This is the third book in the Laundry series, where Stross mixes Lovecraftian horror with bureaucracy and British spy tales. It keeps the main character and back history, and tries harder to be amusing than horrifying.

This time round, rather than the Bond tropes used in The Jennifer Morgue, Stross seems inspired by LeCarre's Smiley books, which makes for a slower, more expositive writing. Unfortunately exposition and explanation does not fit well with unspeakable horrors from outer space, so the story does not flow as easily and entertaining as the previous books.

It is chock full of great ideas, as is usual with Stross, but I cannot help but feel that some of the best (the white elephants, Count Ungern von Sternberg, JFC Fuller himself...) are thrown away without giving away all of its usefulness, while others are exploited to death and beyond, as the iPhone...

Or maybe I still remember Von Sternberg from Pratt's Corto Maltese en Sibérie, and by chance I am reading Fuller's Decisive Battles of the Western World: 3, so it feels weird to see them reflected in what I am reading.

The book seems longer than the previous Laundry books, while containing the same laughs, so the laughs per page goes much lower. It is bad when you actually wish for a character in a series to die and shut up at certain moments.