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Laundry Files #6
The Annihilation Score
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Horror (2015)Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross presents the next case in The Laundry Files.
Dominique O’Brien—her friends call her Mo—lives a curious double life with her husband, Bob Howard. To the average civilian, they’re boring middle-aged civil servants. But within the labyrinthian secret circles of Her Majesty’s government, they’re operatives working for the nation’s occult security service known as the Laundry, charged with defending Britain against dark supernatural forces threatening humanity.
Mo’s latest assignment is assisting the police in containing an unusual outbreak: ordinary citizens suddenly imbued with extraordinary abilities of the super-powered kind. Unfortunately these people prefer playing super-pranks instead of super-heroics. The Mayor of London being levitated by a dumpy man in Trafalgar Square would normally be a source of shared amusement for Mo and Bob, but they’re currently separated because something’s come between them—something evil.
An antique violin, an Erich Zann original, made of human white bone, was designed to produce music capable of slaughtering demons. Mo is the custodian of this unholy instrument. It invades her dreams and yearns for the blood of her colleagues—and her husband. And despite Mo’s proficiency as a world class violinist, it cannot be controlled…
Dominique O’Brien—her friends call her Mo—lives a curious double life with her husband, Bob Howard. To the average civilian, they’re boring middle-aged civil servants. But within the labyrinthian secret circles of Her Majesty’s government, they’re operatives working for the nation’s occult security service known as the Laundry, charged with defending Britain against dark supernatural forces threatening humanity.
Mo’s latest assignment is assisting the police in containing an unusual outbreak: ordinary citizens suddenly imbued with extraordinary abilities of the super-powered kind. Unfortunately these people prefer playing super-pranks instead of super-heroics. The Mayor of London being levitated by a dumpy man in Trafalgar Square would normally be a source of shared amusement for Mo and Bob, but they’re currently separated because something’s come between them—something evil.
An antique violin, an Erich Zann original, made of human white bone, was designed to produce music capable of slaughtering demons. Mo is the custodian of this unholy instrument. It invades her dreams and yearns for the blood of her colleagues—and her husband. And despite Mo’s proficiency as a world class violinist, it cannot be controlled…
401 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2015
284 people are currently reading
3369 people want to read
About the author
Charles Stross
158 books5,841 followersCharles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy.
Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.
SF Encyclopedia: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_...
Tor: http://us.macmillan.com/author/charle...
Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.
SF Encyclopedia: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_...
Tor: http://us.macmillan.com/author/charle...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 598 reviews
July 6, 2015
Many readers of the Laundry Files do not like the way the series is heading. I don't mind and personally I enjoyed the last book, The Rhesus Chart. However, The Annihilation Score really annoyed me. But it wasn't the plot or the superhero thing that annoyed me. It was the protagonist, Mo. Specifically her treatment of Bob. I understand that Mo has to deal with a lot of shit and as a result is traumatized both mentally and emotionally. But so has Bob and he was supporting her that whole time. So when Mo says this at the beginning of the book I was blown away:
Bitch, he spent the last decade getting nightmares from your precious violin and being your emotional safety blanket while carrying out his duties as an agent of Laundry, which if you have read the series know was not trauma free. And what makes my blood boil is that it took one glimpse of the eater of souls
in Bob's head to make Mo say wait a minute maybe this won't work out after all. That's all the chance she is going to give to a man who has given her a decade of support.
Not only that but she spends a lot of time being insecure about the possibility of Bob cheating on her and his previous relationships with other women and then she cheats on Bob. Sure, she didn't have sex with Jim but going on romantic dates and kissing in a limo doesn't seem very faithful to me. She would probably flip out if Bob did the same thing, just look at her reaction to Bob letting Mhari stay over at their house, and that was Bob trying to keep
Mhari from being killed.
This book could have been more enjoyable if it weren't for Mo. Her lack of empathy and understanding is astounding.
"My husband is sometimes a bit slow on the uptake; you'd think that after ten years together he'd have realized that our relationship consisted of him, me, and a bone-white violin...But no: the third party in our menage a trois turns out to be a surprise to him after all these years, and he needs more time to think about it."
