Charles Stross

In a world where magic has gone mainstream, a policewoman and a group of petty criminals are pulled into a heist to find a forbidden book of spells that should never be opened. A new adventure begins in the world of the Laundry Files. Dead Lies Dreaming presents a nightmarish vision of a Britain sliding unknowingly towards occult cataclysm . . .

A Novel of the Laundry Files

Dead Lies Dreaming

Eleanor Luhar

I want to quickly point out that I never read any of the Laundry Files novels, but these are not vital for this book/series. I just wanted to make it clear so you understand exactly where I'm coming from with my interpretation and review of this book.
It begins with Santa being publicly executed outside a toy shop. Yep, you read that right. His crimes apparently include being an unregistered transhuman, aka having superpowers. This is a key concept throughout this book and supposedly the rest of the series.
I'm not going to really talk about the plot too much for a couple of reasons, mainly that I just couldn't. It is complicated and hard to explain properly, plus it would kind of ruin it for anyone who goes on to read the book. So instead I'll just mention a few key bits.
This book has a transgender superpowered villain (as well as various other interesting characters), lesbian love affairs, magic, and not-exactly-time-travel. I can certainly say I've never read anything quite like it. And the main characters, mostly criminals, are definitely unique too. They're not all exactly likeable, but some of them had their charms. The relationships between them are pretty great, in my opinion.
The only kind-of criticisms I have about this book are that it was pretty slow to get into, and also pretty difficult to follow and complicated at times. I probably missed some key parts here and there, or at least a joke or reference or something. Still, I enjoyed reading it. I didn't know what was coming around ever corner. Maybe if I were to read the other Laundry Files books and then come back to this, I would understand it a bit better. Overall, I gave Dead Lies Dreaming 3.5 stars.

Dead Lies Dreaming A Novel of the Laundry Files

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