Charles Stross

National bestselling author Charles Stross brings back Bob Howard-"a British super spy with a long-term girlfriend, no fashion sense, and an aversion to martinis" (San Francisco Chronicle) Bob Howard is taking a much needed break from the field to catch up on his filing in The Laundry's archives when a top secret dossier known as The Fuller Memorandum vanishes-along with his boss, who the agency's executives believe stole the file. Determined to discover exactly what the memorandum contained, Bob runs afoul of Russian agents, ancient demons, and the apostles of a hideous faith, who have plans to raise a very unpleasant undead entity known as the Eater of Souls...

The Fuller Memorandum

Gavin

Deeply conventional mind candy - it may be the skewed mores of the Cthulhu Mythos post-Whedon, but those are pretty conformist these days. Though the right reference class for this series is Robert Rankin, not Lovecraft. Lots of clumsy geek references (re: trains, smartphone fetishes, programming concepts), and lots of clumsy US-centric edits ("taking the DLR to Canary Wharf in the east of London" said no Londoner ever). I wonder if this is just because he writes so fast these days (~2 books a year).
 
 His great strength remains the tawdriness of office life (which he manages to accurately display despite also displaying ancient tentacular spectacles). e.g. a nice touch here: the office audit of paperclip usage - previously a joke about pedantry and bureaucracy gone wild - is revealed to have a deadly serious rationale.

One surprising grey area in the plot: (view spoiler)[the Laundry produces some fake research to draw out the cultists. It says that the apocalypse will spread exponentially fast, and is inevitable. But the cult leader is relatively rational, trying to make humanity survive, and so this false catastrophe actually pushes them over the edge. Epistemic poisoning. (hide spoiler)]

 I continue to have mixed feelings about Stross, but hey I continue to read him. (Book #1, Atrocity Archives works best because it subverts James Bond more, and the Nazi villains are fun, and the gag hasn't worn thin.)

Bob Howard is an IT specialist and field agent for the Laundry, the branch of Her Majesty's secret service that deals with occult threats. Overworked and underpaid, Bob is used to his two jobs overflowing from a strict nine to five and, since his wife Mo has a very similar job description, he understands that work will sometimes follow her home, too. But when 'work' involves zombie assassins and minions of a mad god's cult, he realises things are spinning out of control. When a top-secret dossier goes missing and his boss Angleton is implicated, Bob must contend with suspiciously helpful Russian intelligence operatives and an unscrupulous apocalyptic cult before confronting the decades-old secret that lies at the heart of the Laundry: what is so important about the missing Fuller Memorandum? And why are all the people who know dying . . . ?

Book 3 in The Laundry Files

Janice Hopper

Well, this was a wild ride.

It's been a while since I read a book by Charles Stross. TBH, he kinda intimidates me. He's ferociousy intelligent (I follow him on Twitter too), and sometimes I feel a little lost trying to follow what he's writing about.

This book came up in a two-for-one Audible sale. I thought I'd see if he was a little easier to follow in audio. I think the answer is yes. The narrator was quite good, with different accents and voices to help keep the characters straight. He moved the narrative along with energy too.

If GR had half stars, I'd probably give this one 3 1/2. The reason for the lowish score? I've got enough existential dread of my own right now. Reading about the end of the world and demon possession and eaters of souls? Not very soothing to an already frazzled brain. This isn't Charles' fault, though. I've read other Laundry novels and I'm aware of the themes of the series. I'm just in a shaky head-space right now.

I think I need to listen to another Kent Haruf book now. Something quiet and soothing.

Ben Nathan

Par for the Laundry Files course. Really fun, smart in the right ways. I loved this but it's not some mindblowing thing, it's just good and even great often.

The Fuller Memorandum

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