Bitch, he spent the last decade getting nightmares from your precious violin and being your emotional safety blanket while carrying out his duties as an agent of Laundry, which if you have read the series know was not trauma free. And what makes my blood boil is that it took one glimpse of the eater of souls
in Bob's head to make Mo say wait a minute maybe this won't work out after all. That's all the chance she is going to give to a man who has given her a decade of support.
Not only that but she spends a lot of time being insecure about the possibility of Bob cheating on her and his previous relationships with other women and then she cheats on Bob. Sure, she didn't have sex with Jim but going on romantic dates and kissing in a limo doesn't seem very faithful to me. She would probably flip out if Bob did the same thing, just look at her reaction to Bob letting Mhari stay over at their house, and that was Bob trying to keep
Mhari from being killed.
This book could have been more enjoyable if it weren't for Mo. Her lack of empathy and understanding is astounding.
July 26, 2015
This review breaks my heart because I adore Stross and the Laundry books, but it has to be said. This was just not good.
So if you want to read the most boring possible book that could take place in the one of the most interesting of universes, and watch a marriage between two formerly awesome characters disintegrate for unexplained reasons, all while being disappointed at the state of women characters in speculative fiction, read this book and be sad.
So if you want to read the most boring possible book that could take place in the one of the most interesting of universes, and watch a marriage between two formerly awesome characters disintegrate for unexplained reasons, all while being disappointed at the state of women characters in speculative fiction, read this book and be sad.
June 4, 2018
Re-read 6/4/18:
Suffice to say, the dynamics between Bob and Mo are rather divisive. I guess I will always find a place to forgive Mo in my heart.
She's been through so much. She's been carrying around the One Ring for Too Many Years. Add that to all the other crap that went on, I'm surprised she didn't crack like a walnut under all that stress. So yeah, I suppose I'm perternaturally disposed to give her a free pass. :)
Oh yeah, and the story kicked superhero butt. :)
Original Review:
I may be a card-toting fan of Charlie, here, but I know this novel deserves a ton of praise despite my bias. For one, he actually shifts from Bob Howard's character to Mo, his smarter, more competent half, and does it so well that even an ex-angry-white-boy like myself can feel like she feels GENUINE. That may be very hard or very easy, considering that I'm actually rather hard on books in my heart, while often giving them a pass in the final analysis or the fact that I am, indeed, still only a boy and have never been a girl.
That being said, Mo struggled like hell against all the pigeonholing that everyone tried to slap on her, and I loved every single second of it. I haven't rooted for a character this deeply in a while. And this might sound a bit like blasphemy, but I'm having a very hard time deciding whether I love her more than Bob. It's that seminal question old Heinlein fans had to ask... after traveling with Lazzy so long, did you find yourself preferring his mom in To Sail Beyond the Sunset?
Okay, maybe that might be too obscure, and we're actually talking about marital strife, not child-dynamics, but still.
I've very much enjoyed Bob's hyperbole, SO dry humor, the shifting horrors of bureaucracy treading while surrounded with Lovecraftian nightmares. He is a hapless programmer who eventually became and therefore is a FORCE, especially after the previous novel did everything in its power to crush the Laundry and managed to kill off a lot of good friends in the process, leaving him in the possession *ha, get it?* of 80 years of secrets.
But now comes Domonique, his wife, catching him in a horribly compromising situation, and her own pet demon in the guise of a violin made of bone and eldritch horror decides its time to take vengeance on her man for what appears to be infidelity (it isn't) with a vampire (damn those running for your life circumstances), and Bob's little counterargument by way of tiny glowing worms in his eyes.
I understand why their marriage is breaking down. Truly. But it makes me so sad. Neither of them wanted what eventually happened. It's not like Bob actually wanted
All this, mind you is merely a setup for the novel that actually came to us. It's like Charlie decided to put his incredibly facile brain to the task of treating the whole vampire phenomenon to a huge dose of this universe in the previous book, and found itself unable to cope, and then decided to do the same thing to the superhero phenomenon in this one.
And again, NOTHING can survive the bureaucratic mangler.
I loved it. I haven't been forced to read this slowly, for such obvious and prolonged sessions of pleasure and horror, in a long time.
These books are funny. They're funny in how they've completely twisted my view of popular culture. The superhero angle was absolutely not derivative. Their origin story is closely tied to the oncoming shitstorm of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, the invasion of all the dungeon dimensions onto the earth, and the invasion is only masking itself as popular belief systems. Dreams and hopes. So when superheroes start popping up all over the place, so do the supervillains.
