Wow, I absolutely loved reading these books! I just love this series, and after the evil way that Imaginary Numbers ended, I needed to know what was going on. And we found out quickly. It was just a matter of dealing with it all!

A good part of this book is focused on how having no memories of Sarah affects Annie and of course, Artie. Of how those memories shaped who they were as people, and now missing them, or rather, missing her from them.

This is the first book that takes place not on Earth. We know because of Alice that inter-dimensional traveling is possible, we even know from the cuckoos. It was really great to learn about this new place, and I'm kinda hoping that we can visit again, because of the history there.

I loved the short story, we were back with Annie's perspective, of a time before Verity and Sarah went to New York. I loved seeing her deal with Verity, of going on her first mission. And I enjoyed how it worked out, though it ended faster than I thought, because I forgot about the field guide at the end.

Ok, I just have to say, read the acknowledgements at the back. I normally don't, but for some reason, this time I did. And I'm so glad that I did, because it mentions the future of the series-that Sarah's story is two books, at least for now, and who is next. And I'm so excited! Though I could see a 3rd story for Sarah in the future, what with the characters mentioned in this book out there, who could potentially cause a problem.

There were such a great reads, and I can't wait for the series to continue!

This was a wild read that tied together all of the previous Incryptid novels and wrapped all their plot points with a crazy bow. McGuire's writing is second to none, and her world building is truly fantastic.

This book should have been called Previously On… Seriously most of the page count was spent by people retelling their stories. Stories we already knew because we have read books 1-9. The science was as always pretty cool, the world-building was nifty and the cryptids were awesome. This is all standard in her book. But I hope that the next few are better and this was just a setup for them.

I enjoyed the previous volumes of the InCryptid urban fantasy series very much. And just as fervently, I wanted to like this one. The set-up is characteristically intriguing, centering on a secondary character from earlier books. Sarah Zellaby, adopted Price cousin and telepath, turns out to not only be not-human but has transformed herself into the apex form of a trans-dimensional predator whose species uses mathematical calculations to re-make reality. Now she’s managed to transport an entire university campus to a planet who-knows-where and wipe the minds of her cousins who came along with her.

And yet, despite all McGuire’s literary strengths, how much I enjoyed earlier volumes, and the great premise of this book, I found myself skimming long sections. Every once in a while a scene would pique my interest, but overall the book didn’t work for me. It felt as if the same backstory were being re-hashed over and over. I realized halfway through that I simply didn’t care if the new mathematical formulas to get everyone back to Earth would fry Sarah’s brain or if she’d find a way around that.

The best part was the references to characters from McGuire’s “Ghost Roads” series, which I adore. Second best: Sarah’s gigantic pet spider, “Glen.”

YMMV.

The InCryptid series by Seanan McGuire is original, entertaining and so much fun. The latest family member that receives focus is Sarah, a 'Cuckoo'. Sarah was raised in a loving environment, but deep down is biologically VERY different from those around her. This book really wraps up her storyline in a satisfying way, despite a rocky start.

We're back with the Price family in this 10th book in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series.

A family of cryptozoologists (the Price family, who study mythical and not so mythical creatures) are trying to help the Cryptid communities in the United States, while avoiding The Covenant - a group bent on eradicating the Cryptid population.

Sarah Zellaby is a Cuckoo, a form of cryptid that is normally a little evil and tends to hijack the minds of others around them. However, she was adopted and raised by a good Cuckoo (cousins to the Price's) and she tends to follow her own code of conduct to avoid evil. But there is a battle raging, between her adoptive family and the Cuckoo population, to turn Sarah completely to one side or the other.

At the moment, Sarah is in limbo. Literally. She is stranded in another dimension with a handful of friends who are unaware that there is a group of Cuckoos who want her dead. Sarah has much to figure out - who she is; who she wants to be; and how yo get back to her own dimension.

This is one of the most complicated series I've read. All of the Seanan McGuire's books I've read are well told with intricate plots and characters, but this series is particularly complex and, despite the fact that are large chunk of the book is a recap to get the reader up to speed, I don't think this is a book you want to read without being rather familiar with the rest of the series.

