Not everyone will like this one. Some people will be frustrated at the ambiguities. The empty spaces. Oh, how I adored them. This world isnât builtâthis world is, and its people just are. In Middlegame, Seanan McGuire handles a time-twisting epic of a tale full of alchemy, mystery, and action with simple, character-driven grace.Â
Roger has the words; his twin Dodger has numbers; they connect through a psychic link that stretches across the continent. They donât know yet that they were built for a purpose: the ambitious alchemist Reed built them to bring him to the Impossible City and achieve tremendous power. Roger and Dodger donât know that. They just know that they are meant for each other, somehow. And they will spend multiple timelines crashing into each otherâand breaking apart.
There is so much going on in this novel. None of it would fit if it were explained in meticulous detail, so McGuire lets it exist instead. She lets the reader fill in just enough of the gaps. She lets the story rest on a friendship, and on small points of turning and twisting that can make or break the universe, although they might not yet know it. The story is lush and psychological. I turned the pages as quickly as I could. I connected threads with literal gasps. Multiple times, I closed the book, held it in my hands, and thought about what had just happened, in shock. Then I kept goingâthe novel pulling at my mind and heart like an itch, like spiders at the edge of my brain.
Look, I read many fantastic novels each yearâthat make me think or that I adore or that lead me to tears. But I havenât gotten a book hangover, heavy, weighty, tough, for many years. Middlegame is something else, something inexplicably done, at once an intense epic fantasy and the close-up tale of two siblings who you want, desperately, to stay together. I was torn between not being able to set it down and not wanting to finish it. Not yet. For a whole hour this morning, I didnât pick it up because I knew it was nearing its end. And when I was finished, I almost wanted to resetâand start again at the beginning.
Middlegame comes out from Tor Books on May 7.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This book has a content warning for a depiction of a suicide attempt.
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