The only way to combat such a nightmare is by using Upper-Middle Management to put together a task force to train and retain new superpowers, transform people in Pervert Suits into Law Abiding Constables, and put a civilized lid on the whole mess. Screw you, Xavier. This is a job for Home Office.
So delicious, and SO dry. :)
I could go on and on about this novel, but I'll stop here. There's a reason this has become one of my absolute top SF/Horror/Humor series, ever, and I can feel the waves of struggle underneath to turn it into something deep and serious, besides. I love Mo.
The whole novel just screams of a downhill slide with truly horrific consequences, and it delivered with prejudice. Hugely entertaining. Heads and above the competition, although, to be honest, I know of NO AUTHOR that fits this mold. Believe me, I've been looking for others that can pull off something like this, and yet, I've never seen anyone that has been able to do THIS.
Dare I say it? I keep looking and looking, and I'm not exactly unread. Dare I say that this series is UNIQUE?
Uniquely good, even, and rising to new heights. I liked the previous novel, but I positively loved this one. :)
Suffice to say, the dynamics between Bob and Mo are rather divisive. I guess I will always find a place to forgive Mo in my heart.
She's been through so much. She's been carrying around the One Ring for Too Many Years. Add that to all the other crap that went on, I'm surprised she didn't crack like a walnut under all that stress. So yeah, I suppose I'm perternaturally disposed to give her a free pass. :)
Oh yeah, and the story kicked superhero butt. :)
Original Review:
I may be a card-toting fan of Charlie, here, but I know this novel deserves a ton of praise despite my bias. For one, he actually shifts from Bob Howard's character to Mo, his smarter, more competent half, and does it so well that even an ex-angry-white-boy like myself can feel like she feels GENUINE. That may be very hard or very easy, considering that I'm actually rather hard on books in my heart, while often giving them a pass in the final analysis or the fact that I am, indeed, still only a boy and have never been a girl.
That being said, Mo struggled like hell against all the pigeonholing that everyone tried to slap on her, and I loved every single second of it. I haven't rooted for a character this deeply in a while. And this might sound a bit like blasphemy, but I'm having a very hard time deciding whether I love her more than Bob. It's that seminal question old Heinlein fans had to ask... after traveling with Lazzy so long, did you find yourself preferring his mom in To Sail Beyond the Sunset?
Okay, maybe that might be too obscure, and we're actually talking about marital strife, not child-dynamics, but still.
I've very much enjoyed Bob's hyperbole, SO dry humor, the shifting horrors of bureaucracy treading while surrounded with Lovecraftian nightmares. He is a hapless programmer who eventually became and therefore is a FORCE, especially after the previous novel did everything in its power to crush the Laundry and managed to kill off a lot of good friends in the process, leaving him in the possession *ha, get it?* of 80 years of secrets.
But now comes Domonique, his wife, catching him in a horribly compromising situation, and her own pet demon in the guise of a violin made of bone and eldritch horror decides its time to take vengeance on her man for what appears to be infidelity (it isn't) with a vampire (damn those running for your life circumstances), and Bob's little counterargument by way of tiny glowing worms in his eyes.
I understand why their marriage is breaking down. Truly. But it makes me so sad. Neither of them wanted what eventually happened. It's not like Bob actually wanted
All this, mind you is merely a setup for the novel that actually came to us. It's like Charlie decided to put his incredibly facile brain to the task of treating the whole vampire phenomenon to a huge dose of this universe in the previous book, and found itself unable to cope, and then decided to do the same thing to the superhero phenomenon in this one.
And again, NOTHING can survive the bureaucratic mangler.
I loved it. I haven't been forced to read this slowly, for such obvious and prolonged sessions of pleasure and horror, in a long time.
These books are funny. They're funny in how they've completely twisted my view of popular culture. The superhero angle was absolutely not derivative. Their origin story is closely tied to the oncoming shitstorm of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, the invasion of all the dungeon dimensions onto the earth, and the invasion is only masking itself as popular belief systems. Dreams and hopes. So when superheroes start popping up all over the place, so do the supervillains.
The only way to combat such a nightmare is by using Upper-Middle Management to put together a task force to train and retain new superpowers, transform people in Pervert Suits into Law Abiding Constables, and put a civilized lid on the whole mess. Screw you, Xavier. This is a job for Home Office.
