When Alex Schwartz took a lucrative job developing high freDanger is looming, and it threatens to be
"A fate four point two degrees worse than death."
When Alex Schwartz took a lucrative job developing high frequency trading algorithms, he had no idea how literal his transformation into a bloodsucking vampire was going to be. In the world that Stross creates, higher mathematics open a gateway to Other Dimensions haunted by Lovecraftian beasties, including the V-symbiotes that invaded Alex's brain and gave him PHANG Syndrome (Person of Hemophagic Autocombusting Nocturnal Glamour), which, sadly, isn't yet covered by the Equality Act.
Acclimatizing to his new job in the Laundry, the super-secret magical equivalent to MI5, is never easy, but Alex entered the trade at a particularly difficult time: as the number of humans and computers increases, intrusions into the Dungeon Dimensions become increasingly common. As Alex learns,
"Training for the end of the world is an ongoing part of the job."
Right now, most of the Laundry is focused on CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, the apocalyptic eventuality where magical saturation causes Cthulhu and Azathoth and all their friends to converge upon Planet Earth. However, The Nightmare Stacks takes a break from the looming threat of GREEN to focus on a NIGHTMARE of quite a different colour. While the previous book took on superheroes, this one combines James-Bond-style shenanigans with yet another geeky fandom. I can't tell you which--spoilers--but I can say that the results are vastly entertaining.
The Nightmare Stacks is a bit of a departure from the other books in the series because it has barely a mention of Bob Howard, arcane sysadmin and protagonist of most of the rest of the books. Personally, I was thrilled to get a new protagonist. Alex is a bit of a passive nebbish nonentity, but I found him rather more likeable than the Bob of recent books. The protagonist-- and NIGHTMARE-- switch makes this an ideal starting book for anyone interested in the series. (Apparently it depends heavily on The Rhesus Chart, but as I've not read it--it's the only Laundry book I skipped--and I got along fine, I think this would be entirely readable without the context of the rest of the series.) I did find the narrative style a bit odd, however; we're told this is Alex's journal, yet most of the story, including the Alex-POV sections, are told in third person. I admit to being a bit mystified by that.
Alex, our hapless protagonist, has more on his mind than PHANG Syndrome. His new employers are sending him to the last place on earth he wants to be: Leeds, his childhood home, where he's
Doomed to be dragged back into the infantilizing maw of his family's expectations."
Alex's interactions with his family are so utterly cringingly awkward that they induced sympathetic winces from me, as did his amusing attempts to flirt with his love interest, who takes the MPDG thing to a whole new level.
"Alex's experience of dating is similar to his experience of string theory: abstract, intense, and entirely theoretical due to the absence of time and opportunities for probing such high-energy phenomena."
I thoroughly enjoyed the parts of the book that focused on the amusing mundanities of Alex's life, but like many of Stross's book, at some point, the content switched over to extremely graphic and disturbing scenes of battle and slaughter. I've never quite figured out if all the gore was intended to be funny. I certainly don't find them so, but the scenes are liberally swathed in dramatic irony and Stross is peculiarly detached from the slaughter. I suspect the familial scenes and war scenes will appeal to vastly different audiences, and that plenty of other reviews will be complaining about the aspects of the book that I adored.
I find Stross reliably hilarious and The Nightmare Stacks was no exception. I adore urban fantasy and the way it mashes together the banalities of life with a genre-savvy take on traditional fantasy. Along with explaining how a salt circle traps mages and describing the intricacies of governmental PLAN PURPLE PEOPLE EATER, this book involves perhaps the most unique usage of a selfie stick I've come across. If you find Stross's unique combination of magic, maths geekery, Rube-Goldbergian bureaucracy, and bumbling spycraft as entertaining as I do, The Nightmare Stacks is definitely worth checking out.
~~I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Berkley Publishing Group, in exchange for my honest review. (Thanks!) Quotes were taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the spirit of the novel as a whole.~~
"Please allow me to introduce myself… No. Strike that. Period stop backspace backspace bloody computer no stop that stop listening stop dictating end e
"Please allow me to introduce myself… No. Strike that. Period stop backspace backspace bloody computer no stop that stop listening stop dictating end end oh I give up. Will you stop doing that?"
