REVIEW: A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross
A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross is the thirteenth of the fourteen book his Laundry Files series. The Laundry Files is a series based around an obscure British intelligence agency that deals with the monsters and horrors of a Cthulhu Mythos inspired world. Charles Stross’ Laundry Files is somewhere between Terry Pratchett, John Le Carre, and H. P. Lovecraft. The books swing wildly from hilarious send ups of more serious fiction and genuinely terrifying stories. They also bring up some fascinating concepts regarding math, politics, religion, and relationships where your partner’s violin wants to kill you.
It is questionable whether the Laundry Files series qualifies as horror novels but I’d dare say they do and the most terrifying things about them are the realism-induced elements. The Apocalypse Codex, for example combines a Dominionist evangelist cult with Cthulhu but it is elements from real-life fundamentalism that are the most disturbing. A Conventional Boy‘s horror comes from its invocation of the actual Satanic Panic of the 1980s and how it’s never really gone away.
Charles Stross gives an extended explanation of this in the Afterword, and enough information in the book to understand it for those who blessedly never heard of it, but the short version is: in the Eighties that a lot of televangelists like Jerry Falwell decided to motivate their followers by claiming X thing was literally invoking Satanic forces. He only touches the tip of the iceberg, but the ridiculous premise was that Dungeons and Dragons books allowed you to summon demons or be possessed by them. It’d be funny if not for the child abuse and witch hunts that ensued.
This is all a rather extensive opening to explain that Derek Reilly was an adolescent in 1984 when the actual occult authorities scooped him and his friends up before institutionalizing them as potential evil wizards. The others eventually were let go but Derek’s autism and social awkwardness resulted in him being treated as a threat. This is particularly notable to me as I have had that kind of fear myself as a neurodivergent person.
Derek ended up spending forty-years in a camp for deprogramming wizards and cultists with his only release being a literal play by mail game once his handlers realized he was harmless but knew too much. Now, with the camp about to be shut down, the nearly-fifty Derek breaks out of his camp to go to a roleplaying game convention. A convention that is filled with cultists but ones that have wandered in from a much more likely source of Satanic power in the real world: corporate marketing culture.
I’ve read virtually the entirety of the Laundry Files and much of Charles Stross’ other work but find that A Conventional Boy resonates with me more than any of the others. The sheer unfairness if Derek’s life has immense pathos. Tabletop gaming has a special role in the minds of many neurodivergent people and the fact it was used to ruin his life is all too believable. Perhaps the story would not hit so hard if I didn’t know fundamentalist families who forced their children to burn their tabletop game supplements.
I have a few minor issues with the story as it really ends a bit too happily given the circumstances. Also, I feel like the climatic final struggle against corporate RPG culture would have been better with a confrontation against the people who imprisoned Derek (and are depersonalized drones of bureaucracy versus someone specific who signed off on imprisoning him decades ago) but I still enjoyed the book. Very much so. There’s a couple of short stories as well.
A Conventional Boy is good, very good. It can also be read effectively as a standalone volume of the series or even an introduction to The Laundry Files. You can start with Derek Reilly’s story to see if the world is for you before trying The Atrocity Archives. I think this is a series well worth picking up and A Conventional Boy is one of the best parts of it.
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