Tidal Creatures

Alchemical Journeys #3

by Seanan McGuire

Every night, a Moon shines down on the Impossible City…

New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire takes us back to the world of the award-winning Alchemical Journeys series in this action-packed follow-up to Middlegame and Seasonal Fears .

All across the world, people look up at the moon and dream of gods. Gods of knowledge and wisdom, gods of tides and longevity. Over time, some of these moon gods incarnated into the human world alongside the other manifest natural concepts. Their job is to cross the sky above the Impossible City―the heart of all creation―to keep it connected to reality.

And someone is killing them.

There are so many of them that it's easy for a few disappearances to slip through the cracks. But they aren't limitless.

In the name of the moon, the lunar divinities must uncover the roots of the plot and thwart the true goal of those behind these attacks―control of the Impossible City itself.

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Audiobook, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adult, Horror

464 pages, Hardcover

First published June 4, 2024

About the author

Hi! I'm Seanan McGuire, author of the Toby Daye series (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses), as well as a lot of other things. I'm also Mira Grant (www.miragrant.com), author of Feed and Deadline.

Born and raised in Northern California, I fear weather and am remarkably laid-back about rattlesnakes. I watch too many horror movies, read too many comic books, and share my house with two monsters in feline form, Lilly and Alice (Siamese and Maine Coon).

I do not check this inbox. Please don't send me messages through Goodreads; they won't be answered. I don't want to have to delete this account. :(

Reviews

[megs_bookrack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tidal Creatures is the 3rd-installment to Seanan McGuire's epic Adult SFF-series that has not just created a whole new world unto itself, but a whole new cosmology.



Middlegame took the world by storm when it was released in 2019. I wasn't immune. When I read it, I fell in love. I always knew McGuire was a talented writer with a plethora of unique ideas, but this thing is off the charts.

The sequel Seasonal Fears didn't get quite the same level of fanfare upon its release in 2022, but I loved it nevertheless. I wouldn't say I loved it as much as Middlegame, but it was a brilliant continuation of the story.



Tidal Creatures is a monster in the way it continued to build out this complex and enticing world. I loved meeting new characters like Kelpie, Judy and Isabella. The cast of characters felt broader in this one than the previous novels and it was interesting to learn about them.

Additionally, their interactions were deep and their banter, funny. Most of the new information we learned was accomplished through character conversations. Because of this, it never felt info-dumpy.



This story felt different too, in that it is a murder mystery of sorts. Someone is killing moon goddesses, and it's up to our cast to figure out why and then stop them.

I thought that was an intriguing way to advance this overall story arc. The way it tied into the lore of the Impossible City and the concepts that we had starting building in the previous books was very well done.

I will say, I think if I read this again, I would probably enjoy it even more. There is a lot going on here and the way that the various perspectives are initially introduced, not coming together until a little way in, it was a lot to follow.



A part of me wants to say, I am done reading these as they're released for the rest of the series. I want to wait until they are all out so I can binge them all at once.

Before Seasonal Fears released, I did reread Middlegame directly before I picked it up and I do think I enjoyed it that much more because of that.

But now, we're so deep. I don't know if I have time to reread them all prior to every other subsequent release...



This is easy for me to say now. I'm sure as the next book releases I am going to flock to it like a Publisher's dream. All past hesitation blown out of the water by the overwhelming FOMO that I'm gonna feel.

Either way, no matter how it happens, I love this series with my whole heart and will happily see it to the end.

I would recommend continuing on with the series to anyone who read and enjoyed Middlegame. I also highly recommend the companion series, The Up-and-Under by A. Deborah Baker, for more insight into the background of this world.



Thank you to the publisher, Tor and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review.

This series is an absolute tour de force in the SFF space and I cannot wait for more!

[vin .ᐟ (hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

꒰ 4 ⭐ ꒱

okay let's ignore the fact that for 95% of the book i thought that this was the series finale 🥴

anywayssss these characters were so much better than the ones in the previous book - like they actually felt compelling and made me want to root for them!! my only issue was that the resolution (once again) felt too abrupt. but other than that, i really enjoyed this character-driven story!

getting to know the Lunars was so interesting, and the way Seanan McGuire described how they walked 'the everything' and shined down on the Impossible City was so beautiful and entrancing that it made me so jealous i couldn't experience it for myself 😭✨

જ⁀➴ 🌘┊pre-read:

i have a good feeling about this one!! :D series finale you will not disappoint 🙏🙏🙏

[Brok3n · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moon gods, metaphysics, and sneers

Tidal Creatures is the third novel in Seanan McGuire's Alchemical Journeys series, or the seventh if you include the Up and Under books. The unifying principle behind the series is the personification of things that are not persons, objectively or scientifically speaking, such as the Doctrine of Ethos (Middlegame), Winter and Summer (Seasonal Fears), and now the Moon. Five of the main characters are Moon goddesses (Aske, Change'e, Artemis, Diana) and a Moon god (Máni). We also meet Kelpie, who is not in fact a Kelpie, but a personification of Artemis's Hind. Each of the gods/goddesses is in fact two persons -- a god/dess and an ordinary human whose body the two share. McGuire explains the relationship at length.

Roger Zelazny began his career by writing about thirty stories, which he sent to all the Science Fiction magazines, for which purpose he had made a comprehensive list. In this way he collected 150 rejections and no acceptances. He then sat down with all his stories, read them, and tried to figure out what the problem was. He decided that he was explaining too much -- that he would be insulted if an author told him so much, rather than letting him figure it out. So he stopped doing that, and immediately his stories began to sell.

McGuire knows this lesson. As a short story writer she is beautifully economical. But she seems somehow to have unlearned it to write Tidal Creatures. Unnecessary explanations of folklorical metaphysics go on and on.

But there was another thing that bothered me even more -- the sneering. I first noticed it when Judy (that's Chang'e's human) visits Prof Roger Middleton, and thinks this

As she watches him, she realizes she doesn’t really know much about the man; she’s read his published papers, which are meticulously researched, and precisely as petty as any other academic work...*

This amounts to an implication that all academic works are petty, and all equally petty. Once I started noticing the sneers, I couldn't stop. They're EVERYWHERE.

For instance, one of the main characters is Isabella, an hechicera. Isabella works with a circle of would-be witches who meet at the home of Catrina, who is one of them. Isabella seldom thinks of Catrina without a sneer. There are pages and pages of this. The problem with this is not that it diminishes Catrina -- we are meant to hold Catrina in contempt. The problem is that it diminishes Isabella. There are few point-of-view characters in Tidal Creatures who don't despise someone else and reveal that contempt in sneering thoughts.