Meet Mo, a.k.a. Dominique, employee of the UK's super-secret black-ops magic organisation (they call it the Laundry), wife of Bob Howard (a.k.a. The Eater of Souls), bearer of a psychotically evil soul-sucking bone violin, and combat epistemologist. When Mo takes a trip to do a little glad-handing with the Deep Ones (aka BLUE HADES), she thinks she's finally going to get a bit of well-deserved R&R. But before she knows it, a tiny mistake has landed her neck-deep in trouble, and even worse, in bureaucratic paperwork. In Mo's world, the end is nigh, and all hell is beginning to break loose. As the barriers between our world and the Elder Ones of the Dungeon Dimensions break down, more and more people are gaining magical abilities. Magic is rationalized in the context of culture, and given the superhero craze, suddenly there are a disturbing number of people running (or flying) around in Lycra suits that may not precisely flatter them. And a series of mistakes leave Mo in charge of a brand-new superhero ops organization tasked with stopping the superhero singularity. To make things worse, there's a new supervillain Mad Scientist on the loose, and he he's leaving behind messages of the "Tremble, Fools, Before It is Too Late!" variety, and worst of all, the messages are printed in Comic Sans.
I suspect that the most divisive part of the book will be the change in narrators from Bob to Mo. Personally, I strongly preferred Mo to Bob. She's introduced to us in the midst of an unjustified attack of jealousy, but once she gets past that, I really warmed to her. I've grown a bit tired of Bob, and Mo's spiky, sarcastic, vibrant personality revived the series for me. I also wasn't too surprised by their marital issues; intentional or not on Stross's part, I've never sensed any chemistry between Bob and Mo. (Since much of the series is a Bond spoof, there are quite a few obligatory Bond girls, and Bob doesn't really think of Mo when she's not around.) While the previous books in the series don't really defy their Bond roots in the sexism department, I thought Stross did a pretty good job with his female characters here. He even has a wonderful riff on the Invisible Middle-Aged Woman syndrome. (Sure, there's the obsession on Bob's past partners, but Mo's Bechdel test failure moment is actually called out in-book.) The plot itself is rather measured, dealing mostly with Mo's struggles to get her fledgling superhero team going. I'm pretty sure anyone who has dealt with bureaucracy will find it amusing. For me, however, the ending was a bit of an off note. (view spoiler)[
If I understand matters correctly, the combined incompetence of Mo and the Laundry causes thousands of deaths. If the Laundry knew what was going on--and the conversations with the SA certainly suggests that--why not go after the organization? They're not all-powerful. They're not even magic. Surely a bit of explanation, shock and awe, or, in the worst case, deaths would have solved matters. Also, I know I'm a pedant, but I'm a bit weirded out by the oath bit. We (the barbarian Americans) also have the "lawful" bit, but for us at least, "lawful" means that it has to pass the legislature and be part of the law--just because an executive said so wouldn't make it right or true. Firing upon unarmed civilians without cause is kinda not cool with the UCMJ. So what about an immoral order by a superior officer makes it lawful? And how on earth was there not a witchhunt against Mo? She was shown on live TV to be killing a mass number of people with an enchanted weapon she was known to own, and, presumably, control. I pretty much do consider Mo and the Laundry culpable, and that assessment includes the mitigating factors.
And Mo made everything worse. She deduced nothing. She solved nothing. She acted as the puppet of everyone around her. She didn't even withstand Lecter and ends up requiring rescue. Again. Granted, that's what always seems to happen to Bob as well, but given the context, it was somehow worse here.
The other thing that really, really pissed me off was the ending, when Mo meets up with Mr Patronising Git, aka Dr Armstrong. In the last paragraph of the book, he responds to her valid concerns that (a) she did more harm than good, (b) she's worn out with it, and (c) the Laundry is an untrustworthy organization with a patronising speech in which he pretty much directly calls her hysterical. And she apparently takes it.
There are moments in the book when Stross's gender biases surface. Mo spends a lot of time jealously obsessing over Bob and the women who knew him, and there's quite a bit of the catfight vibe in the opening. I found it rather irritating, but sure, maybe some women are like that. But Stross's complete ignorance of a serious hotbutton is just a step too far. There's a proud and ongoing tradition of dismissing women as hysterical or overemotional. It's so common that these days, it's part of bias training. Yet the book ends with this arrogant git calling her overemotional and telling her she'll "calm down" and "regain her center" and think better of it all? Really? And you're going to end the book with that?
I would have loved to give this book five stars. Up until the ending, I really thought it would happen. But between the too-neat cop-out and the blind sexism of the last paragraph, the end left a bad taste in my mouth. (hide spoiler)]
As always, Stross is absolutely hilarious, and this time, you don't need a computer science degree to get in on the jokes. Some of my favourite quotes:
"Yes, she's a blood-sucking fiend. But she's also a superbly competent administrator and has an MBA which I think you'll agree makes up for a lot of sins."
