McGuire Opens A New Door: A Review of ‘IN AN ABSENT DREAM’

There is a simple equation I use when looking for new series to read. Good writers write good books. String a few good books together you have a good series. If a writer has created one good series, they can probably do another. Now of course you have your outliers. There are authors who strike gold one time, try to go write another series, and fail miserably. They then must go and try to squeeze blood from a stone, milking every last letter out of a series already past its prime (staring over in Terry Goodkind’s direction). But most of the time when a writer has shown they are adept at creating interesting magic systems, imagining compelling characters, and exercising a flair for original twists on familiar tales, that author is going to be able to not just string together books to create a series, they are able to create series after series to create a body of work. We’ve seen this with Brandon Sanderson, George R.R. Martin, Piers Anthony, and Illona Andrews among many others. I am happy to add yet another to my list of authors who’s name alone gets me excited: Seanan McGuire. McGuire wrote the intriguing InCryptid series, the outstanding (and on-going) October Daye series, and has now branched out into one of my favorite new series The Wayward Children. The Wayward Children If I were to try to explain The Wayward Children in a sentence, I’d say this: it is like if the wardrobe from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, started hanging out with a bad crowd, then got into dr…