The story is essentially a murder mystery -- moon goddesses are dying. (That's not a spoiler -- the publisher's blurb tells us "someone is killing them".) I think this could have been a rather good story. But the overexplanation and sneers really drained a lot of the fun out of it for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and TorDotDom for an advance reader copy of Tidal Creatures. Release date 4-Jun-2024.

*Quotes are from an advance reader copy of Tidal Creatures and may change before publication. This review will be corrected if necessary on the release date.

Blog review.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the conclusion of the Alchemical Journey. So it was weird to be surrounded by total strangers right at the beginning and up until about 50% of the book. However, that kind of disorientation also provided with nice looks into the alchemists' organization.

We meet different incarnations of a lunar deity and learn of them being able to go to the Impossible City and back into our world almost at a whim. Naturally, the alchemists want that kind of power, if only to finally seize control over the Impossible City. But there are also more cockoos, constructs and whatnot - until we finally meet a sort of witch and her coven.

All these elements come together - almost like magic. ;)

I liked and enjoyed that this book, like the first two, was quite bloody and didn't shy away from cruelty in all its forms. The writing, equally, was as good as before.

However, the afore-mentioned introduction of so many new elements kinda made me lose the emotional connection to the characters quite a bit and I needed quite a lot of time to regain traction. I felt thrown for a loop, kinda. It wasn't that I didn't like the story in the beginning; it's more that it felt like a different story.

Still, great story overall.

[Josh Hedgepeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out my video review:

TLDR: a noticeable improvement over Seasonal Fears, but there are still places where things get clunky. I think fans of Middlegame will nevertheless leave this mostly satisfied.

It had been four years since I last read Middlegame when I decided to reread it for this review. My reread of Seasonal Fears was less removed from my first read of it, with its release in 2022. Perhaps my reading experience with Tidal Creatures would have been better if I had let Middlegame remain a more distant memory. Instead, I'm left acutely aware of Tidal Creatures' shortcomings, but in contrast, I can also see its clear improvements over Seasonal Fears.

Middlegame works for two main reasons (I think): 1) a rich and compelling world, and 2) extraordinary characters (particularly Rodger and Dodger). These are the core ingredients that McGuire needs to make these novels successful. When she, like her own alchemical creations, finds the perfect concoction of ingredients, she creates a force unlike anything the universe has ever seen. That is, in book form. Middlegame is one of my all time favorite books, as I know is true for other readers. There is some irony in her attempts to recreate and best the creation that was Rodger and Dodger, like Reed ands all the other alchemists. In Tidal Creatures, we follow McGuire in her quest to regain access to the Impossible City, or amore aptly, the impossible book.

Tidal Creatures starts from a fundamental premise that takes a step in the right direction with a largely new set up for the story. While the previous books focus on figures as they strive to embody some fundamental force of the universe (language, time, the seasons, etc.), we instead find ourselves immersed in a story of already ascended Tidal Creatures. Incarnations of the Moon itself are being targeted, and we don't know why. It sets up an interesting new dynamic in a story that is more murder mystery than it is about some other form of ascension.

The set up alone does a lot to propel Tidal Creatures far above that of Seasonal Fears. Seasonal Fears was predictable. It lacked heart and compelling characters. It was a story that was far more interested in world building than anything else, but what really hurt it was that the world building wasn't even good. Seanan McGuire is probably my favorite living author. I adore pretty much everything she does. However, there is some really clunky story telling in Seasonal Fears, and to a much lesser extent, Tidal Creatures. Seasonal Fears is effectively extended forms of exposition to "inform" our characters, but it really is nothing more than setting up the story for the reader. It rarely feels like natural dialogue. Sometimes, I even question whether someone would really know all this let alone be telling this person all this. This was the foundational issue in Seasonal Fears, at least in my reread. I can look past the boring and uninteresting characters, if I'm immersed in a compelling world. Any immersion in Seasonal Fears was a carry over from Middlegame.

Tidal Creatures fixes this in two major ways.

1) I think the characters are just fundamentally more interesting and better crafted. They generally feel like real people who are competent at what they do. Even when we inevitably find ourselves back with Rodger, Dodger, and Erin the story feels far less forced. Their inclusion is justifiable and far less fan servicey. McGuire does more to address why there is any conflict at all if Rodger and Dodger are as powerful as Middlegame sets them up as. I don't know if their inclusion was necessary, however. It works well enough, but I think there are some interesting approaches that McGuire could have taken here. Imagine if this happened prior to Middlegame or even concurrently--that would be a difficult line to walk, but it could make for an interesting story that explores the consequences of Rodger and Dodgers experience. The time resets are acknowledged here, but only in passing. I'd love to see some form of consequence even if it isn't universe ending stakes. There is still some room to improve here.

There is a real hit or miss nature with the characterization of McGuires alchemical creations, that is to say the literal alchemical creations in the story. I mostly liked them in this story, but they do stretch credulity at times. There is a balance in presenting traits that are heightened by alchemical means while still making them feel real. Mostly, its okay, and I think the story is helped by the larger cast of characters that balance them out.

Lastly, I don't love the characterizations of some of the villains here. There is some nice nuance that's hinted in places. There is almost campy nature to the extreme sociopathic nature of alchemists, but that actually works for me. What did not work for me was how they fit into the mystery of the story. At times, it feels heavy handed, and the story could have done more with the big bad that simultaneously would have improved the mystery.

2) I think the world building is much more effective than in Seasonal Fears. Sure, there is dumping of world building, but even if its this internal dialogue with our characters, that still feels more natural than just having them exposition dump to each other. That said, when the story intersects with Rodger and Dodger, McGuire falls back into bad habits, with clunky (but WORSE, unnecessary) exposition dumping. As if Rodger and Dodger are going to tell their whole life story to every person they meet, and even if they did, they aren't going to always talk in Whedonesque banter like they would with each other. There seems to be this weird idea that just throwing in quippy banter shows that all our characters are best friends and don't you just love that chemistry! it feels lazy. It also feels lazy just to use exposition dumping as a story telling device. If you have characters that need an update, do a scene cut ffs. I won't pretend there aren't times when I'm not annoyed at some of the writing, partly because I know McGuire can do better.

Finally, I want to discuss the ending. I'm beginning to think McGuire has problem with endings. This story ends so abruptly. Things resolve way too fast, including the mystery. I mentioned before, I felt the mystery could have been much more effective if a certain character was handled differently. As it stands, I think it contributes to the rushed feeling of the conclusion. Its like: here's the big mystery, and just like that its over.

