Chaos Choreography

InCryptid, Book 5

By: Seanan McGuire

Narrated by: Emily Bauer

Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's Summary

Fifth book in Seanan McGuire's funny and fast-paced urban fantasy InCryptid series, featuring ballroom dancer and monster expert Verity Price.

Verity Price is back on the West Coast and getting back into the swing of the family business: cryptozoology. She's rescuing cryptids from bad situations, protecting them from monster hunters, and generally risking life and limb for the greater good, with her ex-Covenant partner/husband, Dominic, by her side. Her ballroom dance career is behind her - or so she thinks.

When Verity gets the call from the producers of Dance or Die, the reality show she almost won several years before, she finds the lure impossible to resist, and she and Dominic are off to LA for one last shot at the big time. Of course, nothing is that simple. When two contestants turn up dead, Verity will need every ally she can find with the investigation, without blowing her cover....

©2016 Seanan McGuire (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Fun

The story is lots of fun. Seanan McGuire has created a fun and unusual counter world full of cryptid/monsters with lots of quirky personalties. The reading is good, very listenable. I'm finding it a little disconcerting that Verity's (now) husband has gone from being a Brit, with a British accent, to something vaguely Indian sounding. But by and large the characterizations are very good.

This series continues to deliver!

In the latest volume of the Incryptid series we return to the perspective of the original main character, Verity Price. She is as fun and engaging as ever and this book is a very enjoyable continuation of the series. More details of the Price family, both past and present, unfold in the background like a second setting for the story. I can't wait to hear more. I hope that Ms. McGuire continues to work from this world for some time to come.

Emily Bauer gives a skillful performance making for a great listen. I punched the air with joy the first time I heard her cry "Hail!" I have no complaints about her work, but I will admit I wish they would team Ms. Bauer and Mr. Porter, reader for the preceding two books, up as a team. That would be a freight train of fun listening in the urban fantasy world.

Its great

Took a break from series and jumped back in. Works as a series finale if it was one. Things come full circle with dragons and dancing. Characters are interesting, well formed and with agency. There is action, suspense, drama. So, I liked it.

Yawning about the continual whine-fest

Sigh. I'm struggling to finish this book. It has nothing to do with the narration, but the story. The constant whining about her life choices, doing what she loves vs what her duties are; complaining about pain, time, winning, dancing (the tedium of dancing numbers and cattiness of other dancers to naseum).. I have stopped and started 3 different times now, I'm So sorry to say. I might be done with this series and stick with October Daye. I love this author, but this was not a good balance of story and charactor goals. Negativity abounds. Will miss the Aislan mice. Hail!!!

Still love it!

It was wonderful to be back with Verity Price! I have a bias for this series. We get a wonderful surprise with the appearance of the famous Grandma Alice. This is the time when Verity must make the choice for her life. Will she be a dancer or a cryptozoology? This decision not only affects her but Dominic as well. They are now happily married. Remember they had to leave New York because of the Covent.

So I am happy as a two-year-old playing in the rain on a warm day. Verity/Valerie is dancing! That has never played a large part of the plot. We meet her friends, she actually has a BFF and her dance partner. Of course when you have dancers, there is always a bitch and that is no difference here. We are taken on a view of the world of competitive dancing. To document the adventure, we have the Aeslin mice! I love them and how every day is a day of celebration. A one point where Verity and Dominic wants a little privacy, they offer the mice food. A mouse said, “you are doing that to get rid of us” LMAO … Hail

The Price never goes anywhere where there is not a problem. That holds true here. With bodies showing up Verity/Valerie is torn between dancing and saving lives. Of course she can do both. We have dancers, dancers who are monsters (really), Dominic (he took the last name of Price… my man!), mice (Hail) and Alice (grandmother/sister), dragons, and displaced races. We have got a great Price story. As I said, I am biased. Some of the reviews are negative, it is your choice in the end. Hey when is Antimony Price, the younger sister of Verity and Alex get her story?

good story but I didn't like the male voices

I am happy with the story and like having Verity and Dominic back in action. I thought the narrator did well on the female voices but the men were awful and spoiled the feeling for me.

Fun, but not my favorite InCryptid book

Is there anything you would change about this book?

It was a fun story overall. The Dance or Die crew was a little too obviously the SYTYCD host/judges with different names. For me it detracted from the story. For some people it would probably be a plus.

What did you like best about this story?

McGuire gets into what it is like to be a dancer on reality television which I enjoyed. The Aeslin mice are always great.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Unfortunately she constantly mispronounces words (tarot, catechism, obligate, Cthulu, to name just a few), and her accents are atrocious (the British judge/producer was bad, the Irish witch was beyond bad, and I couldn't even tell what kind of accent Dominic was supposed to have). She does a decent job differentiating between who's speaking and does a great job with the Aeslin mice,

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

If Joss Whedon was producing it, yes.

Any additional comments?

I did enjoy the book, but this will likely be the last InCryptid audio I listen to. I'll switch to print for the next book, because the narration is getting too frustrating for me.

Mostly enjoyable

I enjoy Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series... Although the series title "InCryptid" makes no sense. Most of the individual book titles make no sense. With this entry in the series, we suddenly veer from titles with an ineffable combination of sales and disaster, and move to the alliterative "Chaos Choreography". My main concern there is that I feel it should be "Chaos & Choreography". That would establish a great pattern that could be used by many more titles in the series. "Terror & Tenure", "Murder & Mascots" and such, just to make up completely fictional examples. The book was enjoyable. Some developments seemed far too obvious, while others I expected did not materialize at all. I look forward to going through more books in the series.

I'm done

I'm done listening and reading this series. Narrator is far too melodramatic and unrealistic, not to mention all her mispronounced words. Won't read it for myself, either. It's just not worth my time anymore.

SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE OCTOBER DAYE SERIES

I love this series. Specifically Verity's books. Not to big on the books about her brother Alex. She is more action and ass kicking whike Alex is nerdy and ass kicking but with reluctance to harm what needs to he harmed. Verity and Dominic are a well balanced duo. There is no overly long, extremely detailed sex scenes. The humor is well timed and kinda dark. As befitting two monster slaying, dragon saving, bogeyman scaring cryptozoologists.