Middlegame is… confusing. The premise is intriguing and the writing is very engrossing, but the world-building is without enough development. This is a character driven story, so the characters are quite complex and layered, but the story doesn’t hold up when the world-building makes very little sense. The slow pace and shifting timelines also take a bit of getting used to and can be quite confusing at times.

Seanan McGuire is an amazing writer, but Middlegame doesn’t reflect her talent in creating unique and detailed worlds. The narrative worries more about talks of mathematics than it does about explaining why Roger and Dodger are the way they are and the reason behind their existence. The plot also takes quite a bit of time to get going, as the chapters shift POVs and timeline, so there are a lot of starts and stops that don’t work well to establish a smooth narrative.

I am disappointed. I’m sure lots of people will really enjoy this and just how unique it is, but it doesn’t work for me. The character development is very very well done and executed and I actually really liked Roger and Dodger as characters. The dynamic between them and how their relationship changes as they grow is probably the one thing I liked in the entire novel.

The world-building is just… a lot of cool words and concepts are thrown around, but McGuire doesn’t really spend much or any time explaining them. A few things get mentioned again and again and given no context as to how they work or why they’re so important. The alchemy bits are pretty interesting, but they don’t stand alone and those sections aren’t enough to carry the length of the novel. Especially when it’s 400 pages of maths and Roger and Dodger meeting and going their separate ways again.

There is quite a bit of action nearing and at the end of the novel, but some bits feel rushed. There isn’t all that much impact to them. The lack of world-building contributes to some moments falling flat and also adds a bit of confusing in regard to the timeline and what’s really going on as the story reaches its conclusion.

In the end, Middlegame doesn’t work for me. I need more explanations to fully immerse myself in a story and enjoy it, and McGuire worries more about developing her characters than creating a world with substance. I’m sure some readers will love this, but I’m sadly not one of them.

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire is based on a simple premise: words and math control reality. What might happen if an alchemist bent on world domination forced the natural principles of these concepts, known as the Doctrine of Ethos, into human form, where they could be manipulated and controlled and thereby used to control the world? These human embodiments of the Doctrine of Ethos, the twins Roger and Dodger, grow up completely unaware of what they are or why they were created. Roger understands the world through words, Dodger through math, but as far as they know, they’re just unusually intelligent people.  However, as they grow up and their abilities and psychic connection become harder and harder to explain away, everything leads them farther along the improbable road, closer to the Improbable City, and nearer to the destruction of the world.

When I saw that Tor was offering advance copies of a new Seanan McGuire book on NetGalley, I think I actually shrieked. I have loved McGuire’s other books because she comes up with truly amazing premises and follows through on the promise of those premises with incredible, engaging stories. Then I read the description and thought, “Huh.” It didn’t immediately appeal to me on description alone, but I was excited enough about the prospect of a new Seanan McGuire book that I decided that I wanted to try it anyway. Now that I have finished the book, I know that I’m glad I read it, but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it and even less certain how to explain it. This is the kind of story that defies description, due to both complexity and the fact that the most critical facts would spoil the big reveals of the story.

I loved the characters and I ripped through this book in a few days. It was fascinating following Roger and Dodger and exploring both the different ways they understand the world and the different ways that the world reacts to them and shapes their experiences. In particular, I appreciated the way McGuire acknowledged the different ways society reacts to and treats intelligent women versus intelligent men and how that impacts Roger and Dodger’s childhoods. Parts of the story were heartbreaking, parts were funny, and despite the fantastical and horror elements of the narrative, the characters and the way they reacted to the situations they encountered felt incredibly realistic. I should also admit that I will read almost anything Seanan McGuire for the sheer gorgeousness of her writing. It’s dramatic and horrific and captivating and Middlegame completely delivers on everything I love about McGuire’s writing.