Overall, I feel like much more care was put into Tidal Creatures than Seasonal Fears, and it is far better for it. I really enjoyed being back in this world, and I can't wait to reread it. That is in stark contrast to Seasonal Fears where I made it all of 5 minutes before I seriously questioned my life choices. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement.

PS: Thanks to McMillian Audio for the audio ARC. Amber Benson is phenomenal. The way she embodies the alchemist and their darkest creations are utterly delightful. Top tier.

[L (Nineteen Adze) · Rating 3 out of 5]

After letting my impressions settle, my generous ceiling on this book is 3 stars. There are some good scenes, but the story arc feels muddled. Seanan McGuire has posted about burnout and health problems, so I’m left in a similar position as I was after learning that John Scalzi had covid during the writing of Starter Villain: I wish she’d had more recovery time, because I’d love to see this book in a sharper final form but didn’t love what I got.

Most of this is going to be spoilers (and more in the form of a weird essay than a normally organized review), so maybe skip this if you’re planning to read the book.

I’m not sure where to begin with this one, but the pacing is, to put it charitably, not great. At the start, I was excited: I think that the whole concept of grouped Lunar manifestations from different cultures is great, and I love murder mysteries. Unfortunately, the book drives itself into the infodumping ditch pretty early on and then stays there. I think Seanan McGuire has gotten to the career stage of not needing to take structural edits anymore, but this book desperately needed some.

After reading Seasonal Fears and this series entry, I think that these middle volumes really suffer from being crammed into a few days of main-plot time with too many flashbacks and/or exposition blocks instead of being spread out over a longer period the way Middlegame was. Any character development feels somewhat compressed and flattened. In Seasonal Fears, the main characters felt crushed under the weight of exposition of how seasonal forces work; this time around, some of the people who should be taking center stage feel lost in the never-ending recaps of what happened in book one. It feels like most of the middle third of the book is our cast, first in smaller groups and then collectively, standing around explaining prior events and alchemical terms until the story has sunk into the exposition bog.

Suspense (or lack thereof):
There are several plot points that could be great twists, but they simply aren’t presented as twists. In one early scene, Judy/ Chang’e meets Losna, another minor Lunar deity–later in that same scene, we learn that this is actually Artemis, who came to town in disguise. I’m not sure why she bothered, because she tells almost everyone who she is within a chapter or so of meeting. If this had been more of a halfway-point revelation, the suspense about her deception and motivation could have been great. Instead, it’s just one more item for the list of things that the reader is perpetually waiting for other characters to learn.

Later, the characters are trying to work out which Lunar is working with the alchemists, but it’s obvious from the only earlier scene with Diana in it that of course it’s Diana because she’s neglecting her leadership responsibilities and people are suspicious of her. We don’t meet enough other Lunars to provide a field of viable suspects: instead, the narrative focuses on Roger and Dodger, Erin, and their household. One of the few other Lunars, Mani, spends most of the book standing around as set dressing. He gets the occasional line, but it’s easy to forget whether he’s in many scenes.

For all the problems in Seasonal Fears, it at least succeeded in making these potential Seasons the main characters of their own story. In Tidal Creatures, the Lunars quickly turn into accessories to brighten up Roger and Dodger’s journey to learning more interesting facts about the Impossible City. After Judy’s fears about how to finish her degree without attracting Roger’s notice, she casually sleeps with him after the big exposition segment. Does she still need to take his classes to graduate? Does this matter for her academic career? If they date, like other characters think they will, is anyone going to notice that and cause problems for Judy? Maybe Roger’s power is such that he can force people to never notice or not spread rumors, but it’s weird to see such nuance around the balance between Judy the human and Chang’e the Lunar at the start and then watch that back-and-forth fade to almost nothing in favor of “Roger having a girlfriend will be good for him.”

From a broader plot perspective, having Roger and Dodger as semi-main characters doesn’t work after book one because they’re fully incarnate and nearly all-powerful, the closest thing the universe has to God. They talk about taking control of the Impossible City (and all of existence), but there’s no tension to it at all: they can manipulate existence by using words and math on it, so life-changing threats from previous books are little more than a minor inconvenience now unless they’re conveniently not around at dangerous moments (more on that later). When you’re bringing the world’s mightiest heroes to the stage, the less-powerful sidekicks fade into the background.

This passage sums up my problem with the series at this point:

“They’re not going to give up on the City,” says Roger. “If we stop them this time, they’re just going to step back and take another run. Is this the rest of our lives? Lurching from alchemical attempt at the City to alchemical attempt at the City, until either we slip and they get in or we admit that there’s one way to stop this and move into the City ourselves.”
“That sounds about right,” says Erin. “But until we have to file change-of-address forms, we have pizza, and we have cable television, and we have time to figure out a better way to do this.”

In short: Roger and Dodger can get into the Impossible City when they decide that they’re tired of being quasi-separate people sometimes (or, as they discussed in another scene, are ready to not have internet access). The concept of a race with the alchemists could be great, but the alchemists haven’t been remotely successful in this project, so we’re just waiting for these characters to decide that they’re ready to take this step, even if alchemists keep slaughtering people in the meantime, because what if the Impossible City doesn’t have cable television?

This inconclusive window of waiting until they’re ready makes it feel like the series is just marking time until the Doctrine of Ethos decides to get its shit together. There’s no real obstacle, no central challenge that Roger and Dodger need to overcome, so what’s the point of getting to know all these supernatural figures? I assume we’ll have some Avengers-style team-up in the last book where all these entities gather to fight the alchemists and natural forces break out of an artificial structure to restore magical balance, but I’m not sure how much I care at this point.

Characters:
Kelpie, one of our major POV characters, unfortunately bored the hell out of me. The outline of her story is compelling: she thought she was a human who had been in a lab accident but learns that she’s instead a lab creation, which sends her reeling. I think this would be more interesting if I hadn’t already read the story of McGuire’s D&D character Kelpie, an orange tiefling raised by alligators who goes through a similar journey (report back if you don’t follow the author on Twitter and liked this element better). She’s very naive and earnest but accustomed to horrifying alchemical experiments using human remains. I kept wanting that to be more of a point of friction than it was, but she shakes off a year of propaganda in a day or two and only says a few things that unsettle people. Her true loyalties are never in question and she’s not a threat to the rest of the group, just an earnest sidekick, like a young child.

