blowing.

Best in Series!

I think Sarah is my favorite voice in this series. it's an awesome read, lots of edge of you seat moments as well as laugh out loud moments. The narration is excellent too.

Slow Starter

Took a while to amp up but when it did its all action. Still a great story and the performance is stellar as always. Overall it did feel like a book to get through to get to the next.