The series is really taking a hard turn in a new direction and frankly, I'm not sure I like where it's going (because I don't know where it's going, and I can't picture it?). No one knows who Sarah is in this new dimension (except the mice) and maybe it's this need to either explain herself to others or explain to the readers why she's reacting in this new way, is dragging me down a little.

I appreciate McGuire for taking some risks and really challenging her reader base by going off the tracks in this way (although I just looked at some comments on Goodreads and it seems I'm not alone in feeling a little less than satisfied with this entry in the series), but what's missing (for me, at least), is intent. I'm really not sensing a reason for this change - a change in characters and a change in location.

I like McGuire's books a lot and I'll check out the next volume, but if it continues to veer off the center line I will probably pull the plug on this series.

Looking for a good book? Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire is the 10th book in the InCryptid series and takes a bit of a new direction by heading in to a new dimensions. This is not a book you want to read without already being familiar with the series.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I actually went back and reread Imaginary Numbers before I reread Calculated Risks. (I was 99.9% that I'd already reviewed Calculated Risks, but the NetGalley shelf doesn't lie. Oops.)

I did this because it's never a bad idea to reread Seanan McGuire and also because when I realized that I hadn't posted a review yet, I realized that while I remembered the broad outlines of the plot (oh, SARAH!!!), some of the finer points escaped me. So, reread Sarah's books.

Seanan McGuire just keeps piling mythology and backstory into the InCryptid universe and I am a fan of that. Sarah has been a background character since book 1 and it's interesting to see some familiar scenes through her eyes. She will also break your heart during this sequence. Some of the interplay between Sarah and Artie really hit home after losing my mother to dementia earlier this year and watching her decline and lose her memories of so many things -- including the people she loved.

Absolutely a worthwhile way to spend a hot summer afternoon and I'm very much looking forward to the next one!

#CalculatedRisks #NetGalley

Imaginary Numbers was interesting, and this picks up right where it left off. Everyone was thrown into a new dimension. To keep everyone alive, Sarah had to destroy memories of those around her. Now Antimony and Artie don't know who Sarah is, and they think she's the enemy.

Much of the book felt aimless. Ultimately the goal was to get everyone back to their dimension safely. Before they could work on that issue, Sarah had to work on gaining everyone's trust. Obviously I knew Sarah was trustworthy and knew all about their relationships, so rehashing all of it didn't interest me. It took up a good part of the book.

The world they were in was weird. It was cool that it had more magic. The large, flying bugs grossed me out. They did learn some useful info there. It seems like everything in this series is slowly leading up to Alice being able to find Thomas.

I know I say it all the time, but ALL HAIL SEANAN MCGUIRE! How is book 10 in a series as high quality as book 1 was?!?!? McGuire's ability to sustain and grow her characters and their worlds is unparalleled, in my opinion. This is a really fun series and Calculated Risks fit right in!

The latest entry in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series is a direct sequel to Imaginary Numbers, and picks up right where that story ended, with Sarah, Antimony, et all stranded in an alternate dimension and struggling to survive while trying to determine if it is possible to find a way home. While I enjoyed the completion of this storyline, I found the ending to be somewhat implausible and a little too neat.