Another major character is also written in a way I found uncomfortable, though she’s more interesting. Isabella, a fully human hecicera (sort of a sorceress), welcomes Kelpie into her home and then mostly serves as a ferry to introduce her to Smita, Erin, and eventually the rest of the alchemical household that came together at the end of book one. She has some awkwardly written scenes dealing with ignorant white women who don’t understand her culture: moments like calling Kelpie “a Karen detector” feel a bit shallow and awkward, not delving into the complexities of how Isabella, an immigrant, is balancing safety and finances. Later in the book, she goes back to her warded apartment to retrieve her son, finds signs of alchemical magic nearby, encounters the corpse-monster of her dead friend, and watches that monster kill her husband right before someone arrives to save her.

Should characters receive a full shield against narrative harm because they’re members of a marginalized group? No, I don’t think so. But it’s unpleasant to read only two POV chapters from this character, both focused on the trauma of losing her husband and home, not earlier chapters to show the whole shape of her life or an epilogue of sorts to talk about her next steps and what role she might play in future books. This incident is partly thanks to her own supposed magical carelessness. Her whole coven has been killed and turned into alchemical monsters in a one-off comment near the end, so her social circle is dead, again partly because of her magic, and we don’t even see her learn the news or consider moving back to her extended family to get away from alchemical dangers. She just vanishes into the background narrative, a grieving widow with nothing more to contribute after introducing the core cast members to each other.

It’s also uncomfortable to hear so much talk about resetting the timeline earlier on Roger and Dodger’s path (thousands of times? Hundreds of thousands? I think there’s an actual estimate somewhere) to save lives and get to the best possible world. They discuss causality and what they want to do to try to help Kim and Tim (twins who were raised to take the Doctrine and couldn’t) because the kids feel lonely in their heads without each other, but no one ever proposes that Dodger rewind the timeline just a day or two to save Juan. If they had raised the topic and it couldn’t be done for some reason, that could be fine, but it's odd not to have that on the table when it seems like the fix is simple: they could send Erin, or Artemis, or Dodger, or Roger, or anyone in the whole house who can fight, along with Isabella to guide the family safely away from the apartment instead of letting everyone have quiet time while she leaves alone. Artemis is only a few minutes too late racing over to save the family, so the good outcome is almost there with a small nudge for someone to take that precaution, like Erin noticing the potential chaos sooner if she knew to look for it… and people talk about how sad it is that Isabella and her son Luis are traumatized, but no one brings up the best possible way to help them and save other civilians.

Maybe Juan will be time-edited to life again at the start of the next book, but the ending of this one argues otherwise. There was a great opportunity here to talk more about how people function around the edges of alchemical magic and how they might flourish if that control was removed, but instead we get little lectures about how Isabella’s magical tradition is like giving the universe acne and her blaming herself for being “cocky” about not shielding enough (instead of alchemists having tools she couldn’t anticipate or foolish coven member Catrina instead having just enough power to make herself a target by damaging Isabella’s wards). It’s a striking choice in a book where Roger, Dodger, Erin, and Artemis all have snarky moments of striking power and arrogance about dealing with any potential threats– having any of them face serious danger would have been more of a disruption to the status quo.

All sorts of small moments just didn’t click either. Earlier, Isabella hadn’t noticed the risks of Catrina’s desire for power as a white woman who's sensitive to magical energy but doesn't have the power to use it (and is therefore jealous of Isabella). Instead, Kelpie (who has existed for a single year and lived in a lab where she learned primarily lab techniques and propaganda) reads the social dynamics that a woman of color has been navigating in mostly-white spaces for years better than Isabella does herself because being in an alchemical lab makes you good at spotting egos. The whole thing just put my teeth on edge.

I don’t have a single clean-cut complaint here, but this character treatment felt kind of gross to read. Alchemists are dangerous in part because of their willingness to treat people as tools and butcher them into experimental components… and it’s unpleasant to see the narrative do the same to Isabella.

In conclusion: I wanted to love this, and there are some good story bones here, but this is not Seanan McGuire’s best work. It’s frustrating to finish a 450-page book and realize that my impulse to drop in on page one was probably a good one, but here we are.

The book’s second intro-section quote is:
“Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly.
Then your love would also change.”

If that sounds just a little off, you’re correct. The actual line is:
“O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.” (Romeo and Juliet: Act 2, Scene 2)

Try as I might, I can’t find the origin for this: even SparkNotes has a more poetic version, but the fake one is kicking around Goodreads and Instagram aesthetic quotes. Seanan McGuire loves Shakespeare and has named about seventeen books after quotes from his work, so I am baffled by how this happened. She left a note saying “Shakespeare swear by the moon quote” and some editorial assistant googled the wrong one, perhaps? It’s just odd to see the other four Shakespeare section-header quotes be right and the most iconic one at the start be so wrong.

And that’s the reading experience in a nutshell: under-edited and clunky.

If I can be catty in defense of my field for a minute: Judy, the linguist, notes in passing that another character is “an English major; she doesn’t question anything that isn’t written down.” Why? We don’t know–perhaps an English major wronged her, but that would be too useful a character detail to include. Perhaps if an English major had been involved in editing this book, one of the book’s first lines wouldn’t be a mangled misquotation.

//
First impressions: 3 or 3.25 stars, in that this starts better than Seasonal Fears but then slides down to about the same level. I liked the opening chapters a lot, but this feels more like a collection of worldbuilding notes and disconnected scenes than a tight narrative. I adored Middlegame, with all its structural quirks and tantalizing mysteries-- by contrast, this one is all too linear as it plods through scene after scene of characters teaching each other magical vocabulary words and explaining events that the reader has already seen. I almost quit on page one over a Shakespeare misquote, and I don't think I would have missed much if I had. RTC.

Other recommendations:
- If you're interested in the sound of the series, just treat Middlegame as a standalone.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and Tor for the early copy of Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire. Below is my honest review.

The latest entry in the Alchemical Journeys follows manifestations of the moon goddesses from all sorts of cultures around the world. They follow the night sky over the Impossible City, shining their light over the City's residents. They also have their own special entryways into the Everything, providing paths to their Windows that let them perform their shining duties. Unfortunately, the alchemists have figured that out and are trying to find a way to use those moon goddesses to get access and claim the Impossible City.

Luckily for the rest of the world, a handful of misfits find their way to each other, including some major deals like, oh, the living embodiments of the Doctrine of Ethos.

I really enjoyed this one. It took a while to build, but once it did, we got to learn a TON about the alchemical world and met some really cool characters. I can't wait for the next one!

Definitely recommended, but please read the first two before picking this one up.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do I fully understand everything in this series?