"Scientific research is a bottomless money pit. You can approximate Doing Science to standing on the Crack of Doom throwing banknotes down it by the double-handful, in the hope that if you choke the volcano with enough paper it will cough up the One Ring."
"Despair, dismay, disorientation, and delusion: the four horsemen of the bureaucratic apocalypse."
Unfortunately, though, I don't really think it's possible to read this without the context of the previous books. I skipped only one (#5, The Rhesus Chart) and found myself quite bewildered by the references to recent events. I can't imagine how hard it would be to read this without some knowledge of the Laundry, the Eater of Souls, and CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. However, if you're looking to give the series a try, I think you can start with #2 (The Jennifer Morgue) or #3(The Fuller Memorandum)--I did.
**Note: quotes were taken from an uncorrected advanced reader copy of this ebook and may not reflect the final version. However, I believe they speak to the spirit of the book.
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Ace Books, a Penguin Random House imprint, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!~~...more
**Note: if you're looking for a useful review that will provide cogent analysis of the book, please look elsewhere. This is my random, 10-minute, offh**Note: if you're looking for a useful review that will provide cogent analysis of the book, please look elsewhere. This is my random, 10-minute, offhand reaction. I'm going to talk about themes. Depending on your definition, you may consider it spoilery. You've been warned.**
~3.5
In some ways, speculative fiction often balances precariously on the boundary between detective fiction and horror. Some books--hard scifi is a prime example--seek to make a world that they can explain. No matter how bewildering everything seems to be, somewhere, somehow, you just know it all makes sense. And then there's the horror flavour. At its core, horror comes from the unknown. So horror must play upon the unguessable, the nonsensical, the inexplicable.
Area X falls firmly into the latter category. It's the purest novelistic form of the Weird scifi subgenre that I've ever encountered. And from the very beginning, it's clear that the story itself will be a quest--a failed quest--to make the world make sense. The titles reflect the nature of the story arc. In the first part, Annhilation, the protagonists discover the effects of Area X upon their once-stable, sensible world. In the second, Authority, they try to take control and, as can be predicted by the outset, utterly fail to do so. In the third, Acceptance, the protagonists finally come to terms with the fact that Area X simply cannot be understood.
I'm a reader of detective fiction. I like order. I don't need to hear the explanations, but I need to know that somewhere, they're out there. The whole point of Area X, as is clear from the very beginning, is that it cannot be explained, and it doesn't make sense. This book, therefore, was something of a mismatch for me.
Even so, Area X is a fascinating book. It's practically constructed whole-cloth from metaphor and allusion. All of the names are meaningful, from the identity-stripping designation of "Biologist" and "Psychologist" to the man who designates himself as "Control" at the times when he has absolutely none to Saul the lighthousekeeper who is blinded by light. It is a thoughtful, complex book, and it will leave you still wondering about it long after you've finished.
Granted, if you're a detective-type reader, your primary question will probably be "What the hell?", but the book is multilayered enough to leave questions for everyone....more
I’ve been a fan of Lauren Beukes since I first read Zoo City. She has a gift for building interesting worlds, and herBook Reaction (not a full review)
I’ve been a fan of Lauren Beukes since I first read Zoo City. She has a gift for building interesting worlds, and her characters tend to walk the fascinating and narrow line between flawed and dysfunctional. I love the way she weaves together the mundane and the magical, and I love her grey and grimy worlds, from the futuristic Moxyland to the historical Chicago of Shining Girls.
But Broken Monsters did not work for me. It's basically a remake of The Shining Girls, but without the history, without the subtle analysis of feminism, without the satisfying circularity, and without even the semblance of a likeable character. In my opinion, almost everyone in the book was truly abysmal. Beukes has never been known for creating loveable sweethearts, but this is impressively belowpar, even for her. I cared not a whit about any of the stiff, two-dimensional, meaningless archetypes, from the Troubled Teen to the Noble Black Homeless Man, the Smarmily Selfish Reporter, the Bumbling Female Detective, and the Creepy Artistic Serial Killer. Apparently they're all "dreamers," but unlike the "shining girls" (see what I mean about the ripoff of the other book?), I am utterly unable to fathom what makes them special.
The book explores merely a horror of the most mundane, thoughtless variety. Sure, there's lots of crazy violence such as a kid who is turned into a postmortem centaur, but other than the "artistic"-ness, there's not much of a rationale for the sickening violence. The grotesque is meant only to shock, without greater impetus driving the horror. There's a superficial attempt to inject meaning through a discussion of art and audience, and the way audience shapes who we are and what we want, but it's neither subtle nor particularly profound. Sure, it’s creepy. Sure, it’s awful, grotesque, disgusting, disturbing. But it’s not memorable. It’s just plain ick.