I know you should start a series with book one but I didn't and thoroughly enjoyed this one, to be honest i had a lot of fun.
There's plenty of humour and great characters, a fascinating world building and a story that kept me hooked.
I'm sure I missed a lot but I found it highly entertaining and I will read the previous books as I loved this one.
Sometimes to start at the end is a good way to discover an excellent series.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire: Brilliant and Emotional
The tenth book in the fast-paced InCryptid urban fantasy series returns to the mishaps of the Price family, eccentric cryptozoologists who safeguard the world of magical creatures living in secret among humans.
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?
Seanan McGuire managed the impossible. The previous novel, “Imaginary Numbers”, ends in a cliffhanger and I don’t mind because it is just that good a book. And with every novel in the Incryptid series, she gets better and better. In “Calculated Risks”, she catapults her readers right into the middle of the action. The characters are in a strange dimension, with no way home that they know of and none of Sarah’s family even knows who she is. Despite that less than advantageous beginning, with the odds stacked against a satisfying ending, Seanan McGuire creates a plot that kept me on my toes, reading into the wee hours of the morning, and desperately captivated with the fate of the Price family, especially Sarah and Artie.
Beat for beat, while I have loved all of Seanan’s books, this one in particular, kept me enraptured. I think because the characters are in such a difficult situation, one in which it is difficult to envision an escape, it makes the stakes so high and creates a story that keeps readers guessing until the end if there will be a satisfying ending.
The plight of Sarah, her grief over the loss of her family, that they’ve forgotten her, also creates a story that is deeply emotional. Everyone faces loss of some kind over their lives and Sarah’s loss creates a bond between the character and the reader. Seanan brilliantly taps into that theme of family and loss with this novel.
The solutions that Sarah discovers and the friends that she makes along the way, creates a novel that is complex, layered with emotion and a joy to read. And while it helps to have read the previous novel, “Imaginary Numbers”, especially given the beginning of the book, Seanan McGuire also does an excellent job of summarizing the events of the previous book. She always does so with great skill, providing the information in bits and pieces by the characters so that readers are not lost if they just picked up the book for some reason.
Emotional and brilliant, I highly recommend, “Calculated Risks”. It’s good if you have read the previous books in the series so if you haven’t begun, The Incryptid series are quick and fun reads. And it is worth reading the rest for the brilliant and satisfying ending to “Calculated Risks.”

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for a fair and honest review. Full disclosure - I have read and enjoyed everything I can get my hands on by Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant, so I was predisposed to enjoy this! And enjoy it I did!

While I think a reader would enjoy any of the Incryptid books more if they read the series in order, I think this book in particular requires that you have read the previous book in the series, :Imaginary Numbers.

This series has switched focus characters among members of the Price family.. In :Imaginary Numbers and :Calculated Risks, the primary character is Sarah, the cuckoo adopted into the family. She has been important in earlier books, but now she has recovered from the mental damage she suffered in saving Verity in the first book in the series, and is attempting to step out of her protected life in Ohio. In Imaginary Numbers, she goes to Oregon to visit the rest of the family, and much trouble ensues!

:Imaginary Numbers ends on a cliffhanger, and Calculated Risks picks up where it left off. We're seeing enormous development and changes in Sarah's powers and abilities. Annie is also an important character in this book, and she is also seeing developments in her powers as a sorceror. Much of this is accomplished by the fact that most of this book takes place in another dimension.

I very much enjoyed the shift in plot development in this book, in which they are operating in another dimension, and developing their powers. It adds a new "dimension" to the previous books, which primarily took place in this dimension, battling bad guys, both human and cryptid here. This shift opens up a lot of new plot possibilities, and it seems that the series had added much potential interest.

Definitely worth reading!

"My family is my family. Biology be damned."

I guess I just need to accept that I'm a sucker for the found-family trope. It's just accurate for me and it gets me the way I get it. There, you have my disclaimer.

We pick this book up one one HELL of a cliffhanger. (Lucky me, I waited to read them together!) Sarah was/is in danger. Hasn't this poor chick been through enough? That's what this book kept making me ask. It was really difficult to watch Sarah navigate this CRAZY new situation.

We're so far in the series at this point, I really don't want to spoil the plot. I will say that if you've made it this far, don't miss this one. It's whack-a-doodle in a great way and who doesn't love watching Sarah and Antimony respectively badass their way through danger? HAIL!

4 1/2 stars actually.

Amazon

Sara becomes stranded in another dimension, with her cousins Annie and cuckoo Mark, the man she loves, Artie, along with some human students and cuckoo children. The adult cuckoos are stripped of who they are, leaving only the hunger like zombies. Sara may have not only survived an instar she was meant to be stripped of all, but it may also have upped her telepathic abilities. Now, she must figure out this new world, avoid unknown dangers along with the zombie adult cuckoos. And get everyone back to their dimension, and survive whatever dangers there may be here and any zombie adult cuckoos.

Seanan McGuire has done it again with another great fantasy with a science fiction mix about the cryptologist Price family. Her characters and their world are like comfort food for me, enjoyable reading, and this novel isn’t any different. You don’t have to be a mind reader to see that!

I gave Calculated Risks (InCryptid Book 10) 4 ½ dimensional traveling sheep.

