Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: tired
  • Music: Pippin, "Simple Joys."

HALF-OFF RAGNAROK open thread!

To celebrate the release of Half-Off Ragnarok, here. Have an open thread to discuss the book. Judging by the comments I'm seeing, some of you've have had time, while others received review copies.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned. (I will not reply to every comment; I call partial comment amnesty. But I may well join some of the discussion, or answer questions or whatnot.) I will be DELETING all comments containing spoilers which have been left on other posts. No one gets to spoil people here without a label.

You can also start a discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.

Have fun, and try not to bleed on the carpet.
Tags: halfoff ragnarok, open thread
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 111 comments
Previous
← Ctrl ← Alt
Next
Ctrl → Alt →

vettecat

March 10 2014, 02:48:04 UTC 3 years ago

I'm probably missing something obvious, but... if Lloyd is a gorgon, why did he need a cockatrice to turn people to stone? Wouldn't it be easier to just take off his glasses than to hope that a featherbrained animal would get the right target? (Given that it did get the wrong person more than once...)

tiferet

March 11 2014, 18:17:11 UTC 3 years ago

A gorgon attack is not going to be mistaken for an accident.

vettecat

March 12 2014, 02:43:58 UTC 3 years ago

By whom? Who did he think would know the difference?

tiferet

3 years ago

  • New comment

vettecat

3 years ago

  • New comment

tiferet

3 years ago

  • New comment

jenk

March 19 2014, 23:15:49 UTC 3 years ago

Pliny's gorgons turn people to stone through their bite. If Lloyd needed to bite (and he did bite the neighbor) that would mean it was definitely done by a Pliny's gorgon.

If he could turn to stone with his sight, I think he probably would've done it himself.

vettecat

March 20 2014, 02:10:37 UTC 3 years ago

That's what's confusing me. At the end, when he has Shelby captive in the barn, he's trying to force her to look at him so she'll turn to stone and stay with him forever. And since he then turns part-snake, it's pretty clear he's not just a Pliny's gorgon.

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

  • New comment

vettecat

3 years ago

  • New comment

lejays17

March 10 2014, 10:18:24 UTC 3 years ago

I was up until 1.30am this morning reading - thank goodness I had the day off today, otherwise I would have been tempted to curl up under my desk for a snooze :)

I really enjoyed reading about Alex, and Shelby, and the other set of grandparents. Not enough mice (never enough mice :) ), and I want a Church Griffin of my very own!

Very upset about Sarah, especially when Alex saw she was doing her homework, and none of the fractions were right :( I hope she gets better soon, she seems to be on the way there by the end of the book.

My favourite line would have to have been the one referencing Marvin the Martian and his Earth-shattering ka-boom, but Alex accidentally proposing to Shelby was fun too.

Oh, and naming the Australian crypid group after the Tasmanian Tiger (wolf) was a lovely touch! As a couple of others have said, our non-cryptid animals wouldn't look out of place among other continent's cryptids.

seanan_mcguire

March 26 2014, 19:19:19 UTC 3 years ago

I am so glad you liked it. :)

acelightning

March 10 2014, 16:19:47 UTC 3 years ago

The things Sarah says, and the way she behaves, while she's trying to reboot her poor bruised brain, remind me poignantly of brilliant, telepathic, damaged River Tam in Firefly/Serenity. It broke my heart every time she lost her math. So far, Sarah and the mice are tied for "my favorite character" in the Incryptid series. (Are we ever going to meet Artie?)