Despite everything that I enjoyed, I spent the first half of Middlegame very confused. For those that enjoyed the Wayward Children series and the way it plays with the fairy tales and portal fantasies we already know, Middlegame also wraps its story around the narrative of a beloved children’s fantasy. The catch is that the reader doesn’t know the narrative because it’s a children’s series created within the world of the story, similar to the Fillory stories in Lev Grossman’s Magicians series. The characters know the story that the twins are unknowingly mirroring and we get glimpses of the stories of the Up and Under (similar to Oz) throughout the story, but I kept getting hung up on the idea that the story might make so much more sense if I had read this story within a story. There are elements of the story in Middlegame that never get fully explained and other big elements that don’t become clear until fairly late in the narrative. I finished the book and I still don’t know what the Improbable City is or how to explain the Improbable Road, despite the fact that both of these play a major part in the story. This can make the first half of the book seem slow and while reading that half I wasn’t even sure if I liked the story. That said, after I hit that halfway point I was so engaged that I didn’t want to stop reading even to go to work. Ultimately, the decision to keep certain things back from the reader felt necessary because the characters are going through that same confusion and if the reader already knew what was happening, it would lessen the impact when the characters finally figure it out.

As much as I enjoyed Middlegame overall, I think whether or not you will enjoy it is entirely dependent on how willing you are to go along for the ride and trust that if you stick with it, Seanan McGuire will take you on an interesting journey whether you understand it or not.

I really wanted to like this book because I tend to enjoy McGuire’s novels- but I couldn’t even finish it. The dialogue seemed forced, the characters un-relatable, and the plot was too confusing to fully grab my attention. 
I can see the appeal for avid fantasy readers, but the inconsistencies were difficult to ignore.

I received an early galley of the book via Netgalley.

<i>Middlegame</i> is about alchemy and quantum entanglements and sibling love. It's a good read despite some hiccups and confusion along the way, in major part because the two protagonists are so compelling. 

A children's author a century before used fiction to encode her principals on alchemy, with an end goal of ultimate, godly power. Her pupil continues her work by breeding twin children to possess the concepts of Chaos and Order--language and math--with a hope of immortality and world domination. His attempts often fail and are discarded. Roger and Dodger aren't raised in a lab, but sent out in the world to grow up on opposite sides of the country. That distance means little when you possess the potential of the universe. 

McGuire is a fantastic writer, and that really shows in how she develops Roger and Dodger. The twins are simultaneously drawn together and repelled from each other, both in meat space and across time itself. The very beginning of the book was where it was slowest and most confusing for me, as it heavily focused on the villains that were a bit too heavy on the villainy. (Even through the end, they caused me to roll my eyes at times.) If another author had been at the helm, I would have given up very early on, but I trusted McGuire to deliver, and she did. At the 10% point, the twins began to come together, and the book mostly flowed from there. 

I imagine this is a book that will get a wide range of reactions. I felt a wide range even as I read, but I'm glad I pushed through. I'm taking care to avoid spoilers as I mention that the ending didn't quite surprise me; part of the reason for that is that we see parts of the ending replayed throughout the entire book, so by the time it arrives, it didn't manage to feel new, even in how it finally achieved a resolution.

Along with Roger and Dodger, I loved how the character of Erin developed... and I must give a shout out to Bill the Cat. His role was small but he stole my heart.

When Seannan McGuire creates a world, she creates a story that is hard to put down. I spent my vacation days marathon reading this book.
A homoculous uses his creators wish to find the heart of the universe. He splits knowledge of the universe into math and language and puts one part into a set of twins. Then he sends them out into the world for then to find the heart. The twins are strange as each one is filled with math or language. This type of genius that is so strongly into one subject isn't understood while they grow up.  They would be considered alone but they have a bond that is too strong to be ignored.

I normally love McGuire's works but this one is just not working for me.  I was having such a hard time connecting to the characters, the world, and even the writing style.  I want to love this book because the premise is delightful but found meself hesitant to pick the book back up.  I do want to give this book another shot in the future.  But for now, I am going to stop trying to force it.  I still remain grateful for the review copy from the publishers.  Arrr!