Absolutely not

But I vibe with it all the same

[☕️Kimberly (Caffeinated Reviewer) · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the events of Middlegame and Seasonal Fears, I was eager to dive into Tidal Creatures. We find ourselves at Berkley College where we meet incarnates of the Moon Gods who dwell within a human host and take turns navigating the skies at night over the Impossible City. When one of them ends up dead, it will be up to Moon goddesses, Change’e and Artemis to find answers, but along the way they will find help & friendship.

We also meet Kelpie, who after escaping the lab learns she is not human but a personification of Artemis’s Hind. She stumbles across the son of Isabella, a hechicera who aids here and takes her to one of the coven’s meetings to introduce her to someone else who isn’t quite human. All of this takes them to the home of Rodger and Dodger, the living embodiments of the Doctrine of Ethos.

I loved how McGuire weaved in the gods, the Impossible City, and the alchemist who want to control it all. At its core, we have a murder-mystery. We learn from Diana, yes that Diana, that other moon gods have been murdered. Along the way, we will work to stop the alchemists, battle constructs and enter the city itself.

I found myself swept up in the tale and the stories of moon goddesses, Aske, Change’e, Artemis, and Diana, as well as the moon god Mani. I loved entering the home of Rodger and Dodger, whose home and its ability to adapt impressed me. We witness death, battle, and form friendships, all while McGuire has us pondering the universe.

If you love mythology, you will want to delve into the Alchemical Journeys series. Rich characters and a world filled with danger and possibilities. I encourage you to read the message at the beginning of the book from the author. Yes, dear author, the journey was worth it. This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tidal Creatures is the third book in a series that began with Middlegame and continued in Seasonal Fears. There's also a four-book sequence that McGuire wrote under the name of one of the characters, A. Deborah Baker, that's related but not compulsory to understanding these. I had read somewhere or been told or somehow hallucinated that this was to be a wrap-up of the series, but it isn't. It's set in a world where alchemy rules as much as science does, where supernatural beings in alternate worlds operate with or against one another, where Baum's Emerald City is more than a setting of an old kids' series.... Where there's a whole lot of complexity going on, which needs to be explained and summarized from time to time, which tends to slow the pace down too much at those info-dump times. I would've enjoyed this one more if it were a hundred pages or so shorter... I found it to be kind of a slog until Roger and Dodger showed up around halfway through. It's got some delightfully quirky crazy bits and some very clever bits and it's a well-written book, but it's not as fun and easy to read as the InCryptid series or the Daye books.

[Robin (Bridge Four) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review was originally posted on Books of My Heart

Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Tidal Creatures is the third book in the Alchemical Journeys series and needs to be read in order to make any sense.  Seanan McGuire focuses on the the lore of the moon and all the gods who have incarnated into this world in Tidal Creatures.  People are chosen to take on aspects of different moon deities and travel across the sky of the impossible city at the heart of creation. The Alchemists are looking for a way to use them to finally make it to that Impossible City to rule the world.

At its heart, Tidal Creatures is a murder mystery.  Jane, the human aspect of Change’e, goes to meet up with one of the other moon gods as he travels back to the from his journey across the sky and pick up the key to the door.  However what she finds is the aspect of Mani, another moon god, carrying a dead body.  One of the other moon gods was killed on the path to their journey across the sky and no one knows why.  Jane will enlist some help from a few other of the more powerful of the aspects of the moon to try and find the killer, and figure out how they got into the secret area in the first place as there is supposed to only by one key.

The second thread of the story follows Kelpi.  She thought she was transformed in a horrible lab experiment.  But the truth is much different, the alchemists were trying to create familiars of the moon gods in order to find one of the more powerful ones.  Kelpi is the incarnation of Artemis's Hinde.  She has her own journey to take once she leaves the lab and will run into some people that might be able to assist her as she tries and finds the Goddess she was made for, before the Alchemists find her.

The story is set at Berkley and Jane is avidly trying to avoid a certain professor there as she thinks she will be discovered.  Said professor is Roger and as a reader I couldn't wait for him to enter the story since I loved most of the characters from Middlegame.  Roger, Dodger and company do finally enter the story and we learn a lot of what they have been up to and why they haven't tried to get to the impossible city yet since they are the living embodiments of the Doctrine of Ethos and the city is theirs to rule.

I enjoyed most of this story.  The lore and creativity of the story is fantastic and Seanan McGuire remains one of the most creative writers with her worldbuilding and storylines.  Most of her characters are rich, complex and mostly good even though they can be terrible and fierce when needed.  That said, I think she has also fallen into something that I've seen a lot of writers do lately with some of the social concerns in the current world and they try to jam pack too many of those in small snips and snipes into one story.  There were multiple times and characters the referenced white males in a negative connotation and twice it occurred at times I really didn't think it fit.  Also the other "bad" person was a rich white housewife that was bored and just wanted to be special but there was so much emphasis on her 'privilege'.  There are ways to put things into stories that do not take your reader out of the story and when they pile up and the author's bias shows it can be distracting.

Overall, if you enjoyed Middlegame, I think this is going to fit into your life quite well and be very entertaining.  I will say that the ending felt a little rushed but overall the pacing in the book is really good and kept me very engaged in the characters and the mystery.  I loved Kelpi and her overall arc.  The Alchemists are mostly a terrible bunch, evil scientists and all that, but they are also amazing at the things they create and their ambition towards their ultimate goal to get to the impossible city.  While I did think this was the last book in the series, there is still going to be one more and I'm really excited to see how it all plays out and if we will get some of the characters from Seasonal Fears to contribute to the ending as well.  Carry on to the Impossible City!

Narration:
Amber Benson is back again for Tidal Creatures, she did a great job on both of the other books of the series and so I'm happy to see her back to reprise her rolls of the prior characters and create new voices.  She has a great flow for the story and I enjoy her cadence.  Amber's narration makes sure you can tell all the voices apart and some of them carry almost a singsong effect, but I think that for those characters it is fitting.  I enjoyed her performance and believe it adds to my overall enjoyment of the story.  I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

Listen to a clip: HERE

[Lulu [at] Reckless Reading · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire was one of the releases I was most excited to pick up this year. I loved and cried during the first book in this series, Middlegame. I loved and cried even more during the second book of the series, Seasonal Fears. I thought I would love and cry during this third installment. Instead, I was left disappointed. This is a book that feels like 464 pages worth of filler.