If you want to try Beukes, I suggest staying away from this one....more
I encounter quite a lot of episodic hard-boiled urban fantasy, and one constant source of entertainment (and aggravation) is wondering what happen~4.5
I encounter quite a lot of episodic hard-boiled urban fantasy, and one constant source of entertainment (and aggravation) is wondering what happens to the minor characters after they are abandoned by the camera. Take the television show Supernatural. After the Winchesters roll out of town, what actually happens to Screaming Girl #1 who loses her father/boyfriend/girlfriend to an angry pumpkin man or psychotic razor-hands or grabby ghost? Or what about the bystanders who were unlucky enough to have a car on the street during Harry Dresden’s rampage in Dead Beat? (Imagine the insurance claims.) Or all those unfortunate churchgoing ladies in Mike Carey’s Vicious Circle? Certainly anyone who ran into a fey from the October Daye series would require counselling, but what, exactly, would one tell one’s therapist?
We Are All Completely Fine explores the lives of the survivors of supernatural situations, but in a less absurdist fashion than other sorcerous self-helpers that I have encountered. The story begins from the perspective of Harrison, a nihilistic ex-monster-hunter, as he vacillates outside of a psychologist’s office, not quite ready to step inside and join a newly formed group therapy. Harrison might not have much faith in therapy, but then, this is a rather unique group, for each member has been touched by the preternatural: an apparently self-possessed but inwardly tormented housewife, an elderly man still fixated upon a childhood trauma, a young man who retreats into a world of his making, and a silent, enigmatic girl with haunted eyes.
The novella is a little unusual in everything from perspective to structure. We Are All Completely Fine starts each chapter in first person plural, spoken as if by an unidentified member of the group, then switches to third person limited. I’ve only seen this style a few times, but I think it adds an interesting effect here, strengthening the sense of the group as a sentient entity in its own right. As one might expect, much of the novella is simply the slow unravelling of the characters’ stories. The psychological aspect is thoughtful without ever becoming pretentious, and I loved the occasional glints of humour. While some of the characters never quite became three-dimensional for me, others came to life. One of the surprisingly empathetic characters, to me, was Stan, the elderly amputee who lost so much that he turned his victimhood into his identity. He is a talker, but he uses his words, his stories and complaints and pleas for attention, as a shield. Unsurprisingly, my favourite of the bunch was the taciturn, saturnine, guilt-ridden, self-destructive Harrison. Harrison’s interaction with the psychologist are constantly entertaining:
"She believed that people were captains of their own destiny. He agreed, as long as it was understood that every captain was destined to go down with the ship, and there wasn't a damned thing you could do about it."
I was also amused by Harrison’s origin story, which involves a seaside town called “Dunnsmouth,” a name rather reminiscent of the classic “Innsmouth.”
Given the basic premise, it’s unsurprising that the author opted for something of a kitchen-sink’d Lovecraftian magic, but there were a few creative touches that I adored. I was a little dissatisfied with the ending, which seemed too neat in some areas and slightly plotholed in others, but I think much of this was due to the constraints imposed by the length.
In fact, the biggest drawback, in my opinion, was that it was a novella rather than a novel, but at least the short length meant that I was able to enjoy a reread. I would love to revisit the characters and world, and I have high hopes of a sequel (pretty please?). We Are All Completely Fine will not be a good fit for everyone; after all, its major theme is coming to terms with horror-movie-style trauma. There are some graphic scenes and extensive discussions of mutilation, and I’d definitely slap a trigger warning on it. However, if you’re looking for something a little different and with a psychological bent, I’d definitely recommend it.
**Note: Quotes are taken from an uncorrected proof and may therefore not reflect the final manuscript. They do, however, provide wonderful examples of the charm and mood of the book as a whole.**
~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, Tachyon Publications, in exchange for my honest review. ~~...more
Lovecraft has had a tremendous influence on the modern fantasy, especially urban and comic fantasy. Terry Pratchett, Charles Stross, **edited 02/02/14
Lovecraft has had a tremendous influence on the modern fantasy, especially urban and comic fantasy. Terry Pratchett, Charles Stross, Jim Butcher, and several other major authors utilize Lovecraftian critters from the dungeon dimensions and the deepest depths as primary antagonists in their mythologies. I don't know if it's because I read the stories when I was too young, or if perhaps I encountered spoofs of his creatures before I read the real thing, but somehow, half-and-half fish/octopus men just aren't a terror trigger for me. Even in his more psychological works, I tend to find Lovecraft's writing a bit overblown, so much so that it tends to invoke laughter rather than horror. Granted, only a few of the antagonists of his stories are amphibious, but they almost always invoke an external influence. My classic horror stories of choice are the more internal/psychological ones-- The Yellow Wallpaper, The Turn of the Screw, etc.