So delicious, and SO dry. :)
I could go on and on about this novel, but I'll stop here. There's a reason this has become one of my absolute top SF/Horror/Humor series, ever, and I can feel the waves of struggle underneath to turn it into something deep and serious, besides. I love Mo.
The whole novel just screams of a downhill slide with truly horrific consequences, and it delivered with prejudice. Hugely entertaining. Heads and above the competition, although, to be honest, I know of NO AUTHOR that fits this mold. Believe me, I've been looking for others that can pull off something like this, and yet, I've never seen anyone that has been able to do THIS.
Dare I say it? I keep looking and looking, and I'm not exactly unread. Dare I say that this series is UNIQUE?
Uniquely good, even, and rising to new heights. I liked the previous novel, but I positively loved this one. :)
July 13, 2015
So, seriously, do you think he let someone ghostwrite this one? The book has the advantage of being easier to read than the other entries in the series, but the voice of Mo has no charm whatever. She reveals herself to be a very unpleasant person, and frankly I do not care whether things turn out well for her or not. Bob would do better with the soul-sucking ex than with this one.
I do understand that it may be advantageous to tell the story from another perspective than that of the Eater, but this frivolous, jealous, solipsistic cow is not an adequate replacement for Bob. Whom I love.
Oh, and, by the way, I'm fifty-two years old, and I have no trouble getting a waiter's attention. I do it by being nice to them. Sheesh. Oh, and I don't vomit every time something bad happens. That's just stupid.
I do understand that it may be advantageous to tell the story from another perspective than that of the Eater, but this frivolous, jealous, solipsistic cow is not an adequate replacement for Bob. Whom I love.
Oh, and, by the way, I'm fifty-two years old, and I have no trouble getting a waiter's attention. I do it by being nice to them. Sheesh. Oh, and I don't vomit every time something bad happens. That's just stupid.
June 4, 2018
Look at you, Mo! Up on your moral high ground, criticizing Bob for all kinds of things, most of which haven't even really happened (and you know it), while you !
Some might have read my last review, the one about the previous volume, and therefore know about the tweet I sent the author after finishing that book. Well, things just got … out of paw:
Yep. I went there. No reaction from the author yet. Either he's hiding or calling the Eater of Souls to take care of the rabid fan.
But let's be serious for a second: I hated this!
First we get lured into caring about these characters, then the author puts them through hell (literally) and after the heartbreak of Bob moving out at the end of the last book, we now get this shit?!
I don’t care how much stress she has at work, how the fate of the world is at stake here (literally) - there are two people in a marriage and Mo has definitely forgotten that (and that SHE needs to put in as much effort as she expects from Bob).
I was looking forward to a book from Mo's POV because I really liked her so far, but this made me loathe her!
She's self-absorbed, whiney, in a full-on midlife crisis (considering herself to be invisible and does everything to change that like the needy idiot that she is) and I can tell you: that is not sufficient an excuse for a man to do what most men do when being in a midlife crisis, so it isn't going to excuse what she does either. Especially since Bob isn't exactly having the time of his life either AND he cannot "just" put his curse in a warded closet since he is destiny-entangled with the friggin Eater of Souls!
That and the fact that Mo actually dares being patronizing about Bob not having her level of experience made me want to slap the b**** (she's always applying a double-standard). To say nothing of her going on a date (even calling it that herself) while still being married and never mentioning to Bob that their marriage could actually be over (Mo herself even contemplates how much she likes the romance despite not being ready to give up on her marriage so she deliberately chooses to be intimate with a guy who is not her husband while being married). If she put half as much effort into a date night with Bob (telling him she wants to go out in the first place and yes, for her he’d go despite not being much of a romantic), there wouldn’t have been half as many problems in their relationship.
Bob definitely deserves better. I can't believe Mo had the nerve to criticize Mary for the kind of person she is and what she's done to a much younger Bob. What is the saying? Oh, right "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
Uhm … some people might want to know about the plot. So, in short: There are super-heroes and super-villains suddenly popping up everywhere, causing mayhem and worse while the Laundry is still reeling from what happened at the end of the last book. Mo gets tasked with building a Response Unit and therefore has to team up with two old acquaintances as well as some new people. There is a criminal mastermind performing all sorts of impressive and disconcerting crimes and they need to figure out how AND why while constantly being harassed by the woman upstairs about not working fast enough and bringing her the results that will make her win the next election (political stupidity at its height).