The premise is an interesting one. Like Seasonal Fears, we are introduced to a whole new storyline and a whole new set of characters. Unlike Seasonal Fears, there is literally no reason for it unless McGuire is looking to set up the next book in this series. Someone has been killing lunars – manifestations of lunar deities that are responsible for shining down as the moon at night over the Impossible City. We are introduced to three lunars, a construct, an hechicera, and her small son. They all find themselves tangled in the murder of a newly manifested lunar and spend the book trying to find out who could have done this, why, and how to stop it. It should have been fun. It should have been interesting. Instead, it was boring and tedious. We already knew who had been killing lunars. You can figure it out in the first 20% of the book. The characters themselves have a good grasp on who has been behind it. So why do we have 80% more to go through? Simply because McGuire wants to reintroduce Roger and Dodger and the crew of Middlegame.

Instead of taking a step forward in continuing the lore of this universe, in bringing us new stories, we take so many steps backwards. I’m not sure if this was done because fans of Middlegame did not like Seasonal Fears and missed the cuckoos. I’m not sure if it is because McGuire herself missed Roger and Dodger. Whatever the reason, we get this filler book that spends 80% of the time trying to talk itself out of solving the mystery so Roger and Judy, the human host for the lunar manifestation of Chang’e, can hook-up. We spend the entire book learning about Isabella and them specify that she is an hechicera, which honestly feels pretty appropriative as someone that is latine, and then she literally drops out of the book and has nothing to do with the plot. What was the point in making the distinction of Isabella being an hechicera if she was going to disappear halfway through? If she was going to be a throwaway character? Was it simply for diversity’s sake? Also, the accent Amber Benson gave Isabella was a weird choice. This entire book just seemed like a weird choice.

Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire was an absolute letdown that felt 100% like a filler book, as though McGuire needed to publish something but wasn’t quite there yet. It added nothing to the world mythos and served only to bring back book 1s main characters to the forefront in an incredibly lackluster way. Pick it up if you just want to continue the series, but maybe wait for it to open up at your local library like I did before committing to purchase.

first reviewed at

[Renee Godding · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars

Neither Seasonal Fears nor Tidal Creatures has quite matched my love for Middlegame, but every addition to this unique world McGuire created has been a joy.

[Alecia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tidal Creatures has a plot that should be compelling- a moon goddess local to the UC Berkeley campus is killed. Her murder is actually one of a series going back years, and due to the nature of how moon gods are incarnated, it has gone unnoticed until now. The main characters are Judy, host to the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e, and Kelpie, a construct who escapes from one of the American Congress of Alchemy's labs.

I didn't particularly enjoy either of them, to be honest. Kelpie is childlike due to her sheltered existence and spends a lot of time whining about the turn her life has taken. Judy is remarkably anxious for a nearly immortal being, and projects that anxiety by trying to control everyone around her. Lots and lots of exposition follows. I appreciated the refresher because this series depends upon a lot of abstract concepts, but having skimmed back through Middlegame and Season Fears in preparation for this, it was obvious that basic concepts were being repeated ad nauseam.

There's a big cameo in this volume But even Roger and Dodger weren't enough to save this book. They were an unnecessary, but welcome cameo in Seasonal Fears. Here, it feels like they should have come in earlier. It seems uncharacteristic of them to be so casual about the havoc that the alchemists continue to wreak on the world, especially after all they did to save themselves. They are trying to live normal lives- Dodger works remotely for math and physics think tanks, Roger is a linguistics professor at UC Berkeley. Yet they have no idea about the moon goddesses even though they just got pulled into the world of seasonal incarnates. You'd think they'd have some kind of spidey sense for alchemical weirdness, but Erin (the embodiment of order) seems to be the one most involved in keeping an eye on potential threats.

Anyway, the murder isn't that hard to crack and I spotted the killer almost immediately. You'd think after all that build up the confrontation would be memorable but nope, we get the most surface level excuse for committing atrocities. The fact that we don't spend any time with the killer is another obvious tell that hurts the narrative. The reader doesn't really know this character, which makes it hard to care or muster any outrage or shock upon the reveal.

Once again I'm left wondering if Middlegame was just a perfect novel that should have been left to stand alone. It was just so good that it's hard for the sequels to measure up. I did read that two more volumes are planned, which is equal parts reassuring and worrying. Reassuring because I think that is the appropriate number of books to build to a satisfying conclusion. Worrying because after the Doctrine of Ethos, seasonal incarnates, and moon gods, I'm not sure what else is left to explore- it might be time to get a book from the perspective of one of the alchemists.

[Roberta R. (Offbeat YA) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excerpt from my review - originally published at Offbeat YA.

Pros: Fascinating concept. Rich mythology. Characters who transcend the page.
Cons: Complex. On the other hand, the murder-mystery part isn't hard to figure out, once you have the necessary information.
WARNING! Some gruesome deaths/imagery (melting people included).
Will appeal to: Those who loved Book 1 in the series and were less keen on Book 2. Those who need more Roger and Dodger. Those who enjoy a creative, exciting twist on gods incarnate and the heart of creation.

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Tor/Forge for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

NEW HEIGHTS

Let's get it out of the way: if you adored Middlegame but felt that Seasonal Fears was a bit of a letdown, you only need to read Tidal Creatures to fall in love with the series all over again. And no, not only because this time Roger and Dodger play a huge part in it (though it does help 😉 😍). For one, the amount of exposition is just right - there's a lot to take in, that's for sure, and some of the concepts are tackled more than once, but you never feel like you're hammered over the head with them when it happens. Every time the god-incarnate situation, the alchemical procedures or the Impossible City (a.k.a. the center of creation) are discussed, the reader is given a new piece of information, or sees a familiar event from a new angle (or from a new character's eyes), so that in the end everything is an essential tassel to the book's mosaic, the same way as the Lunar gods need to come together to become the Moon that shines over the City itself. But this is just one of the reasons why this book restored my faith in the series... [...]

Whole review here.

[Melani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I initially gave this four stars, but as I sat on it, the more problems started to bother me. I very much enjoyed reading it, but there are pacing problems. The final confrontation is... kind of a nothing burger? There's a lot of build-up and then nothing and it's over. I think part of the problem is that this is a bridge book, it's mostly designed to introduce the idea of the inbetween to Rodger and Dodger and it does that, but that feels like a B plot instead of the A plot, which is what it becomes.

There's also the fact that because we have a group of new characters who all start at different points and meet each other at different times, we get the same information repeated about three times. By the time we got the third repitition of the same information I was annoyed. Yes, it makes sense for the characters to do this, yes it's all done in character, but it I didn't need to read the information for the third time. It got too redundant. I think I know what McGuire was trying to do with this repetition, but it didn't work for me.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would die for Kelpie.