For all that, I have a great appreciation for Lovecraft's ideas and influence.
After his last job as the tethered goat for a bunch of insane apocalypse-desiring cultists, Bob Howard, computational demonologist, i**edited 01/08/14
After his last job as the tethered goat for a bunch of insane apocalypse-desiring cultists, Bob Howard, computational demonologist, is hoping for a little rest and relaxation so that he can try to shake his recent partial transformation into a demonic Eater of Souls. When he finally returns to work at The Laundry, the top-secret ministry of magic, he thinks his wish has been granted--after all, how hard can his new leadership and resource management position be?
Soon, he is embroiled in yet another cultist conspiracy: an American televangelist seems to be channelling a little too much Lovecraft in his sermons, so Bob is sent out to America to manage an off-the-books investigative team. He must battle with religious zealots, creepy creatures that crawl into brains and zombify their hosts, the terrifyingly harsh American equivalent to the Laundry, and (worst of all) rather a lot of bureaucracy. Can Bob make it through, save his assets, prevent the waking of a Lovecraftian sleeper, and, most difficult of all, can he keep all of his paperwork straight?
D.I. Jimmy Quill of the Met is well aware of the disastrous ways a five-year undercover sting might end: you might not capture the pe**edited 12/04/13
D.I. Jimmy Quill of the Met is well aware of the disastrous ways a five-year undercover sting might end: you might not capture the perp; you might not be able to pin anything on him; your UCs might defect or be injured. And, of course, you might have the kingpin in custody and willing to confess when he inexplicably explodes in a welter of blood--right in the middle of a police interrogation room. As Quill and his team begin to investigate the mysterious death, they find themselves unexpectedly gifted with the Sight. It isn't long before they realize that human gangsters aren't the biggest monsters stalking the London streets.
Due to my disapproval of GR's new and rather subjective review deletion policy, the rest of my (rather verbose) review is posted over here at Booklikes....more
There's a certain stereotype about the streets of New York City. To non-City-dwellers, the phrase can conjure a claustrophobic skyli **edited 11/28/13
There's a certain stereotype about the streets of New York City. To non-City-dwellers, the phrase can conjure a claustrophobic skyline blocked with lowering buildings and blinding lights, anonymous figures studiously avoiding eye contact as they rush past each other on the sidewalks, seething masses of pedestrians pouring onto the streets at random to the furious honks of stultified drivers, and snobby natives glaring at gaping tourists. Basically, the stereotyped New York is a place where people on the streets don't see each other as human. In Joe Pitt's NYC, "inhuman" is a pretty good description.
What would you get if you substituted a computer nerd for James Bond, then sent him off to fight Lovecraftian Deep Ones? Well, in fac**edited 12/20/13
What would you get if you substituted a computer nerd for James Bond, then sent him off to fight Lovecraftian Deep Ones? Well, in fact, you'd get this book.
There's this fun (well, depending on how humorous you find Lovecraft) little story ("Dreams in the Witch-House") in which a mathematician discovers that very abstruse topological mathematics can transport one to far-off dimensions and manifolds in which (you guessed it) the uber-horrors lurk. In the Laundry series, Charles Stross takes this idea one step farther. In his world, sufficiently advanced technology is not only indistinguishable from magic, but has the adverse effect of breaking down barriers to dimensions where all the demons and cthulhuian monsters and so on live. It's like the ultimate wish fulfilment for computer scientists, because the difference between a program and a spell is just a little Enochian, a bit of blood, and a lot of know-how.
Bob Howard is a programmer--uh, computational demonologist-- at the Laundry, the top-secret British department that focuses on the occult. As far as I can tell, he's kind of a sysadmin (see, it goes to show--all the sysadmin all have occult powers!) but also does a bit of field work: demon banishing, spell patchups, cult dispersals, that sort of thing. When, during an apparently routine assignment, Bob is forced into "destiny entanglement" with a demon, he knows things are about to get tricky. Soon enough, he's forced into an arrangement with a beautiful and deadly foreign spy, on an island full of hostile powers, dressed to the teeth in his tux, losing horrifically at baccarat, and driving his seriously decked out car (a Smart car rather than an Aston Martin--governments have a budget to stick to!), and a license to implant rather deadly computer viruses into the evil mastermind's mainframe. All this is adding up to make poor Bob quite shaken, and not particularly stirred.
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