Bob, meanwhile, has to travel all over the planet because he is the Eater of Souls now and has to deal with what Angleton left at every single place he ever went to in his long life/career. Which explains why this book is entirely from his wife's point of view.
Oh, and Case Nightmare Green is just around the corner.
Yadda yadda yadda. It’s really all just background noise. Bob's and Mo's marriage is front and center (or should be for certain people - yes, I'm looking at you, Mo) while Spooky saves everyone (several times even!) and gets no thanks whatsoever; she even almost has to starve!
Don't get me wrong: all people here have to get through a lot and have had to do so for years, which is horrible. However, some still manage to be fairly decent human beings (or close to human beings) while others don't. No free pass from me. NOPE.
However, the crime story and superhero stuff was fairly entertaining, I kept thinking about all manner of possible explanations, and this plot is definitely important as a set-up for the other novels. Moreover, the fact that the author can make one care so much about these characters … even the cat! … that is worth a lot. Still, I feel betrayed (and I'm not as forgiving as Bob might soon be).
May 18, 2017
Well this has been a complete train wreck.
Stross’s laundry files series has been heading off the rails for a while now, staying upright only out of a combination of gyroscopic forces imparted by the earlier works and the magic of the source material Stross is riffing on. But it’s been clear for a while now that Stross has no clear idea where to take the story and that his basic inclinations tend to be at odds with where the story needs to go if it is going to keep any resemblance to what made the original so compelling. In part it must be said that it was Bob himself holding the story up, since if you stayed with it this long it was mostly to find out what happened to Bob – the long suffering civil servant IT nerd turned demon slaying field agent. But, by this point there was no obvious reason that Bob’s romantic counterpart, Mo’ couldn’t carry a whole novel on her own.
But there is very specific reason that she can’t – this novel sucks and would have been terrible regardless of who the narrator was. I can’t begin to count how many of the rules of writing Stross manages to break.
Probably the biggest one is that the actions undertaken by the protagonist should matter to the outcome. But Mo’ never really does anything that actually matters. She doesn’t gain any real agency until the story has about 10 pages left, and even then... well, more on that later. Everything leading up to the finale is meaningless, and indeed she knows it to be meaningless because her job is simply to create meaningless theater until the real threat reveals itself. So the reader is lead through about 300 pages of pointless meetings, bureaucratic decisions, memo writing, power point presentations, endless rounds of self-doubt and self-analysis and self-pity sessions none of which ultimately end up contributing to the plot or advancing the story. Tasked with creating meaningless theater, it is ultimately revealed just how meaningless it all was, which raises the question: “Why was I forced to read about it?” An author should strive to tell only the most interesting parts of the story, leaving out anything extraneous and unnecessary to the resolution. About 250 pages of this work could have been cut out and made a tighter story. Chekov’s gun is repeatedly violated. Pages and pages are spent on things that end up not mattering to the story in the slightest. If I tried to list the things that were introduced that never have any relevancy to the story at all, it would be longer than this review and possibly longer than the actual meat of this novel.
What makes this even worse is from time to time Bob floats on stage and gives some hints about exciting Indiana Jones type delves in to true Lovecraftian abandoned temples and lost cities which makes us wonder why we aren’t actually away reading about that sort of stuff rather than attending Mo’s business meetings.
Another big problem is that the structure of the story is a mystery novel, with Mo in the role of detective. But despite pondering the clues given her, Mo ultimately never puts any of the clues together. She isn’t even the one who solves the mystery, such as it is. We are left to have a minor character inform Mo he’s already figured out the solution to the mystery, shortly before she’s caught completely by unawares by the mechanizations of the antagonist. In order to have a sympathetic detective protagonist, the audience needs to have some indication that the detective is actually smarter than they are and has, despite the appearances, actually deduced the facts of the case long ago. We don’t get any of that here.