"In the same ordinary town, on the same ordinary street, lived two ordinary children who had never quite managed to cross paths."

MR. HUMPHREY: "So what was this book about?"
ME: "Honestly, I couldn't tell you but I loved it."
MR. HUMPHREY: ......
ME: .......

Ok, but have you ever read a book that is so intellectually deep and intricately detailed in subject matter that you aren't well versed in, that you haven't got the first clue how to explain it to someone else? Honestly, that's how I feel about most of Seanan McGuire's books, because her writing is so flawlessly executed that we aren't worthy of her stories, yet she allows us to read them anyway. Even the blurb is fairly cryptic, and I think the publisher wisely chose to keep the cards close in hand on this book for the very reason that it's best to go in open-minded and ready to be lead by the author, hand-in-hand, to The Impossible City.

"Medicine rests upon four pillars-philosophy, astronomy, alchemy, and ethics."

^ That above quote, to me, sums up what this book is about. *Insert best SNL Stefan voice* This book has everything-twins, alchemy, quantum physics, fires, Frankenstein creatures, MORE FIRES, telepathy (of sorts), a book within a book, EVEN MORE FIRES- well, I think you get the picture. Throwing a list of buzz words at you is much easier than trying to explain precisely WHAT this book is, and the author even stated in her afterword that her four page pitch of this novel wasn't enough for her agent to get what this book was, so she just wrote the damn thing. Badass level, achieved! 

This book is long, friends. Please don't let it scare you, because i plowed through all *roughly* 550 pages in 3 days, and that's only because I had adulting to do in between. The beauty of McGuire's novels are that, she takes an idea that seems so far fetched it could never happen, and then magically forms it into this ALMOST realistic and very scientific sounding hypothesis that has you googling at midnight wondering if scientists have achieved this level of madness. It's safe to say that this book won't be for everybody, and will mostly appeal to those looking for a science fiction novel that is heavy on the science side, but once again Seanan McGuire, queen of all things intellectually quirky and deliciously bizarre, has blown me away. Highly recommended for those looking for a challenging read, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong." -Richard Feynman

Going into Middlegame, I don't think I actually considered that I might not like it. It didn't seem possible. I have given five stars to all the four books I've read in McGuire's Wayward Children series, and I just assumed this would be an obvious five-star, love-you-forever kind of read. I actually feel bad saying this, but this was not my kind of book at all.

There was a lot of stopping and starting in my attempts to read this book (which have been going on for weeks). I guess I just don’t enjoy being this confused for so long and receiving so little explanation for anything. The Wayward Children series is exactly my brand of atmospheric fairy tale weirdness, but this was a completely different kind of weird. A dense sci-fi novel that was at least 200 pages too long for me.

I found it frustrating and confusing-- one of those books where I was kept in the dark for so long that my attention was waning. Trying to stay invested when I had no idea where it was going or what questions I needed to be asking was hard work. And so much feels unanswered. While I’m sure this is wholly intentional, it didn’t quite work for me. I was left with the unsatisfying feeling that I never fully "got" it.

There's a lot of repetition, too. Roger and Dodger are "experiment" twins - he a word genius, she a math genius - separated after birth and placed with adoptive parents. They discover each other through a psychic link, lose each other, find each other again. Little is happening during these psychic encounters. Alongside this, we get the perspective of James Reed, an alchemist who wishes to use Roger and Dodger to get to the Impossible City. Unfortunately, I felt zero emotional connection to these characters.

Though this is supposed to be a math and logic based sci-fi, it is strange how very little is explained. The lack of details made it hard to picture and suspend disbelief for. I struggled to understand the motivations of Reed or how he really planned to accomplish his ambitions. The "Impossible City" is just a cool-sounding name being thrown around without explanation.

Probably my favourite parts were the nods to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which I thought were clever. But, overall, this book was for a reader very different from myself. I know McGuire also writes under her Mira Grant pseudonym, but I'm starting to think she might actually be several different people in one, because all her books are so different. I mean it as a compliment. Middlegame wasn't my cup of tea, but it's pretty impressive to have so many different tricks up one's sleeve.

