Indexing

Indexing recently came out with a sequel, and it's been almost two years, I thought I'd give the first volume a reread so that I remembered everything. Upon review, I have no idea why I didn't rank this book higher the first time round. I said that the serial format harmed the story, but I didn't feel that way this time. There are some repetitions that can be attributed to the format (reminding readers of certain things as time as passed between installments), but the stories hold together quite well as a whole. I think that perhaps I was a bit disappointed in the fact that not all the plot points were wrapped up, and the denouement was not as developed as I would have liked, but now that I know there's a sequel, these issues don't bother me anymore. The book is a compilation of stories, but as long as you are aware of this fact going in, the entire thing flows quite well. As for the content, I still adore this urban fantasy. I have an incredible soft spot for blending fantasy with crime/mysteries, and this blending on fairy tales and government agencies was always immediately going to fall into the "give it to me now" category of books. While this certainly isn't the most novel of scenarios, McGuire's piece shines because of her fun characters, witty dialogue, and obvious knowledge of fairy tale lore. Her degree in folklore shines as much of the plot hinges on how there are different types of fairy tale expressions, and her team is always stuck trying to figure out which ones they are dealing with before they and the rest of the city they are in are subject to disaster (like a Sleeping Beauty whose curse goes airborne, or a Pied Piper who can make poisons dance). The visuals McGuire conjures up are lovely (the Snow White woods are incredibly memorable. The series would lend itself well to television), and the plot offers readers continuous suspense. _____________________________________ Date originally finished: August 10, 2014 Indexing is basically everything I want in my urban fantasy: procedural style elements, murder, mayhem, and fairy tales! I thought McGuire's take on famous narratives in the modern day was unique and definitely an excellent base for a story. I've never seen an author come up with something like mnemonic incursions where fairy tale narratives just take over a person (or persons), and this set-up provides readers with a lot of suspense and horror. However, I do have to admit that the format of the book made the rather amazing premise of this story suffer. Indexing was originally released as a serial, and the book feels quite a bit less finished than McGuire's other works. Though the individual shorts all contribute to one central story, they don't feel like they were fully meshed together, and I was left with a lot of questions about the plot and characters. Compared to McGuire's other carefully plotted works, this was a big surprise. On the other hand, even though this was technically weaker than her other work, I loved it to pieces. The rating might only be three stars in light of problems introduced by the serial format, but I would definitely recommend this book!

My Review Of Indexing by Seanan McGuire Fairy-tales are real  folks, yes they are real and the ATI Management Bureau is tasked with preventing them to become full blown. Henry aka Snow White is the leader of the team that prevents these fairy-tales called  memetic incursions, from developing into a full blown story which would be catastrophic in an Urban area.  This tale was told almost like a collection of short stories but at the same time had a general plot going on. Sloan was the wicked step sister to Henry's good girl Snow White character. As the story unfolded I became more and more immersed in this world of fairy-tale like characters with their twisted tales. There is a little tiny bit of romance between Henry and Jeff but they are too busy preventing fairy-tales from becoming full blown disasters such as a sleeping beauty causing everyone around her to fall asleep, imagine that happening in NYC??! Or a Cinderella gone homicidal. This was a fun book I quickly downloaded book two from audible since I enjoyed listening to this one so much. This review was originally posted on My Fiction Obsession

New take on fairy tales.. kept me entertained from the beginning. Can't wait to read the sequel 😁

This is the first book I've read by Seanan McGuire. I bought the Kindle version and the audiobook and enjoyed both. I really didn't know what to expect. Since I didn't have any idea where the story was going it took me a little while to get into it. It's obviously fiction so as long as you can let go and enjoy the story, it is really good. Once I got into the story it was very good. McGuire uses Fairytales and their characters as a preface to write a totally different intermingled storyline book... And it worked. Fairytales are the villains. Characters from Fairytales are living, unactivated, among us. There is a special agency to divert the Fairytales catastrophes that want to happen. Agent Marchen, a Snow White, leads a team of agents that deactivate Fairytales. The Fairytales are changing. Agent Marchen and her team have to avert Fairytales both within the team and with the strengthening Narrative. I gave this book 4 stars because it isn't a book I intend to read repeatedly but it is one I'm glad I didn't miss.

I wanted to like this; I really did! The 1st and 11th episodes were excellent. But on the whole, it felt thrown together and flimsy. The villain was fairly obvious, in that there was almost no one else it could be. And as the story developed, it seemed less like a well-crafted story, and more like a bunch of images/moments that McGuire likes, all loosely tied together. It could have been great, but it needed better editing, and more time to mature before publication. I suspect that having 2 weeks between each episode didn't help my reception of it, especially because many episodes weren't really complete stories, and thus, it was harder to keep track of them. I love Seanan McGuire's work in the October Daye books, and as Mira Grant. But there's such a thing as doing too much, and when you try to do too much, the quality of the work suffers. If Indexing gets a second season, I hope that 47North gives McGuire more time to work on it.