Likewise, the basic commitment of a horror story is to frighten and disturb its readers. But Stross despite keeping many of the trappings of a horror story seems to have long ago relinquished any such commitment in favor of creating a world which is I think rather less disturbing to him than this real world actually is. Stross has been getting less frightening and more campy with each novel. I’m not sure how much further things can go in that direction. The Lovecraftian source material is legitimately creepy, with science as the enemy of man, unremitting doom inexorably advancing on humanity, and reality being in truth so bug-shit screwed up that merely glimpsing it doomed a pathetic human to gibbering senseless insanity. In the Lovecraft universe, you might forestall immediate doom, but generally only at the cost of your health, sanity, and happiness. In the Laundry universe, humanity not only isn’t rendered impotent and senseless in the face of reality, it turns into veritable demigods with cool superpowers whose only problem is maybe attracting cosmic parasites which fortunately they also know how to use magic to ward away. Horrific things happen, but mostly to ‘the muggles’ and other people Stross doesn’t particularly like. This is horror as fantasy escapism. This is sanitized Lovecraft. Lovecraft is scary because he was a creepy nervous guy channeling all his myriad phobias and anxieties on the page as he saw his carefully constructed Anglophile 18th century Enlightenment worldview fall apart.
I’m not sure what motivates these current stories, but it doesn’t seem to be an undercurrent of fear and anxiety. It’s more an undercurrent of nerd fanboy that reminds me of those nerds in ‘Galaxy Quest’ that were so excited when it all turned out to be real. The only thing left of the story that is remotely scary is the author is imagining the modern world as Lovecraftian universe and seems to think that would be totally awesome.
For a moment there I thought Charles was going to start exploring Bob as an unreliable narrator, and perhaps give us a glimpse that Bob isn’t nearly as sane or trustworthy as he reports himself to be. But nothing really came of it, which could be probably the entirety of this review. Whatever it is in the story, nothing really came of it. None of the relationships between the characters are ever really explored, nor are any of the conflicts created or hinted at resolved. The whole story is empty filler both taken on its own and in the context of the larger Laundry/CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN story arc.
Stross seems to have gone out of his way to create an explicitly feminist story. It’s like the whole story was an exercise in writing a book that passed the Bectel Test, but forgot to actually have a plot. Worse, if the book is to be judged by how well it succeeded in that, having practically every female character with a speaking line be one of Bob’s prior romantic interests made the whole thing feel more like a harem style anime than a female empowering exercise, especially given how useless Mo’ comes off in the story. And letting Mo’ get it on with a hot love interest fails to balance with Bob doing the same thing, because Bob at least if we are to believe the prior stories was never a willing participant in any of the times he was kissed. Mo’s dalliance with Jim was both willing and of greater intimacy than Bob’s indiscretions, but Mo’ doesn’t even classify them as a “personal betrayal” (I guess because she stopped herself from going all the way). And let's not forget that Mo's one real act with a meaningful consequence, is to ask a man to help her because she's incapable of helping herself. Mo’ has often come off as Bob’s better half hitherto. This ‘feminist’ story relegates her to neither as competent nor as likeable as Bob.
And though it is a minor point, the whole idea that each book is actually the transcript of a classified case file is working less and less well. The idea that this book would be used as debriefing material by a competent functional intelligence agency is just laughable, and the more laughable because of all of Mo’ irrelevant personal disclosures that had no real bearing on the case. If this is an actual case file, it ought to read like something a military officer would actually create. The military doesn’t waste time with this crap and sticks to clear and relevant facts, which is why when it comes to hiring Project Managers or Business Analysts, I’m always looking for the resumes with past military experience.
Stross’s laundry files series has been heading off the rails for a while now, staying upright only out of a combination of gyroscopic forces imparted by the earlier works and the magic of the source material Stross is riffing on. But it’s been clear for a while now that Stross has no clear idea where to take the story and that his basic inclinations tend to be at odds with where the story needs to go if it is going to keep any resemblance to what made the original so compelling. In part it must be said that it was Bob himself holding the story up, since if you stayed with it this long it was mostly to find out what happened to Bob – the long suffering civil servant IT nerd turned demon slaying field agent. But, by this point there was no obvious reason that Bob’s romantic counterpart, Mo’ couldn’t carry a whole novel on her own.
But there is very specific reason that she can’t – this novel sucks and would have been terrible regardless of who the narrator was. I can’t begin to count how many of the rules of writing Stross manages to break.
