Literature / The New Management

aka: Dead Lies Dreaming

A series of Urban Fantasy novels with a streak of Cosmic Horror, written by author Charles Stross. They’re set in the same world as his Laundry Files series, but mostly at a later point in time (Stross has mentioned that the first New Management novel takes place about a year after the as-yet-unpublished final Laundry Files story).

By this point, it's too late to hide the true supernatural nature of the universe from the general public. The UK is now ruled by the titular New Management, with an Elder God’s avatar as Prime Minister. Magic is real, the government employs elves and riot police ride unicorns. Oh, and a growing number of civilians are manifesting superpowers.

Whereas the Laundry books focused on the government secret service dealing with all of this weirdness, the protagonists of the New Management stories are civilians without that sort of backing. Although they’re not without their own resources. And they’re not exactly normal, either.

The first three books form a trilogy, focused on the machinations of billionaire Rupert de Montfort Bigge and his corporate vehicle, the Bigge Organization. Pitted against them are a motley band of protagonists.

Stross has stated that a fourth book, probably set after a Time Skip, is likely to follow after that arc is resolved.

The series is so far composed of:

• Dead Lies Dreaming (2020)
• Quantum Of Nightmares (2022)
• Season Of Skulls (2023)

This series contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Evie, Wendy, Mary
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Quantum Of Nightmares: Chapter 10 or further: After Devilbaby microwaves a cultist, he says:
  Twinkster totally tastes terahertz telemetry
• After the End: Downplayed, but present. The UK is now a very unpleasant place – and although the first two New Management novels don’t dwell on it, it's suggested that the rest of the world is worse.
• Anal Probing: By aliens, in Quantum of Nightmares.
• Ancient Astronauts: Quantum of Nightmares: An exhibit in Blackpool.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Quantum of Nightmares: Chapter 7: Eve getting Sybil's report on her latest church service:
  her employees included Nazis, cultists, and why-not-both Nazi cultists.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: From Quantum of Nightmares “En suite bath, with the smaller fifty-five-inch home cinema—waterproof—and wet bar, also humidor, seating for seven, bidet, imported Japanese heated toilet seat with scented water jet, air drier, massager, walk-in monsoon shower, triple-nozzle enema machine with restraint chair…”
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Quantum Of Nightmares: Chapter 6: Mentioned as "taking two hundred percent damage" when frozen by "Arrest Shoplifter".
• Dystopia: As Dead Lies Dreaming says in "Bookish Lore", Imp wants to film a story that's "Peter and Wendy: A Cyberpunk Dystopia in Space", or that might be the title that Imp plans to use.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: The Starkley family understands this. Others do not fully grasp this.
• Family of Choice: Dead Lies Dreaming says of the Imp's family situation:
  You could build your own family through choice, but you couldn't erase the one you were born with, even if you chose to avoid them.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Dead Lies Dreaming: "Foul Papers": When Imp, a.k.a Jeremy sees his sister for the first time in four years, he notes that she was the elder, responsible one, making him the foolish one by comparison.
• Gender Bender: Appears to be the power of "SexChange", some urban legend, possibly a person:
  whose power was the ability to put the trans into transhuman.
• Hellhound: The dog Nono, from a "long line of family Cerberi", plural of Cerberus, whose spirit became a "canine psychopomp".
• Homage: Dead Lies Dreaming is essentially a retelling of Peter and Wendy. Quantum of Nightmares is Mary Poppins and Sweeney Todd. The original non-Disney versions.
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Quantum Of Nightmares: Chapter 6: mentions a dark and stormy night as the weather conditions of meeting Sybil.
• Kill the Poor: A solution to problems of high quotas.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Quantum of Nightmares: What Mary calls herself when her bag starts malfunctioning.
• Meat Puppet: Literally in Quantum of Nightmares.
• Punny Name: The Bigge Organization
• Recycled with a Gimmick: As Dead Lies Dreaming says in "Bookish Lore", Imp wants to film a story that uses the "Space" gimmick, "Peter and Wendy: A Cyberpunk Dystopia in Space", or that might be the title that Imp plans to use.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Marcus, the IT person that Eve assigned to getting a copy of Bernard's computer, is sent to Antarctica because he's too chatty.
• Religion of Evil:
  • The Cult of the Mute Poet is a textbook example, including cannibalism and necromancy. As with many of their rivals, they’d also love to bring their dark god to Earth.
    • People fully aware of the eldritch horror now incarnated as the Prime Minister and all the terrible things resulting think the Cult of the Mute Poet is worse.
  • The nightmarish Golden Promise Ministries, first seen in The Laundry Files, make a return appearance in the backstory for some of the new characters. As do the tongue-eating parasites their patron has gifted them with.
• Revealing Cover-Up: The main reason the problems in Quantum of Nightmares are found is the traces of human flesh in the sausage. The actual Kill the Poor plot isn't illegal under New Management. But adulteration of food is still a crime.
• Shout-Out:
  • In Dead Lies Dreaming:
    • From the chapter titled "The Interior Life", to Doctor Who:
    • When Doc and Game Boy find the Bigger on the Inside area in their house, Doc thinks of the TARDIS and of possible Daleks as a threat.
    • Right after the previous shout-out to the franchise, it's revealed that Bigge’s private island is named Skaro, which is not the island of Skarø due to being too large.
    • To Hiro Protagonist of Snow Crash:
    Rebecca was the Deliverator—ironic nod to a fictional hero, the protagonist of a cyberpunk epic about ninjutsu, linguistics, and extreme pizza delivery
    • To The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and its snowy land with a streetlight in said wardrobe:
    you're so far in the closet you can see snowflakes falling in the streetlight
    • From "Cannonball Run on the M25", Eve is directly said to be reading "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach", to learn about better methods of corpse disposal than concrete entombment.
  • From Quantum Of Nightmares:
    • Daft Punk: Chapter 8 or 9: When Mary gets a motorcycle helmet from her bag after her ribs are broken, referencing the band's helmets:
      the final extra touch of daft to punk out her look
    • Squirrel Girl: Chapter 10: Mentioned directly as a reference: Kick butts and eat nuts.
    • The Princess Bride: Chapter 10 or further: When a skeleton is animated while the kids are fighting the cultists, referencing the Dread Pirate Roberts:
      The dread pirate Rupe-
    • Aliens: Mary, the nanny, telling the villainous priestess to "Get away from her, you bitch!", away from her charges. like Ripley to the Alien Queen advancing on Newt.
    • A New Hope: Darth Vader reference: Mary trying to interrogate:
      Del: Hey, Darth, he can't tell you anything while you're force-strangling him.
    • "Marmion" by Sir Walter Scott, not Shakespeare: From Chapter 11: Epilogue: "O what a tangled web we weave,/ When first we practice to deceive", because a deliberately false report says things like turning Mary's Use Their Own Weapon Against Them into a Self Sacrifice-sorta "she gutted herself with her own sacrificial knife":
      Gibson: Oh, what a tangled skein of yarn we weave.
    • LOLCats style dialogue in Chapter 11 as thoughts:
      Plz can has headhunting bonus?
• The Secret of Long Pork Pies: When a butcher is required to reach 100% utilization of animal carcasses which are sent with unusable hooves, it doesn't take long for them to start supplementing the system by adding human flesh to reach their quota.
• The Unmasqued World: Magic is now acknowledged as horribly real, even if many people seem to confuse it with superpowers.
• Whatevermancy: Oneiromancers are mentioned in Dead Lies Dreaming, although what powers they have are unstated.

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