by Seanan McGuire ★★★★☆
I don't remember how I found Middlegame back in 2019, but it managed to wow me to the point that it landed at #4 on my Best Books of 2019 list. Despite author Seanan McGuire prolifically churning out hundreds of pages every year, Middlegame was my first introduction to her writing, and it set me down the path of the "Alchemical Journeys" series. Seasonal Fears, the 2022 follow-up to Middlegame, was equally inventive, but perhaps faded a bit from missing the novelty boost that came from the first introduction to McGuire's fascinating imagination, but I was still very much intrigued to find out what she'd conjured in Tidal Creatures.
The novel takes place in Berkeley, CA, on the campus of the university, where we're introduced to the general concept: there are a plethora of lunar gods throughout the world, and all of them are responsible for guiding the moon across the sky on a nightly basis. This guidance takes place in a between-worlds environment referred to as "the everything", a "glorious tunnel between worlds". The everything also provides access to the Impossible City, something that readers of previous Alchemical Journeys novels will know is the ultimate prize that the alchemists are striving to attain, only to be held at bay by the manifestation of earthly doctrines and seasons. Early in the novel, the moon goddess Aske is murdered inside the everything -- something that should not be possible -- and so the search for a killer in the midst of the gods and alchemists of Berkeley ensues.
McGuire spends a good amount of time explaining the concepts, and then explaining them again as our main characters (the Lunars / moon deities) meet others. It helps to ground the reader in what is going on initially, but then it becomes repetitive, as we continue to cover the same ground with new audiences. In addition, each moon god or goddess partially manifests with a human, and they can bounce between the human person and the god/goddess within that human body, which makes for a decent bit of confusion for the reader until one is able to keep straight all of the characters. Fans of the previous novels will be happy to know that Roger and Dodger make a more significant appearance in this novel, as well as other characters from Middlegame like Erin and Smita.
At one point in the novel, a character says the following:
"The way I see it, we have a braid of problems...Your friend's dead, and that sucks, and we need to figure out who or what killed her; we have an asshole alchemist running around making monstrosities and attacking people who haven't done anything to warrant it; and we have a group of alchemists who seem to have mostly been wiped out by the aforementioned asshole, who were making accessory packs of existing Lunars in a really complicated attempt at a honeypot. Does that sound about right for a summary?"
It does sound right for a summary, and if the novel better balanced those plot points with explanations of the Lunars' responsibilities, dual manifestations, etc., I think I would have enjoyed it more. However, the central mystery -- who killed Aske? -- takes a back seat to McGuire's expansive imagination and characterization of the Lunars. The repetitiveness on the core concepts, combined with a murder mystery that lacked nuance in terms of its plot development left me wanting the book to be better than it was. Ultimately, this was a 3-star read for me, but I have to acknowledge the incredible creativity and depth to which McGuire conjures yet another wholly original adjunct to her fantasy world, and so I'll round up to 4 stars.
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