Probably the biggest one is that the actions undertaken by the protagonist should matter to the outcome. But Mo’ never really does anything that actually matters. She doesn’t gain any real agency until the story has about 10 pages left, and even then... well, more on that later. Everything leading up to the finale is meaningless, and indeed she knows it to be meaningless because her job is simply to create meaningless theater until the real threat reveals itself. So the reader is lead through about 300 pages of pointless meetings, bureaucratic decisions, memo writing, power point presentations, endless rounds of self-doubt and self-analysis and self-pity sessions none of which ultimately end up contributing to the plot or advancing the story. Tasked with creating meaningless theater, it is ultimately revealed just how meaningless it all was, which raises the question: “Why was I forced to read about it?” An author should strive to tell only the most interesting parts of the story, leaving out anything extraneous and unnecessary to the resolution. About 250 pages of this work could have been cut out and made a tighter story. Chekov’s gun is repeatedly violated. Pages and pages are spent on things that end up not mattering to the story in the slightest. If I tried to list the things that were introduced that never have any relevancy to the story at all, it would be longer than this review and possibly longer than the actual meat of this novel.
What makes this even worse is from time to time Bob floats on stage and gives some hints about exciting Indiana Jones type delves in to true Lovecraftian abandoned temples and lost cities which makes us wonder why we aren’t actually away reading about that sort of stuff rather than attending Mo’s business meetings.
Another big problem is that the structure of the story is a mystery novel, with Mo in the role of detective. But despite pondering the clues given her, Mo ultimately never puts any of the clues together. She isn’t even the one who solves the mystery, such as it is. We are left to have a minor character inform Mo he’s already figured out the solution to the mystery, shortly before she’s caught completely by unawares by the mechanizations of the antagonist. In order to have a sympathetic detective protagonist, the audience needs to have some indication that the detective is actually smarter than they are and has, despite the appearances, actually deduced the facts of the case long ago. We don’t get any of that here.
Likewise, the basic commitment of a horror story is to frighten and disturb its readers. But Stross despite keeping many of the trappings of a horror story seems to have long ago relinquished any such commitment in favor of creating a world which is I think rather less disturbing to him than this real world actually is. Stross has been getting less frightening and more campy with each novel. I’m not sure how much further things can go in that direction. The Lovecraftian source material is legitimately creepy, with science as the enemy of man, unremitting doom inexorably advancing on humanity, and reality being in truth so bug-shit screwed up that merely glimpsing it doomed a pathetic human to gibbering senseless insanity. In the Lovecraft universe, you might forestall immediate doom, but generally only at the cost of your health, sanity, and happiness. In the Laundry universe, humanity not only isn’t rendered impotent and senseless in the face of reality, it turns into veritable demigods with cool superpowers whose only problem is maybe attracting cosmic parasites which fortunately they also know how to use magic to ward away. Horrific things happen, but mostly to ‘the muggles’ and other people Stross doesn’t particularly like. This is horror as fantasy escapism. This is sanitized Lovecraft. Lovecraft is scary because he was a creepy nervous guy channeling all his myriad phobias and anxieties on the page as he saw his carefully constructed Anglophile 18th century Enlightenment worldview fall apart.
I’m not sure what motivates these current stories, but it doesn’t seem to be an undercurrent of fear and anxiety. It’s more an undercurrent of nerd fanboy that reminds me of those nerds in ‘Galaxy Quest’ that were so excited when it all turned out to be real. The only thing left of the story that is remotely scary is the author is imagining the modern world as Lovecraftian universe and seems to think that would be totally awesome.
For a moment there I thought Charles was going to start exploring Bob as an unreliable narrator, and perhaps give us a glimpse that Bob isn’t nearly as sane or trustworthy as he reports himself to be. But nothing really came of it, which could be probably the entirety of this review. Whatever it is in the story, nothing really came of it. None of the relationships between the characters are ever really explored, nor are any of the conflicts created or hinted at resolved. The whole story is empty filler both taken on its own and in the context of the larger Laundry/CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN story arc.