CW: Attempted suicide.

I got to the 33% mark, and having begun this book 2 weeks ago, without the motivation to continue reading, I'm going to call it. It began strong, but just didn't hold my interest. There is A LOT going on, and maybe I just lost the thread. I cared about the relationship between the 'experiment twins' Roger and Dodger, then the book swings back to the 'overlords' in charge of their lives and stuff about alchemy and alludes to an Impossible City ... I just struggled to keep caring about ALL of it, while trying to keep track of the bits I was getting.

A fantastical journey into the relationship between twins, while setting it against the potential of reality-altering magic, Middlegame surprised me in the best way possible. I was blown away by the world-building, and then how these characters inhabit the world. I would like to state, though - that this book takes some time to make sense as to what the magic that inhabits it is (because I couldn't comprehend the sheer power of it in the start), and the canon rules for it, but boy, is it worth the initial confusion! What it basically is about is a power-hungry person, Reed, who is an alchemical creation (more Frankenstein, less homunculus) and he sets out to manifest an alchemical doctrine in the real world in order to manipulate reality itself. He does so by creating sets of alchemically-made twins, one of those sets being Roger and Dodger, and set them out in the world to grow until they manifest the Doctrine, and make him virtually a god.

Roger and Dodger grow up most of their life apart not knowing who they are, what they are capable of together; they don't even know they are the personification of language and math, respectively. For Dodger, it means that she is incredibly good with numbers, and Roger has a 'way with words' and able to influence people. Though they develop a mental link with one another, they are being constantly kept apart, first by the alchemists, then by their own doubts, then by their awesome potential. As much as this is a story involving alchemy and fantastical concepts of an Improbable City, it is also a tale of two people who are the closest in understanding to each other, yet the baggage of what they are and the things that come between them keep pulling them apart but also making them come together. And it is also about what being personifications of universal concepts is doing to them on a personal level, and the loneliness they feel.

Winding through this beautifully developed sibling relationship is a plot that relies on a set of characters fighting against invisible odds. Reed and his people have been shaping their very lives, going so far as to choose their parents, choose some people in their lives, and yet they continue to defy him in small ways. The secondary set of characters is an interesting one - there is a personification of Order, Erin, who gets involved in their lives, whose creator Leigh is a regular bloodthirsty villain working under Reed; they themselves form an intriguing dynamic among themselves. Aside from that, expect reality-bending, multi-timeline mystery in this plot that keeps you on your toes waiting to see how the Doctrine manifests, and if Roger and Dodger will win out in the end.

Finally, the writing is clever and tight as always, setting up a magnificent adventure of a book with high stakes, characters you root for, and endless potential in the world.

“Timeline: five minutes too late, thirty seconds from the end of the world.” 

The Alchemical Congress has no room to speak. No one crosses Asphodel Baker, the creator of the careful design spanning different dimensions. 

A Doctrine of Ethos has been placed inside the mind of a handful of children. They come in pairs. The problem is, the doctrine is too large and does not leave space for humanity, so it is split into component parts – mathematics and language. The Up-and-Under also called the light and brightness of the modern world is housing the project, an alchemical APEX. Reed is the apprentice alchemist and an invisible eye to see it all unfold in hopes to reach The Imperial City with the aid of the created pair. 

Some of the pairs have not made it to maturity, but the one that did is separated and placed into civilian family homes on opposite sides of the United States. Meet Dodger, a red-haired girl, great in math and chess, and Roger, a color-blind boy, the one that loves words, writing, and language. The two of them are gifted but don’t know this. They also don’t know that they have a twin. They live their lives, going to school just like all the other kids.…until one day a telepathic connection is made. It creeps in slowly and what turns out as voices in the head, becomes a trove of conversations.

