InCryptid Books In Order

Publication Order of InCryptid Books

Incryptid series by Seanan McGuire
The “InCryptid” series are urban fantasy novels written by American author Seanan McGuire. They follow multiple generations of this family of cyptozoologists that protect supernatural beings from getting discovered by humankind.

Cryptid is a noun, and is any creature whose existence has not yet been proven by science. The term was officially coined by John E. Wall (a cryptozoologist) in 1983. Also known as that thing which is getting ready to eat your head. Also see “Monster”.

A cyptozoologist is any person that believes hunting for cryptids is a good idea. Also see “idiot”. Ghosties, ghoulies. Things that go bump in the night. Long legged beasties.

The books are a New York Times Best Selling series. They’ve also been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Series twice, in 2018 and 2020.

“Discount Armageddon” is the first novel in the “Incryptid” series and was released in 2012. The Price family has spent generations now studying all of the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity, and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite having been trained from her birth as a cryptozoologist, she would rather dance the tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending one year in Manhattan as she pursues a career in professional ballroom dancing.

It would be, if it weren’t for the telepathic mathematicians, all the talking mice, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster hunter that was sent by the old enemies of the Price family, the Covenant of St. George. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high heels, high stakes, and a ton of collateral damage are just about guaranteed.

To complicate matters even further, local cryptids are vanishing, odd lizard men are showing up in the sewers, and somebody’s spreadng rumors about the dragon that’s sleeping underneath the city.

“Midnight Blue-Light Special” is the second novel in the “Incryptid” series and was released in 2013. Verity Price is just attempting to do her job, keeping the native cryptid population of Manhattan from getting in trouble, and do a bit of ballroom dancing on the side.

Enter Dominic De Luca, who is an operative for the Covenant of St. George, and Verity’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. He tells her about the Covenant sending a full squad to assess just how ready the city is for a purge, she finds herself being stuck between a rock and a hard place. She can stay, risking almost certain death. Or she can flee, and leave all of the cryptids of New York without anything between and the Covenant.

With enemies and allies on each and every side, and no safe place to turn, it is going to take some quick stepping on her part to waltz her way outta this one. There is just a question on everybody’s mind: Is this Verity’s last dance?

“Half-Off Ragnarok” is the third novel in the “Incryptid” series and was released in 2014. Alex Price agreed to go to Ohio in order to oversee a basilisk breeding program and aid in the recovery of his psychic cousin, never had he expected people to begin dropping dead. However bodies are still popping up at the zoo where he works, and Shelby Tanner (his girlfriend), an Australian zoologist with a fondness for large cats, is beginning to get suspicious. Worse yet, the bodies have all been partially turned to stone.

In this one, we’re taken to a new location and features a new member of the family, while Alex attempts to balance work, life, and the strong desire to not become a part of garden statuary. Old friends as well as new are on the scene, with danger lurking around every corner. Obviously, so do the talking mice.

“Pocket Apocalypse” is the fourth novel in the “Incryptid” series and was released in 2015. Endangered is an adjective meaning threatened with immediate harm or extinction. Australia, a noun, is a pretty good place to become endangered in.

Alexander Price has survived basilisks, gorgons, and his own family, which is no small feat considering his family includes one reanimated corpse, two telepaths, and a colony of talking and pantheistic mice. He’s still beginning to feel like he has the hang of things, at least until Shelby Tanner shows up asking him pointed questions about werewolves and the state of his passport. And from there, it is only a hop, skip, and a jump to Australia, which is a continent filled with new dangers, new challenges, and yes, even rival cyptozoologists that don’t like their “visiting expert” too much.

Australia is a cyptozoologist’s dream, filled with unique species and some unique challenges. It’s also filled, unfortunately, with Shelby’s family, who aren’t all that delighted by the length of her stay in America. And then there’re the werewolves to consider: infected killing machines that would like nothing more than to claim this continent for their own. The continent which also currently includes Alex.

Survival is tough enough when you’re on familiar ground. Alex is pretty far from home, however there is one thing that he knows for sure: he won’t be going down without putting up a fight.

“Chaos Choreography” is the fifth novel in the “Incryptid” series and was released in 2016. Verity Price has returned to the West Coast and is getting back into the swing of the family business: cryptozoology. She is rescuing cryptids out of bad situations, protecting them from monster-hunters, and just generally risking limb and life for the greater good, with Dominic, her former Covenant partner/husband by her side.

Her ballroom dancing career is behind her, at least she thinks it is. She gets the call from the producers of “Dance or Die”, the reality that she almost won many years ago, she finds the lure is impossible to resist, and she and Dominic are set to go to LA for a final shot at the big time.

Obviously, nothing’s that simple. When two contestants wind up dead, Verity is going to need every single ally that she can find with this investigation, without blowing her cover.