Reviewed by tellemonstar on
I love original ideas in my urban-fantasy and that is exactly what you get in the InCryptid series. Discount Armageddon is a rollicking, mythological creature-filled romp through Manhattan.
Verity Price (or Very as she is known to her family) can really kick butt. She free-runs all over the rooftops of Manhattan and does competitive ballroom dancing, whilst wearing any number of sharp, pointy weapons. Also, she doesn’t like the fact that someone is poaching in her territory. Unfortunately or maybe rather, fortunately that person is Dominic de Luca, who is a member of the Covenant of St. George. He’s pretty easy on the eyes, and apparently thinks Very is too. But more on that later.
Seanan McGuire’s use of mythology and cryptozoology is a breath of fresh air in the urban-fantasy genre. There’s dozens upon dozens of series with vampires and faeries and angels and werewolves. There aren’t too many with cryptozoologists, ‘lesser-Medusas’, Japanese scary-pants shape shifters with 3 forms, and dragon princesses.
At least we have a heroine who actually has a backbone from the beginning. Yes, Very can be a little immature sometimes, but then so was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Some people will take issue with this fact, and quite frankly, I don’t care. The point is that this tends to make the character more relatable – since as far as we know the monsters aren’t real, who are we to say that we wouldn’t be sassy in order to buy some time.
Overall I found Discount Armageddon to be a fun and interesting read that filled in a boring old Saturday afternoon quite well. If you are a fan of Kim Harrison’s work, I would definitely recommend you check this out and see if you like it.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 10 January, 2014: Finished reading
- 10 January, 2014: Reviewed