[Ashley Daviau · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a tad bit disappointed with this addition to the series if I’m honest with myself. I wanted to love it with my whole heart because the first two are perfection but this new set of characters didn’t quite match the first two. It was still absolutely great and really interesting but I didn’t click with the characters like I wished to. Still a fabulous addition to the series though!

[Olive · Rating 4 out of 5]

My least favorite of the three simply because I feel it had less of a focus on abstract ideas than the other two. But still a propulsive, fascinating, and beautifully written addition to the series.

[Sian · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up to 4.

This is for sure my least favorite in the series but the new characters did grow on me by the end even if the alchemy of it all got a little convoluted.

[Landice (Manic Femme) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another triumph in the Alchemical Journeys series! I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this world or the extended cast of characters!

[chris mango reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. The first 25% of Tidal Creatures is a bit too enamored with being metaphysically clever, but if you can get past that bit, you have a book that combines the alchemical experiments of Middlegame and the manifestations of nature in Seasonal Fears into a fun and creative new entry in the series.

Tidal Creatures starts off following two narratives, one about Kelpie, a human(??) girl who works in alchemy lab and happens to have hooves, a tail, and orange skin; and one about the human manifestations of moon deities as they try to solve the murder of one of their fellow manifestations. I really enjoyed heading back into the world of alchemical constructs and cuckoos; while it took me a little longer to get on board with the moon, by the time the two narratives meet, I was fully hooked and invested in the plot.

While not as strong as Middlegame, I found Tidal Creatures to be much better than Seasonal Fears - I don’t think you need to read Seasonal Fears to read this, but I would highly recommend reading Middlegame first, as the main characters from Middlegame are heavily involved here (and many of the plot points of MG are spoiled as well).

There are a few Seanan writing quirks that will always annoy me a bit (she is very into having her POC characters talk about the problem with white people, and mini-monologues of characters talking about how they know something is bad, and they’re learning, and they’re doing their best), but I’m always impressed by her creativity in creating new worlds.

[Britt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley & Tor Books for an eARC of this book. The following review is my honest reflection on the text provided.

Tidal Creatures is a lot more linear than one would expect from a book in the Alchemical Journeys series. Until Roger and Dodger show up, it doesn't really feel like a part of this series at all. And don't get me wrong, I will continue to read this series in hopes of more Roger and Dodger, but they're so overpowered now that it seems impossible there will ever be an obstacle that is difficult for them to overcome.

“The Lunars are living incarnations of moon gods, but Roger and Dodger are living gods, literally. They can negotiate with reality to a degree that no one else has been able to accomplish, ever, the peak of natural manifestation combined with alchemical personification. They could snap their fingers and bring this all to an end, opening the paths ahead of them without making any real effort. But that’s why they make an effort, why they’re so exquisitely careful in everything they do. They could easily shatter reality without intending to, making everyone else’s needs secondary to their own. That they don’t is a testament to how much care they take every single day.”

I really liked the setup here, but it pains me to admit that the thread may have gotten a little lost along the way. There are way too many info dumps that mess with the pacing of the story and it can drag at times. I was surprised that this wasn't going to be a trilogy - there may be more books coming in this series? I'm hoping for something more along the lines of Middlegame next time, though this is still one of the more impressive series I've read.

[Banshee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Either my reading taste is changing and refining in my 30s or McGuire's books are getting progressively worse. I loved "Middlegame", the first book in the series. The second book was a mixed bag. And this third one, I sloughed through with difficulty.

One of my major problems was very didactic/on the nose approach to feeding the reader the messages of what's right or wrong, and it's the stylistic choice that I disagree with, and not necessarily the content of the messages. I don't like being told what I should think. I prefer to be given situations, choices and stories that make me think and form my own opinions.

Another thing was a very awkward world-building with whole walls of exposition. Not much actually happened in the novel. More than half of the text consisted of the characters not even talking, but rather saying monologues to one another. There was just a faint skeleton of a plot. I was very, very bored and only finished the book because it fit in 2 different reading challenges.

The characters were flat and very underdeveloped. Each and every one of them felt like a caricature of a character. Even the returning characters were missing the spark that they used to have and were almost unrecognisable. The protagonists were all either snarky or haughty, or whiny, or the combination of those, and neither of them seemed to have much of personality.

Basically, there wasn't much that I liked in the book. My adventure with this series finishes here.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was provided an ALC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own. I really enjoyed the narrator and her ability to voice all of the many different characters we encountered in this book.

This is the 3rd book in the series, and I do no recommend reading it as a standalone. While this introduces several new characters and this focuses on the murder mystery they are involved in, there are underlying themes and explanations that you are going to need to understand first. We are reunited with Roger and Dodger in this installment and to really understand who they are and what their purpose is you are going to need to read Middlegame and Seasonal Fears in order.

As mentioned this introduces several new characters, which I found hard to keep track of at times. A few of our new characters are lunar gods, each of whom have 2 personalities inside one body. It took me quite a while to keep track of all of the new lunar deities and how that all worked, but it was a really interesting concept. McGuire always ties the novel to some type of lore, and in this one it was various mythology related to the moon. When one of the dieties is found murdered the other lunar gods/godesses band together to solver her murder and find out what is going on. This leads them down an alchemical rabbit hole of strange occurrences and interactions. We are reunited with Roger and Dodger and The Impossible City as they try to solve the mystery and stop the alchemists from taking over the city.

I feel like this is a series I need to read from beginning to end again to really grasp the entire premise. This particular book had alot going on and I found it confusing at times. I felt the same way about Middlegame. I think if there is another book in the series I would want to reread all the books again to really grasp all of the concepts before diving in again. That being said this book was still enjoyable, and the worldbuilding was great.

[Jenna (Falling Letters) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review originally published 11 May 2024 at Falling Letters.

Reading Tidal Creatures felt like Seanan McGuire answered all the prayers I had after finishing Seasonal Fears. Some background information for those who haven’t read the Alchemical Journeys series (or my reviews of Middlegame and Seasonal Fears ): Middlegameis one of my all-time favourite books, primarily due to the two protagonists Roger and Dodger. I never expected it would become a series. When Seasonal Fears was announced, I understood it to be more of a spiritual sucessor set in the same world of Middlegame. I prepared myself for little mention of Roger and Dodger. I was right to do so. Seasonal Fears expands the alchemical worldbuilding a bit further, but the new protagonists meant nothing to me.