In altered pov’s and timelines, the reader becomes witness to the growing bond of the pair, the advantage points of helping each other, the altercations and their silent times. Each of them faces some struggles at difficult times in their lives and one day, by chance, they actually meet. 
Here lies the problem. They are watched. They are followed. They are toyed with. 

Roger and Dodger are destined for something. They have powers but they have to figure it out. Not easy as memories are being erased, places and times are altered and friends and families are dying around them. A journey that takes them all the way into their late twenties and will culminate in the ultimate trial of their bond. 

What will become of civility and the drive to the Imperial City? What is it they have to figure out and how will they be played like pawns in a game they never chose to play? 

Best to take the journey with them and find out! 

Happy Reading!


***

Fans of McGuire's voice in writing will find it here true and beautiful. Her strong suit lies in the characterization of the pair, intuitive, intricate and emotional. Based upon the connectivity of twins, the novel furthers a very unique fantastical premise that is explored from its infancy in stages of tenderness and accelerates into a captivating, racing plot with twists, kicks, and punches! 

This concept may not be for everyone and admittedly, the time jumps and the tie-ins with alchemy and its history requires a more careful read to not miss anything or get confused. Most of the needed information is established at the beginning of the novel but does not make as much sense until it all begins to tie together further in the story. This can be off-putting perhaps to some, but the rewards are coming as the plot unfolds.

If you have the itch for something new and different, this book is absolutely unique and should be given a try. A definite must for McGuire fans. 

Enjoy!

Holy Smokes, where do I start?! Part science fiction, part alchemy, part siblings coming of age, part ode to language and math, part rebellion, with a dash of horror, this book has so many components that come together in the seamless, chaotically beautiful way that belongs only to Seanan McGuire's writing.

Roger & Dodger are twins growing up in their respective adoptive homes on opposite coasts of the US. They are constructs created for a singular purpose by an alchemist, but they don't know this yet. They are also human, relatable, and intent on choosing their own way. They are terrific characters who are readable and yet clearly something new & powerful.

The roles that Roger & Dodger serve is partially explained with the fictional book series, the Up and Under. This embedded fiction was one aspect of this read that I particularly enjoyed. Its a story within a story, with enough passages shared & examined to be a tantalizing mystery, and to help contextualize the events of Middlegame. But it also serves to remind us how vital storytelling is to the fabric of our own world, and to help in understanding those things that are seemingly unexplainable.

Among those unexplainable things we have to weave into our stories are the monsters hidden in plain sight. McGuire is so incredibly good at these, and Middlegame is no exception. In this book, some are born and others created, some are pitiable and others easy to hate, and one is simply chillingly terrifying. While they may be evil, they are detailed & dimensional. And just like with our protagonists, show off some great character writing on the part of the author.

The one downside I experienced was that when I started reading I was a little squicked out by some of the initial bloodiness & general weirdness of the alchemy that I had to push through. (Fans of the Mira Grant books should be fine, but if all you've read of Seanan's stuff is published under 'Seanan McGuire,' know that this is akin to Down Among the Sticks and Bones - and then some - as far as monsters, body parts, and general creepy factors.) It never feels gratuitous, and always serves a purpose in storytelling, but had I not been reading an ARC for review, I might have put it down or really taken my time with it. I am soo glad I finished the book, so I would encourage readers who may experience a similar 'ick' response to stick with it a bit longer. Its worth it.

All in all, I felt this was a masterful piece of science fiction from a much beloved author. As an admitted fan of hers, I still felt she outdid herself with Middlegame, and give it a glowing 5 stars.

I received an ARC of this title from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

What a unique story. Thrilling at times. I loved the development of the relationship between Roger and Dodger. While not always easy to follow this was in the end an entertaining read.

A big thank you to the publisher for this e-ARC ! Hoping my thought aren't too honest !

This book starts with a super exciting chapter that shows this book is going to be the real deal : a glimpse of the bloody end of it all. You're full of anticipation, and so is the book it seems. And here you go.

