Recommended Reading: Discount Armageddon

Okay, so I’ve given up on the idea of a regular Recommended Reading list. I’m just not wired to do regular posts. What you’re going to get is random Recommended Reading suggestions. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the bookstore….

My worshipfulness of Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series is well documented, and I believe I’ve even admitted my love of her (as Mira Grant) zombie books—which I bought because I adore her writing, even though zombies as a genre fail to capture my interest, so kudos to McGuire/Grant for confirming my belief that if I like an author, I’ll follow her/him to pretty much any genre. (See, e.g., Barbara Hambly.)

Now Seanan has a new series out, called the InCryptid, the first of which is Discount Armageddon. Urban fantasy again, and from the title, I’m sure you can guess the tone. It has funny bits. Really funny bits.

The premise is that all those mythical creatures that cryptozoologists believe in—from bogeymen to sasquatch, and chupacabra to tooth fairies (nasty creatures that they are)—are real, and the protagonist, Verity Price, comes from a family of folks who study them. Except Verity really wants to be a ballroom dancer. The Price family split with the Covenant of St. George generations ago, because the Covenant is all about the wholesale slaughter of monsters.

My favorite part of the book is, hands down, the Aeslin Mice, who are these sentient mice who have huge elaborate worship rituals regarding, among other things, the Price family. They have celebrations for everything. Like, to mark the union of the Noisy Priestess to the God of All Things That It Is Almost Certainly Better Not To Be Aware Of, or my personal favorite so far, the Holy Feast of I Swear, Daddy, I’ll Kiss the Next Man That Walks Through That Door.

If that doesn’t make you want to read Discount Armageddon, then I don’t know what would.