So, I went into Tidal Creatureswith a well-adjusted mindset, preparing for a book more in the vein of Seasonal Fears than Middlegame. But no! (This is where you should dip out of the review if you want absolutely no information about Tidal Creatures' plot and characters.)

Tidal Creatures features new protagonists Judy (who shares her body with an incarnation of the celestial goddess Chang’e) and Kelpie (who begins the story knowing nothing about her past and quickly learns more after she escapes from an alchemist’s lab). Tidal Creatures doesn’t try to recreate the characterization or relationship buidling that were so strongly present in Middlegame and absent (for me) in Seasonal Fears. But at least I found both Judy and Kelpie more interesting characters than Seasonal Fears' Melanie or Harry. Certainly it helps, for my personal preferences, that neither are framed primarily by a romantic relationship. But what truly excited me was the shift back to a focus on Roger and Dodger.

I was definitely screaming crying throwing up when Erin and Smita appeared. (Actually, I was clapping like people do on a sitcom when a famous guest start walks in lmao). I highlighted every single little reference to Roger before he’s actually named or appears himself on page. Tidal Creatures begins focused on Judy and Kelpie, but Roger and Dodger (and Erin!) play a much larger role in her story than they did in Melanie and Harry’s. Once they’re introduced, they remain part of the action. We even get a decent number of pages from Dodger’s POV, and learn a lot more about what’s next for her and Roger, and their relatiosnhip with the Impossible City.

I wondered for a minute if the structure of this series will be a bit like Wayward Children – some books focus more on Roger and Dodger, some books less? I can only continue to pray we get more like this. But, we’ve only got two books left in the series after Tidal Creatures: Inkpot Gods in 2026 and Asphodel in 2028 (source). You should have seen the look on my face when I saw the final book is titled Aphodel. I have some working theories about her, one of which is that she’s not actually dead, but I am currently revising that theory based on a few tidbits of info revealed in this book 👀

We’re working through the elements. MIDDLEGAME = Fire SEASONAL FEARS = Earth TIDAL CREATURES = Water INKPOT GODS = Air ASPHODEL = Aether — Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire.bsky.social) Mar 31, 2024 at 19:45

In addition to so much Roger and Dodger Erin, we get so much more worldbuilding! Look, if you’re all about the characters, then yes, they’re great, but for me there is no recreating the relationship from Roger and Dodger. So what I’m looking for with each new installment in this series is A) more of Roger/Dodger/Erin and B) more worldbuilding. Tidal Creatures offers a lot more concrete worldbuilding, including where/how Roger and Dodger fit into it all. Excellent, I was quite pleased by this. Also I think now that maybe I should reread Seasonal Fears to see if I pick up more on the worldbuilding in that volume. I do recall that reading Seasonal Fearss, even if I didn’t love it, helped me better understand a few things in Middlegame, so perhaps Tidal Creatures will do the same for me and Seasonal Fears.

464 pages zipped by like nothing. I read this book in under 24 hours. I would read more chunksters if they were written like this! I adore the writing style McGuire uses in this series, which I find quite similar to the style of Wayward Children. It’s just so compelling, it never feels like a good place to pause reading so I just keep going. I don’t listen to audiobooks but I imagine the audio versions of this series would be *chef’s kiss*.

Now, I will be a little more critical and admit that yes, the plot structure feels quite familiar. The conclusion was a bit anti-climatic. But I don’t care much about that – I’m all about the characters with a good serving of worldbuilding with this series.

The Bottom Line: If you loved Middlegame, or especially were a fan of Roger, Dodger, or Erin, then you need to pick up Tidal Creatures. If you didn’t care for Seasonal Fears and were thinking of dropping the series, PLEASE RECONSIDER. If you didn’t love Middlegame but you did love Seasonal Fears… 🤔 then I can’t relate and you’ll have to decided for yourself if you should read Tidal Creatures lol.

Thoughts immediately after finishing (31 Mar 2024:) So so good full RTC. For now suffice to say if you loved MIDDLEGAME but found SEASONAL FEARS a bit disappointing, I think you are in for a treat.

[Jennifer Koudelka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series proves a struggle for me. McGuire's ideas and writing is still some of my favorite, and when she hits it out of the park, it's spectacular. Even her swings and misses are still better than full books I've read by other authors. The problem with the Alchemical Journeys series, simply put, is that she hit it out of the park with Middlegame, and I am starting to suspect anything further entries will be double plays at best. A double play is still exciting; it can definitely turn the tide of an inning and elicits cheers from the crowd. But when book 1 was the equivalent (in my opinion) of bases loaded grand slam, a double will never be as great.

I think Tidal Creatures is somewhat on par with Seasonal Fears, although with different weaknesses. Seasonal Fears suffered from never ending exposition dumps, stifling the characters we're on a journey with because we don't get to see them as much to instead be told how season ascensions work, etc etc. The characters in Tidal Creatures have more room to breathe, but the stakes feel more jumbled to me. The opening is simple: someone or something is killing incarnations of lunar deities and trying to use their deaths to gain access to The Impossible City. But the whys and for whats of that premise felt slippery to me. I never could quite grasp what the stakes actually were other than "bad."

The pacing of this book is also a bit uneven. It did take me months to work up the motivation to finish this book, and although some of that is due to my own brain State of the World MalaiseTM, I do think part of that was simply that the book slows down incredibly about halfway through it.

I will still read whatever McGuire writes, particularly in this series, but my expectations have been severely tempered from what they initially were after Middlegame.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leaps and bounds better than Seasonal Fears but still not McGuire's best. Once again, there's a pacing issue. Exposition should ideally end before the midpoint of the book. The characters we're following are meant to be college-aged but feel younger than that and the reader is once again subjected to endless didactic authorial intrusion to make points about economic inequality, consent, fatness, the dark side of growing up white and privileged and its nuances, and a bunch of other topics that make me feel she's aiming this book at teenagers who she thinks are stupid. McGuire's children books put the characters in situations and let the readers draw their own conclusions without ever talking down to them. I have no idea why she feels it's necessary to spell it out in this series, but it's tiresome.

That aside, the story was entertaining, if a little drawn-out, and bad things happening were not conveniently circumvented like in the last book.

[Pol González · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creo que está muy bien, pero a veces el monólogo interno de los personajes se hace pesado, aunque la trama lo requiera. Además, para la largada del libro, el final me parece un pelín brusco.

[Trebyl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story (IMO) rivals Middlegame. It spoke to me in a way a book hasn’t done in a while. I loved it.