It was a disappointment to see that no action of that sort was going to happen in the first 400 pages... We kept going back and forth between the twins and Reed. But nothing really happened. It was all forshadowing... I wouldn't have care really, but that first chapter just got me so hyped!

I really didn't like that book (even though the writing was really amazing!). The characters are typical and bland. The story had a lot of potential but it's all talk, no show. Why is Reed so much better than the other ? What kind of math is Dodger really working on ? What kind of writing does Roger liked to get lost into? How do they feel different after manifesting ? The characters should at some point have taken the matters into their own hands and take a different path than the one we all know they're on from the beginning. It left no surprise. And the rare occasions they do something sticking are after a never ending arguing "because it's their nature" to do so.

Finally, this book is a change from the typical magic books, it is about alchemy. I loved the real legends that were found into this book and think it could have been explored so much more. Nothing was explained at all, which is usually okay for me, but here, without any rule or explanation (or clear definition of what they are talking about) it just didn't make sense and it was hard to care.

Thank you for the opportunity of reading that book nonetheless and I hope I'll be able to review other Tor books in a positive way !

Dodger and Roger are perfectly normal American children. Well, except that they can talk to each other from across the continent. And Dodger can make maths sit up and dance, while Roger has never met a word he didn't like. But apart from those things, they're normal. Aren't they?

I feel like Seanan McGuire had some really important ideas she wanted to work out on paper, and this is the way she chose to do it, by presenting it as a story. Sadly, it didn't really click for me. I ploughed through it all - and it's long, longer than most YA novels - and it just never really gelled. We seemed to cover the same ground over and over - one twin abandoned the other, other twin abandoned the one, one twin abandoned the other - and the time travel stuff was confusing to me, and I can usually follow that kind of thing quite well. As we neared the end, when things should have been gearing up for a climax, I was getting more and more bored.

Look. I can appreciate that someone on a genius level with maths could throw an item at a wall and have it rebound to hit something in exactly the spot they want. Snooker players basically do that now. But being so good at maths that you just have to look at an electric lock and it opens for you? That needs a little bit more selling for me, and I just didn't get that from this book. And I was never quite clear whether Roger can command everyone or just Dodger, and whether he can speak anything into existence, or just real things, or whether he's actually doing something else entirely...

I hope this book does well. If nothing else, it's a real labour of love. It just didn't do it for me.

3.5 stars -- It's difficult for me to quantify how I feel about this book. On paper, there are a lot of things in this that I love. Meta-ness, unusual fantasy setting in a world recognizably our own, family dynamics, etc. Also, alchemy. But the voice, though. I theoretically liked its knowingness and meta quality, but I ultimately found it rather grating. It made it difficult for me to read for more than a few chapters at a time, which is unusual for me, and the use of future tense I think was purposefully meant to be disorienting... but I found myself resenting the disorientation rather than enjoying it. Which was sad, because usually that's something I really enjoy in a book,

All that to say, I found this engaging enough to keep reading and I think that it is an unusual fantasy novel, so recommend giving it a try. If you're intrigued at all by this, by all means make sure you read THE LIBRARY AT MOUNT CHAR by Scott Hawkins.

This is definitely one of those books that I want to experience with the book in my hands. I had to put it down and make myself wait. I also feel like the formatting for this title will be best experienced as a printed book. What I did read of the ARC was absolutely wonderful!

Thank you, Tor/Forge for giving me a copy of this book!

I was so mindblown by everything that happened. Thou, I am going to be honest I had a hard time understanding everything at first, but then I hit that moment where everything was clear and I enjoyed every bit of this book. 

The chacters, I love Roger but sometimes he can be really annoying same goes with Dodger. You could really see both of them are twins from the beginning how they literally have the same attitude/personality in a way. Personally, I really love Erin. I love that she was sort of a bodyguard to both of them. How she did all of this because of what they did to Darren. I wished she had a different end but I still love it the same way. 

The book overall was great. The world building was spot on. The progress and the unique aspects of the book were really showing.

I just love every bit of it. I can't wait to buy my own copy physical copy, once it's out and hopefully I could read it again in that format.

