Book Review: Middlegame

Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire

At the start of this strange and wonderful book, Roger Middleton, then a young boy who already is a language expert, refers to the word play in a novel as a "meet-a-for." He explains to his new friend, "It's using a thing that's not true to talk about things that are."

Such is a good description for this novel, a combination of science fiction, fantasy, and perhaps a bit of horror thrown in. It also alludes to a vast array of myths, legends, literature, and science, from the Wizard of Oz to quantum entanglement.

The premise of the book is complicated. A fellow by the name of James Reed -- who leads a band of modern alchemists -- wants to bring out the humanity of something called he Doctrine. What the Doctrine is, or is meant to be, is unclear, although it appears to be a perfection of society.

But in bringing it about, Reed needs a perfect pair of siblings. So he creates several sets of twins, then splits them apart. And by create, I mean literally -- he takes parts of various people to form another human. By doing this, he hopes the twins will manifest into one, and become the embodiment of the doctrine.

One of the twins, in this case, Roger, is a language expert. The second -- Dodger Cheswich -- is a math wizard. (And yes, the names of the twins, dubbed as "cuckoos," always rhyme. Almost.) Together, they represent order and chaos.

The math children will die to defend the language children. Many of them have. Most of them will have no capacity for defending themselves. It isn't part of what they are made of -- and Leigh knows very well what they're made of. She was one of the people who did the making, after all.

McGuire, who sadly was unknown to me before this book,  has had a long and varied career as a writer, artist, and singer. She puts it all to use here.

Often, I found that she mimics the best of Stephen King, one of my favorite authors. This is neither a knock or a comparison. But what I like about King, I enjoyed about this book. McGuire creates a few, solid major characters who are unique and well developed. These characters are the sun of the story, the epicenter of which the rest of the system revolves.

She also describes various secondary and tertiary characters, who despite their lesser story arcs are well defined, complete, and fulfill their roles as either good and evil -- or possibly both, and sometimes changing between the two. Other times, a character is introduced to set part of the story in motion, but she is also given a full life and description.

McGuire is clearly a star in her own right, and an author who I plan to read more of going forward.