★★★★★ Halfway through the Wood, by Seanan McGuire
Answers to some Alice and Thomas questions
Halfway through the Wood
Seanan McGuire
Answers to some Alice and Thomas questions
Halfway Through the Wood is Seanan McGuire's July 2021 Patreon story. It is not merely a story, but a short (80,000-word) novel. It is Alice and Thomas story #13. The story of Alice and Thomas is central to the story of the Price family and Alice, as McGuire told us in the Acknowledgments of Calculated Risks is one of two main characters around whom the the Incryptid stories were imagined. So any work that advances the story of the courtship of Alice and Thomas is welcome. I will assume here that you have read all the Incryptid novels through Calculated Risks, as well as all Alice and Thomas stories #1-12.
The odd thing about the courtship of Alice and Thomas is that we know where this ship is heading. The family trees in the front of the Incryptid novels tell us that Thomas and Alice marry in 1960, that they have two children, Kevin in 1962 and Jane in 1965. We know from the ending of Tricks for Free that Thomas makes a bargain with the Crossroads to save Alice's life. As a consequence of that bargain Thomas leaves the land of the living, (which is not the same as saying he dies). We know from numerous remarks in the Incryptid novels that Alice abandons her children to become an interdimensional traveler searching for Thomas, wherever he is. We have hints that Alice's search will achieve some sort of resolution in Spelunking Through Hell, due out in March 2022. I write this in October 2021. McGuire has recently described herself as "pushing forward the Buckley timeline, wildly rushing toward the point where it collides with the family as we know it today". Also, specifically for Halfway Through the Wood she wrote:
Content warnings for this month: death, major character death, injury, child death, descriptions of injury, animal death (non-graphic, especially compared to human death), ghosts having very bad days.
This is not the end of the Alice and Thomas portion of the timeline. This is the story I had to reach before Spelunking came out.
The reason for all this background is that I find there is little I can say about Halfway Through the Wood without spoilers. It is an action-packed journey. This is in contrast to the previous Alice and Thomas stories, which were slow-moving saunters about Alice and Thomas getting to know each other, in their uniquely charming violent and sorcerous ways, and falling in love. The action in Halfway Through the Wood begins with the first sentence and doesn't let up. All I will say about events is that some of the things I described above that we knew from the novels had to happen -- some of them happen here. Some of them don't -- there's still lots of story to come.
It is very entertaining and very exciting. Five stars, definitely. Mary, Alice, Thomas, Jonathan, Alexander, and Enid all have roles to play, along with a character from previous stories outside the family. There are good guys and bad guys, not always who you would expect.