I also see strong parallels between the reproductive habits of Wadjets and Dragons. It grates on me just slightly that, while "Wadjet" was an Egyptian snake-goddess (among many other things, She is the cobra on Pharaoh's crown), the Wadjets in the book are depicted as coming from the Indian subcontinent. But Chandi's personality makes up for it.

tiferet

March 11 2014, 18:16:20 UTC 3 years ago

Do we know if all the Wadjets came originally from the Indian subcontinent? Because honestly, first the Ptolemies, then Islam...Egypt has had lots of different rulers since the days of the goddess Wadjet, and I can see the Wadjets spreading from there through North Africa, Persia, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, and India proper would be friendlier than many places, and once you've lived somewhere long enough you do start speaking the language and naming your kids in it.

acelightning

March 12 2014, 09:11:38 UTC 3 years ago

This may also imply some sort of connection between Wadjets and Madhura.

brightlotusmoon

March 12 2014, 00:04:45 UTC 3 years ago

River. YES. I had the same thought.

I'm disabled in physical, mental, neurological, developmental, and neurodivergent ways*, and I relate to both Sarah and River in scary ways, because there are times when my own brain gets away and I'm floating in my own neuronal essence of WTF. I watch myself from inside and my heart breaks every time I cannot explain what I need. Seanan has does an amazing, fantastic job with her portrayal of Sarah.


(*cerebral palsy (with white matter death), temporal lobe epilepsy, fibromyalgia (which kills gray matter), autism, disintegrating memory, insomnia, panic disorder, major depression, Nonverbal learning disability, sensory processing dysfunction, etc)

acelightning

March 12 2014, 09:24:33 UTC 3 years ago

I'm not disabled, but I have lost many of the talents of mind and brain that I was born with, for an assortment of reasons... I, too, identify with River and Sarah. I hope Seanan writes Sarah making a complete (or very nearly complete) recovery.

tylik

March 14 2014, 18:21:02 UTC 3 years ago

I just have to applaud you for using neurodivergent in an explicitly broad way. Neurodiverse, not autistic.* Totally support spectrum pride, but I *so* often hear "neurotypical" used to mean "not autistic" and it makes me wince every time.

* And really, I'd have to call my less neurotypical features pretty broadly a plus in my life, though the complications have sometimes been a bit painful.

jenfullmoon

March 12 2014, 15:30:06 UTC 3 years ago

Yeah, I want to meet more of the Harringtons. Hell, I want all the relatives. Some crazy family reunion, even.

acelightning

March 12 2014, 21:28:09 UTC 3 years ago

There's a lot of backstory, and ancestors, in the downloadable short stories. But, yeah, I want to meet 'em all too!

seanan_mcguire

March 27 2014, 18:55:55 UTC 3 years ago

Remember that a lot of the time, when we meet "the same thing" in two different places, we give it the same name. Tigers are tigers, regardless of where in the world they're found. Ergo, wadjet are wadjet, no matter where in the world they're found. The Egyptian wadjet were unfortunately wiped out a long time ago, being somewhat smaller and more tied to heavily human-populated areas during a time when the Covenant came through on the regular.

acelightning

March 28 2014, 03:52:03 UTC 3 years ago

The Spanish invaders explorers in Central and South America called the indigenous jaguars tigres, although the two varieties of large cats aren't all that closely related - and apparently the conquistadores couldn't differentiate between spots and stripes. A jaguar is not a tiger, and I suspect the jaguars (and possibly also the tigers) are somewhat miffed about the mis-identification. Although if the defining feature of (male) wadjets is the cobra-like hood, I suppose very few people would mistake a wadjet for, say, a lamia.

Is an Indian Nāga a wadjet, then?

seanan_mcguire

3 years ago

  • New comment

acelightning

3 years ago

  • New comment

tiferet

March 11 2014, 18:23:32 UTC 3 years ago

In my personal headcanon, Alex didn't think about the bunyip comment and the pet monster comment because he was freaked out (understandably) at finding a dead person at the site he'd chosen for a date.

Because...I knew immediately that she was some sort of Australian counterpart to the family when she said those things. :) And while I know the "original" canon, I don't think I remember Shelby?

I love her. I had a moment of terror during her captivity, and then I thought, "wait, this is Seanan, not Mira. Seanan won't kill her, especially not since she's so much like Jo. Mira would totally kill her and possibly bring her back and kill her again, but this is Seanan, and this is Incryptid, not Toby..." Also the proposals were so perf.