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire told from multiple perspectives but mostly those of twins Roger and Dodger blew my mind.  Take McGuire's hand as she takes us to the Impossible City.

Fans of MGuire's Wayward Children series will love this darker tale that explores, twins, balance, chaos, order, the power of words, math, time and alchemy. While the Wayward series had a young adult feel, this does not despite some whimsical imagery. 

A full review will post at Caffeinated Reviewer on May 8, 2019. Link below. It will be shared on all social media, Goodreads and Amazon.

Admittedly, I would read a shopping list and declare it great art if Seanan McGuire wrote it, so I am definitely coming at this from the perspective of being a fan. That said <i>Middlegame</i> is one of the most ambitious and accomplished speculative fiction novels I've ever read. I can see why McGuire has explained that while she had the idea for this years ago, she knew at the time that she didn't have the skill to write it at that point. She seems to have found the  Goldilocks moment to have advanced the project - neither tackling it before she was ready nor leaving it until the idea had lost its freshness for her.

<i>Middlegame</i> is a story about family and siblings, about creation and destruction, about maths and linguistics. Most of all, it's a story about power, and who can be trusted with it. Nine year old Roger Middleton, linguistic prodigy, was adopted and he's always had the vague sense that something was missing in his life. Enter Dodger Cheswich, a girl his age - born on the same day, in fact - a mathematical genius, who somehow fits and fills the part of him that has always felt an absence. Dodger is talking to him and seeing through his eyes, but Dodger lives in another time zone. They've never actually met. They're on an improbable road to do impossible things because while maths describes the universe and underpins all creation, language creates reality.

In the shadows of a secret lab/lair, an alchemist watches his experiment reach maturation. James Reed is not like other men. He had no birth and he fully intends to live forever. Once he has the fully manifest Doctrine of Ethos in his control, he'll be able to do anything. Alchemy is, after all, the bridge between magic and science. The power to unmake the world rests in unknowing hands, and Reed intends to make them his instruments.

As much as loved this book, it may not be for everyone. You have to pay attention. You need to be engaging with the story intelligently or it's just not going to make sense to you. If, like me, you are a closet science nerd (especially maths and physics) then you're going to have lots of 'aha!' moments and really love this. It's told in a non-linear fashion from multiple points of view - this is another thing that will annoy some people because while I felt that McGuire moved smoothly from third person omniscient to close third person, and from character to character, you do jump between characters in a scene or chapter. It's done with too much skill to be head hopping, but if you prefer undemanding books that let you know exactly where you are at all times, it might not be for you. That said, this isn't all science maths science. Or even language linguistics language. It's clever and intricate, but the characters are engaging and disturbing. The story is gripping, with plenty of action. I discovered McGuire's alter ego 'Mira Grant' first, and I loved her 'Newsflesh' series. This reads as similar in style - at least more so than say the 'October Daye' series. 

And then there are the themes. McGuire comes back to the importance of family and friendship a lot in her work, and I always enjoy her take. In fact we're given some stark contrasts between good and bad family dynamics, and the cost of the latter. A subtler theme is that of parents and children. I've always maintained that anything you create that is possessed of its own sentience, belongs always and only to itself. You don't own your children. You don't own your 'creations'. McGuire follows this theme in a similar vein - what happens when your 'children' reach maturity? And then there's power. While McGuire does the 'mad scientist/ evil genius' trope exceptionally well - seriously, I love her mad scientists! - the moral is always that power should have limits. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. 

I'll stop there because I really can't do this book justice in a mere review. This is The Wizard of Oz and Frankenstein and The Island of Dr Moreau. This is every dark fairy-tale about children being lost in the wood, or about innocents being manipulated by evil sorcerers. This is megalomaniacal alchemists and folding space and time. It's siblings and mind games and maths and language. It's describing a universe and making it less scary and unknown by describing it in words and numbers, putting limits on the infinite if only to allow us to look at it without losing ourselves.