Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.

Before I start flailing around here trying to articulate how incredibly fucking special Middlegame is, I have a confession to make. If you’ve been keeping up with me over the last year(ish), you’ll see I’ve become increasingly obsessed with Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant’s books. I still own more than I’ve read, but I’m working on that ratio, and loving all of it!! So of course I was very excited when I heard she had a new book coming from TOR.COM PUBLISHING, and a novel no less!

And then I read the synopsis. And something about it struck me a bit…cold? Detached, maybe. Distant? I don’t know…something. It didn’t take away from my excitement levels at all, but I just didn’t really connect with that synopsis (as much as you can actually “connect” with a synopsis) as much as I’d hoped.

And then I started reading. And by about page 75 (out of a pretty chunky 528 pages!), I was as in love with this book as it’s possible for me to be. Middlegame is a fucking masterpiece, and one of the most beautiful & emotional books I’ve ever had the good fortune to read. Like, it’s not gonna be possible for me to fully express just what this book did to my feelings.

This is the story of Dodger & Roger. They’re twins. Sort of. Separated at birth by the alchemist, James Reed, who made them. Dodger is OBSESSED with math! Loves everything about it with her whole heart. On the flip side, Roger loves language…books & words & stories are where he spends his time. They were created to become the living embodiment of the Doctrine of Ethos.

When they are seven years old, Dodger & Roger begin communicating via “quantum entanglement”…not quite telepathy because they need to speak out loud for the other to hear them. Dodger lives in California, Roger in Massachusetts. Once they master the time difference between them, they become the best of friends. Roger helps Dodger with her English classes, while Dodger helps Roger with his math.

Although I loved every goddamn page of this book, it was these early scenes when Dodger & Roger are little that really captured my imagination. Similar to what she does with her Wayward Children books, Seanan McGuire writes these scenes with this incredible mix of wonder & whimsy & curiosity…goddamn, this part of the book is just fucking gorgeously written!

From there the book advances chronologically, with Dodger & Roger coming in & out of each other’s lives, sometimes with heartbreaking or dangerous results. But they just keep finding one another, and getting closer & closer to figuring out exactly who & what they are, and what they may be capable of.

There’s so much depth to Dodger & Roger, and their complicated relationship is at the heart of this book. But the secondary characters are amazing as well…Reed is creepy & megalomaniacal, and his assistant Leigh is…she is fucking harrowing. Straight nightmare fuel, but also kinda delightful?

This is a long book, and its own mythology is…complex. I mean there’s alchemists making people out of…other people…other dead people. There’s some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff happening, which of course feels disorienting. But this story has so much heart…it’s incredibly moving & upsetting & funny & weird. Whatever my expectations were of Middlegame, they were unbelievably surpassed.

I feel like I’ve done a shit job of reviewing this book…but I tried. Middlegame is an absolute treasure of a novel. I adored these characters completely! This is a book I was always thinking about when I wasn’t reading it, and I’m still thinking about it well after finishing. I could not be more impressed with the scope of this story. Middlegame grabbed hold of my heart & just squeezed & squeezed. Seanan McGuire is such an imaginative & special author, and I hope this book finds the people who need it most. I’m really glad it found me.

(The author herself has posted this to social media, so I feel ok posting it here, and I think it bears repeating. A suicide attempt features rather prominently in Middlegame.)

Huge thank you to TOR.COM PUBLISHING for sending me a copy!! Middlegame releases May 7th!