Calculated Risks is the tenth book in the InCryptid series by Seanan McGuire. It is the second book in Sarah's point of view. I highly recommend reading this series in order (not just because I love it, but because it will help with the nuances of character personality and motivation). If you do not want to start from the very beginning, at least start with the beginning of Sarah's story arch.

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?

Calculated Risks is a continuation of a great story on so many levels. Sarah has fought so hard to come back to herself- only to get kidnapped and bring about dimensional travel and mayhem. Trying to figure out how it all happened, and how to fix it, she has to deal with the mental gaps the whole thing has caused in her family and the innocent bystanders that have gotten caught up in the whole thing. I think that as usual, the depth of character and world building here is fantastic, even the secondary and even less important characters have complexity to them, and feel real even if readers do not get all the details about them. I felt for the college kids trapped on campus, the strangers they meet, and the depth of history and emotion forgotten by Sarah's core support system. Fans of the author and series will need to read this, anyone foolish enough to start here will be utterly lost and confused (but hopefully inspired to go back and start at the beginning). My only disappointment is the same that I feel at the end of each of these books- that this part of the story is over and I have to wait for the next installment.

Calculated Risks is exactly what I needed from this series, it left me satisfied but craving more.

I love Seanan McGuire and I couldn’t wait to discover this new novel, especially after the end of the previous volume!

We follow Sarah again in this tenth installment when she wakes up in a new dimension. But here we are, a part of her family is here: Antimony, Artie, James and Sam. Problem? They have no idea who she is and are holding her prisoner. She will have to use all her charms to convince them that she is not the enemy. Luckily, the mice are there too and they haven’t been affected. But how to get back to their world? How to take the campus and the students she brought with her? And how to get out alive when there’s an army of zombie cuckoos?

It was quite a nice novel and I enjoyed discovering the story. I was sad for Sarah when I saw Artie hating her. She wants more than anything for them to realize that they can trust her, but that’s easier said than done.

On the other hand, I loved Greg, her giant spider, and I can’t wait to see him again! I don’t know who we’re going to follow in the next volume, but I’m curious to find out!

These books just get better and better. Just when you think you have a handle on what's going, the plot twists once again.

Calculated Risks is just about as experimental as a tenth novel in a series can be. After an absolutely wild ending to Imaginary Numbers, Sarah Zellaby is on another world with Antimony Price, cousin Artie, and a couple of others. If that wasn't bad enough (and it is), Antimony and co. don't recognize Sarah as family, they recognize her as the predator her species is. That's a problem.

This is a novel taken just about as far away as can be from everything familiar with the Incryptid series, except for Sarah and Antimony. Calculated Risks is told with the wit and heart as readers have come to expect and love from Seanan McGuire, but the usual cryptids and the threat from the Covenant are not part of this book. Calculated Risks is about survival on an alien land and getting back home no matter the cost.

It's a bold move on McGuire's part and as she does so many times, she pulls it off perfectly. Though - while Seanan McGuire often presents multiple entry points into her long running series and ease readers in who might not remember what came before, Calculated Risks is not that entry point. Readers need to be already invested in the story being told to be able and willing to jump in. At the bare minimum, this is truly the second half of the Sarah Zellaby story began in Imaginary Numbers. Long time fans will find much to love here.

This is a direct sequel to Imaginary Numbers and is not the best book to jump into the series with. Due to Sarah having to erase herself from everyone one with her to use that part of their brain to make the math work on the jump to the other universe there is quite a bit of backstory given about how the characters backstory. Now she has to figure out how to get herself, her cousins that don’t remember her, and several other cuckoos including children that had nothing to do with her kidnapping and get them back without a working copy of the math that got them there and not melt everyone’s brain doing it. They find a few surprises along the way about the dimension they are currently in along with having to fight off the zombie cuckoos that got Sarah in this mess before they were brainwiped during the travel.
There is a novella after the end of this that has Sarah, Artie, and Antimony that is set way before this book that shows just how close the three of them were and how much Sarah lost when she had to remove herself from their memories. What I like about the novella is that is set at a Comic Con and after a year of no conventions I was really nostalgic for them.
Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Netgalley