I am so sadly unsurprised by the Covenant reaction to Australia.

Also I'm coming to the party Saturday and sent you a contact form email regarding cupcakes and shirtage, the contents of which I am sure you can guess. <333333

I also really loved Shelby's reaction to Sarah because let's face it, Johrlac.

seanan_mcguire

March 27 2014, 18:56:35 UTC 3 years ago

Yeah, it was important to me that we finally have someone whose reaction to cuckoos is the (extremely sensible and reasonable) WHY ARE WE NOT KILLING IT WITH FIRE.

listicath

March 14 2014, 14:39:08 UTC 3 years ago

At last someone wonders where the Covenant got a manifest for the Ark! I've been wondering that since the first book! :)

Having Alex call Verity and bring Rose into the main Incryptid series made me smile. Even more so when I realised that The Ghosts of Bourbon Street would feature both Verity and Rose. (Who are a great double-act, by the way, I loved that story.)

Shelby was a great character, and a perfect match for Alex. I hope she gets to take him to Australia and introduce him to some of their beasties. (Which I'm sure will be much scarier than he's used to.)

"They're not extinct. They just don't get out much" made me giggle.

I think I found a mistake though... When Alex was talking about Great-Grandpa Healy's notes (page 205), he describes Alice Healy as his maternal grandmother, whereas in the family tree she's is father's mother, so she's his paternal grandmother.

I'm loving this series as much as Toby Daye's adventures, the Price family and their allies are great fun. I'm really looking forward to the next one. (I think you've said there'll be another Alex book, then back to Verity? Will Annie get her own book at some point too?)

And thank you for all the free stories on your website, they really help to round out the world that you're building and make it so much more real. It's such a generous thing to do for your fans.

seanan_mcguire

March 27 2014, 19:22:32 UTC 3 years ago

Whoops, good catch on that maternal/paternal grandmother thing, I'll notify DAW.

shanejayell

March 23 2014, 17:42:54 UTC 3 years ago

Copying my Goodreads review. (Not sure if LJ lets you link in comments.)

Finished this last night. Like most SEanan McGuire books, it's well written with a snappy, sort of wry sense of humor that carries you along quite nicely. Good description, good characterization, and generally well structured.

I liked Alex, who's a nice change from your typical action hero in that he's pretty much a nerd. A Price family nerd, admittedly, so he can shoot a gun and take care of himself, but still a nerd. I mean, he gets excited studying LIZARDS. Ha.

I could imagine Shelby as a author avatar, considering her reaction to cute Cryptids.

"SQUEEE!"

*GLOMP*

I also liked the idea that there are other groups out there studying and protecting cryptids, other than the Price family. Hope we see more of them.

My one issue with the book, and the reason I didn't rate it higher, is that I didn't really BUY the ending. No spoilers, but the mystery of who the killer is kinda falls flat. The killer (and I'm trying not to spoil) has a motive that... sort of makes sense, but if I saw it in another novel, I might scoff. SEanan sells it okay because of how the Incrypted series is multigenerational, but it didn't grab me.

Still, over all a good book, but not a great one.

seanan_mcguire

March 23 2014, 17:55:20 UTC 3 years ago

It doesn't, which is a good thing: I've said several times that I avoid Goodreads, and really prefer not to read those reviews. They're written for readers. That's awesome. But they're not for me, you know? It's generally rude for me to reply to them, no matter how positively I do it, and I try to avoid doing things that people will see as rudeness on my part.

I'm not upset that you copied this one; please don't delete it. It contains some good points that people may want to discuss with you. But please, in the future, don't drop your full Goodreads reviews here? Again, socially, I'm not allowed to respond to content, and that makes me uncomfortable on my blog.

Deleted comment

seanan_mcguire

March 31 2014, 22:11:13 UTC 3 years ago

Yay, squee!
Previous
← Ctrl ← Alt
Next
Ctrl → Alt →