The Laundry Series by Charles Stross

I've been re-reading the Dresden Files, a very short while indeed after rereading some of the later Laundry books, and the parallels and differences between the two are fascinating. (Unsurprisingly, Stross has mentioned in the past that he's a fan of the Dresden books; also, once, he got the chance to squick out Jim Butcher in person at a convention panel by discussing the—and I'm using the literal words here—hippo arse leech.) Bob Howard and Harry Dresden have a lot of similarities between them: same self-deprecating goofiness and smartassery, same line-in-the-sand conscience, same conflict between the need to wield more power, against the corruption that it brings. (Harry becoming the Winter Knight, mover and shaker in the Winter Court, mirrors Bob's promotion into Mahogany Row, the "real" Laundry as it were.)

Also, neither's a completely honest narrator. Viewed from the outside both Harry Dresden and Bob Howard are a lot scarier than how they depict themselves.

But enough on character: it's the settings that really caught my attention and provide some serious food for thought...

edited 15th Feb '16 10:04:00 PM by SabresEdge

Bob Howard also reads the Harry Dresden novels. Iirc he thinks the Council are a bunch of amateurs.

I am currently in the middle of re-reading the Rhesus Chart and there's something I've been pondering.

Anyone have any idea of what Spooky the Cat might actually really be? Because whatever she is, that's one powerful glamour she's rocking if it can disguise whatever her true nature might be from Bob's third eye.

Dresden doesn't seem to think too highly of the Council as an institution, either.

Given how Spooky hasn't tripped any of the Laundry's defenses (or Bob's own Eater-of-Souls-enhanced vision), I'm inclined to think that as of the moment Spooky is no more than any other cat.

Of course, this leaves open the possibility that all cats are avatars of Bast or something similar, and the reason Spooky hasn't tripped any alarms is because we're too used to seeing them.

As the "owner" of two cats (more precisely, the cats own me, as they do all humans) I would not put it past the little furry bastards. Just saying.

edited 20th Feb '16 3:39:28 PM by SabresEdge

Oh, I've had a cat, I know about them. But Spooky is clearly not normal. You may need to re-read Rhesus Chart. When Bob first takes her into his office the glamour slips (or I suspect is allowed to slip) and Bob notices that Spooky has opposable thumbs... and then immediately is made to forget, though that last doesn't quite work.

There are a couple of other incidents that Bob catches her at and the immediately forgets as well. And while Mo is clearly unaware of whatever is lurking beneath the purry monster glamour, Spooky's ability to wake her up from her dreams with Lector in ''Annihilation Score" are a little to frequent to be coincidence

Well, it's not that he forgets, it's that cats with opposable thumbs do actually exist. That's not in and of itself a red flag.

True, her behavior isn't quite as normal. At the least she's more sensitive than most cats to magic going on, though she did grow up around the New Annexe.

Word from Charlie: review copies of Nightmare Stacks have arrived. Countdown to actual retail copies is something like three months still.

The Argus has an article on the "mother of modern witchcraft" who worked at Bletchey Park as a codebreaker, same as Alan Turing.

The list of historical Laundry figures grows...

Review out for The Nightmare Stacks on SFF World. We now know what the conflict will be (confirmation of hints from Charlie that it's going to involve elves): Case Nightmare Red, alien invasion.

11 days to UK launch (and many more until US). Here's an excerpt!

And it's officially out here in the States!

The Nightmare Stacks: the Fair Folk come a-visiting, and bring an armored brigade battlegroup with them...

Thoughts (spoilers avoided as much as possible).

• Holy hell. Holy hell. Holy motherfucking hell what the christ just happened.
• So Stross wasn't kidding when he made the following observation about elves.

• Bob and Mo don't figure at all in this book; we see things purely through the eyes of Alex Schwartz, the PHANG who was recruited back in Rhesus Chart. Alex is a bit where Bob was back before he joined Field Ops, and it is extremely easy to forget just how terrifyingly powerful Bob Howard really is by now, given that he's the self-deprecating narrator of the first four books. And Mo's at least just as good. Since they're facing down Case Nightmare Green they naturally don't think of themselves as all that powerful in the grand scale of things, but from the perspective of even a PHANG magician of no little talent, they are way the hell up there.

• The Kettenkrad from the first book, rescued from Ogre Reality? It makes its triumphant, demented return!

edited 28th Jun '16 9:23:12 PM by SabresEdge

brb, cancelling my orde- oh, it's here already.

Might be a while before I get to it, currently reading The Annihilation Score and well, there are other authors in the world.

edited 5th Jul '16 8:08:41 AM by tricksterson

Does it help that we get an extra helping of Pinky and Brain? And the Kettenkrand returns?

Yeah, actually - I found it a lot more fun than The Annihilation Score :D

Holy carp that MAGINOT BLUE STARS though

About the title "The Annihilation Score" (and yes, erm, sorry for responding to a year-old post)- it seems more a double entendre to me. Or triple. But it doesn't mean just -one- thing; it's a clever title (and fwiw I've reread my library's copy three times by now- reread it once in 2015, read it twice more this year. They haven't gotten in The Nightmare Stacks but I may well get that for myself given how often I reread his books...)

The Laundry Files are very frustrating to me because when I love them, I love them but when I dislike them, I really dislike them. For example, I'm a huge fan of the James Bond novels but the Jennifer Morgue was one gigantic Take That! at them. Then, a couple of books later, we have The Apocalypse Codex which is basically a stereotypical James Bond novel except for the fact the villain is a fundamentalist minister out to destroy the world.

I also felt the superhero novel was damned silly and detracted from the Lovecraftian world pre-established.

I'm still pre-ordering the next one, though.

edited 21st Nov '16 11:15:42 AM by CharlesPhipps

So Stross has done his job properly and got you hooked then?

Insert J. Montgomery Burns clip of him saying "Excellent" here.

Just a quick note to inform people that the main page has been moved to the more accurate and at least semi-official The Laundry Files. From a few of the wicks I've fixed, which were already potholed to that name, I suspect this will please more than a few folks. :)

Posting a message in part so I have somewhere to holler for a mod to please move the Discussion page from the old name, Literature.The Laundry Series.

That reminds me... has anyone else read these yet?

Short version is that Charlie wrote up some material from The Delirium Brief that suffered the chop in the great re-working and posted them on Archive of Our Own as semi-official fanfic. It's short but well worth the read.

Just saw that mentioned on another blog, and was coming here to post about it.

I saw those mentioned on Stross's Twitter feed! Will take a look.

Got into this series. Nice lot of in-jokes if you're into tech history. I'm giggling a lot more then I probably should be.

And me getting into the series has nothing to do with the fact that I have a lot of fun playing around with fractal artwork (my avatar is one)...

Little behind but Charlie has put up the first chapter as a preview. Available here

Blog post announcing it here.

The last couple paragraphs induced expletives. And that's only chapter 1

Anyone gone through The Labyrinth Index yet?