Survival Horror

InCryptid #4.2

by Seanan McGuire

When Antimony heads for her cousin Artie's place to spend the day reading comic books and avoiding the rest of her family, she's expecting a peaceful afternoon. She's not expecting a hostile video game to try to kill them both. But sadly, when the Price family is involved, unexpected threats from seemingly innocent and unlikely places are pretty much par for the course.

If they want to survive the day, Annie and Artie will need to navigate a maze of riddles, puzzles, and irritating programmers, all of whom seem to have approached their game design with one goal in mind: to wipe two of the youngest members of the extended Price family off the face of the Earth.

It's going to be a marathon session, and this time, if you die in the game, well. You die for real.

"Survival Horror" was originally published in the anthology Press Start to Play, released in August of 2015. Copies are available from a bookstore near you.

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy

Unknown Binding

First published August 1, 2015

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

[Roberta R. (Offbeat YA) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The puzzles are kind of boring (especially since it's not like we can actually see them), but mostly, I don't see how this story fits with the series...

[Chrissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Annie is hanging out with Artie in his basement, when the two of them get sucked into an evil video game. I prefer the roller derby short stories for Annie, but this little glimpse into what Annie and Artie are like together was fun too. Annie is really close to her cousins, but with her being isolated from the family in her novels, we don't get to see much of that. So it was fun to see some of it in this short story.

[Roslyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Another enjoyable Incryptid story. It did feel too short and unfinished to me, which in way was a good thing for me because it seemed to be veering into horror territory, but happily it never quite got there.

[Brok3n · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meet the family

I will begin by explaining what I'm reviewing here. Seanan McGuire has written a lot of short stories in The Incryptid Series. You can find a couple dozen of the older ones listed on the Incryptid Short Stories page on her web site. (Note, she has also published many stories through her Patreon site. They are not listed on the the Incryptid Short Stories page on her website, although many of them are listed in her bibliography.)

The stories are divided into groups, which can be divided into two supergoups: those that occur before Half-Off Ragnarok, and those that occur after. The first supergroup mostly concerns the early backstory of the Healy/Price family in the USA. The post-Half-Off Ragnarok stories are about the present-day (more or less -- 21st century) Prices and cryptids. It is this second group that I'm reviewing here. BE WARNED: spoilers for Half-Off Ragnarok follow.

These are the stories in question:
Verity Price and Dominic De Luca:
The Ghosts of Bourbon Street, free download from McGuire's web site
Snake in the Glass, free download from McGuire's web site
Swamp Bromeliad, free download from McGuire's web site
Waking Up In Vegas, free download from McGuire's web site

Antimony Price:
Blocked, free download from McGuire's web site
Bad Dream Girl, in the Anthology Glitter & Mayhem
Jammed, in the Anthology Games Creatures Play
Survival Horror, in the Anthology Press Start to Play

Sarah Zellaby and Arthur Harrington
IM, free download from McGuire's web site

Istas and Ryan
Red as Snow, in Anthology Hex in the City
Black as Blood, free download from McGuire's web site
White as a Raven's Wing, free download from McGuire's web site


Eliza
Balance, in Anthology Urban Enemies

The Verity and Dominic stories all take place after Half-Off Ragnarok and reflect the state of things as they were left at the end of that book. Half-Off Ragnarok had two main consequences for the future of the Incryptid world: Dominic De Luca is now irrevocably committed to Verity and severed from the Covenant. In fact, the Covenant believes he is dead, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Sarah, who damaged herself modifying the memories of the participants in Half-Off Ragnarok. So, there are the promised spoilers: Verity and Dominic are now a couple (this will come as a surprise to precisely no one), and Sarah has hurt herself badly.

Verity and Dominic are driving from New York to Portland in a rented U-Haul truck so that Dominic can be introduced to Verity's family. They are driving because Verity has a colony of Aeslin mice to transport -- not easily accomplished by air. Also, Verity is taking the scenic route, to introduce Dominic to various folks. The first story in this series, The Ghosts of Bourbon Street, is a crossover, in that it also belongs to McGuire's Ghost Road series -- you meet Rose Marshall, the main character of those books. Some other old friends show up: the Carmichael hotel in Chicago, and the Swamp Bromeliad in Buckley Township, Michigan. This series of stories ends as intended, with Verity introducing Dominic to her family in Portland.

Most of the Antimony stories have no obvious relation to the events of Half-Off Ragnarok. One may suppose they occur before that. If you have read the first three Incryptid novels you have sort-of been introduced to Antimony, because she features heavily in Verity's recollections of growing up, as the annoying little sister who excelled in such Price family staple skills as extreme survival, setting traps, and demolition. Now, introduced to Antimony in person, we see that she has complementary memories of Verity and Alex as the older siblings who her parents (in Antimony's view) always seemed to value more than her. Antimony becomes a roller-derby skater in these stories. A word about the anthologies: I read only one non-McGuire story. Several reviewers of Glitter & Mayhem, mentioned the story about the dancing princesses, so I read that on, too. It was OK. Jammed appeared in Games Creatures Play, which appears to be out of print. I couldn't easily get a copy, so I listened to the audiobook version. Survival Horror is in the Anthology Press Start to Play -- I read none of the other stories. The Antimony stores were a fun intro to Antimony, whom I now look forward to encountering in the novels. They also introduce her cousin Elsinor Harrington, whose father is an incubus, making Elsie a succubus.

That brings us to Antimony's other cousin, Elsie's brother Arthur (Artie). We have actually heard quite a bit about Artie in the novels because he and Sarah are hopelessly in love, and Verity also tends to phone Artie when she needs geek skills. IM is really all about whether Sarah is going to recover.

Istas is a kind of fun character. We met her in the Verity Price novels, where she works as a cocktail waitress at the place where Verity works, and fights at Verity's side. She's a sort of werewolf/werebear (as is her main squeeze Ryan). But what's fun about her is her very direct, uncomplicated way of thinking and speaking.

The final story, Balance, is about a cuckoo who, as far as I know, appears nowhere else in the Incryptid world. I didn't enjoy this story as much as the rest.

In summary, these stories are a good way to meet the Price/Harrington families. I give them four stars, except for Balance, which rates only three.

[Nirkatze · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's easy to see that this comes from an anthology--specifically Press Start to Play: Stories. It works very well as a standalone with a clear theme, fun puzzle with a punchline that made me laugh. It expands on the world a little with more information about hidebehinds, but otherwise doesn't add much on its own.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well! This was fine. My first intro to the Incryptid side stories - I think I probably could have picked a more logical place to begin, but I found the anthology it was published in and wanted to jump right in. So I did!

Not much to really say about it but I am glad to have finally met Artie and Antimony properly now. I wasn't initially going to read any of the other stories but on second glance I recognise some of the other authors so I might take a look.

[Chase · Rating 4 out of 5]

Survival Horror is a short story in the InCryptid series where Antimony and her cousin get stuck in a puzzling computer game that goes horribly wrong, or does it. This is an enjoyable quick little story. Perfect for the waiting room.

[Stephanie Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm enjoying watching Antimony and Artie together, getting their geek on.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun little Artie/Annie snippet.

[Cj Jenkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the equivalent of “have you tried unplugging it, and then plugging it back in”.

[Wendy Bocock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Annie and Artie.