Stross seems to have gone out of his way to create an explicitly feminist story. It’s like the whole story was an exercise in writing a book that passed the Bectel Test, but forgot to actually have a plot. Worse, if the book is to be judged by how well it succeeded in that, having practically every female character with a speaking line be one of Bob’s prior romantic interests made the whole thing feel more like a harem style anime than a female empowering exercise, especially given how useless Mo’ comes off in the story. And letting Mo’ get it on with a hot love interest fails to balance with Bob doing the same thing, because Bob at least if we are to believe the prior stories was never a willing participant in any of the times he was kissed. Mo’s dalliance with Jim was both willing and of greater intimacy than Bob’s indiscretions, but Mo’ doesn’t even classify them as a “personal betrayal” (I guess because she stopped herself from going all the way). And let's not forget that Mo's one real act with a meaningful consequence, is to ask a man to help her because she's incapable of helping herself. Mo’ has often come off as Bob’s better half hitherto. This ‘feminist’ story relegates her to neither as competent nor as likeable as Bob.
And though it is a minor point, the whole idea that each book is actually the transcript of a classified case file is working less and less well. The idea that this book would be used as debriefing material by a competent functional intelligence agency is just laughable, and the more laughable because of all of Mo’ irrelevant personal disclosures that had no real bearing on the case. If this is an actual case file, it ought to read like something a military officer would actually create. The military doesn’t waste time with this crap and sticks to clear and relevant facts, which is why when it comes to hiring Project Managers or Business Analysts, I’m always looking for the resumes with past military experience.
July 2, 2015
I really disliked the main character, and, really the entire idea of the superhero stuff as a NIGHTMARE GREEN symptom.
The plot was soap-opera class, so much so that I thought it was going to be another story-setup, that her intelligence had been impaired by a story-oriented magical plot enforcement, like that idiotic James Bond thing Stross did in another book
This also had the same eternal smugness I so dislike about some of Stross's books. Last book was fantastic- this one was not.
The plot was soap-opera class, so much so that I thought it was going to be another story-setup, that her intelligence had been impaired by a story-oriented magical plot enforcement, like that idiotic James Bond thing Stross did in another book
This also had the same eternal smugness I so dislike about some of Stross's books. Last book was fantastic- this one was not.
June 19, 2023
*** 4.66 ***
I know people have had an issue with Mo in this book, but I thought the author did a great job of showing a woman who is completely burned out, feels stuck not only at her job, with her evil violin, but also just in life while struggling with untreated PTSD, having no time or opportunity to have a life not connected to her job, including her husband, and just trying to hang on to her sanity by the tips of her fingers... She is in over her head and is looking for a rescue raft, but there is nothing to hold on to... On top of that, approaching middle age and being a woman in a predominantly male world, she is feeling invisible and has the "what if" regrets that most of us experience at that junction of life. Add the constant mental siege she has to deal with, even while sleeping, and it is amazing that the worst she has done is to make some bad choices and cry when on the verge of exhaustion...
Was she often wrong - absolutely! But it was very believable and you could understand even her most irrational choices. I was very unhappy with her on several occasions, but by the end of the book I just wanted her to survive and live another day, hopefully with some serious rest and therapy. And I am still rooting for her and Bob, but I will understand if it's just meant not to be...
I know people have had an issue with Mo in this book, but I thought the author did a great job of showing a woman who is completely burned out, feels stuck not only at her job, with her evil violin, but also just in life while struggling with untreated PTSD, having no time or opportunity to have a life not connected to her job, including her husband, and just trying to hang on to her sanity by the tips of her fingers... She is in over her head and is looking for a rescue raft, but there is nothing to hold on to... On top of that, approaching middle age and being a woman in a predominantly male world, she is feeling invisible and has the "what if" regrets that most of us experience at that junction of life. Add the constant mental siege she has to deal with, even while sleeping, and it is amazing that the worst she has done is to make some bad choices and cry when on the verge of exhaustion...
Was she often wrong - absolutely! But it was very believable and you could understand even her most irrational choices. I was very unhappy with her on several occasions, but by the end of the book I just wanted her to survive and live another day, hopefully with some serious rest and therapy. And I am still rooting for her and Bob, but I will understand if it's just meant not to be...
March 3, 2017
If this were a standalone book set in the laundry universe id give it 4 stars but seeing as its book 6 in a series i give it a 1. Very bummed. I've read all the previous books many many times over and love them.
Dissapointing is an understatement, Stross has gone all George Lucas and crystal skull on us. The way Mo talks about bob makes her seems like a dead set bitch. Was completely blown by how callous she is and her complete lack of respect for him. Even the content of the story steered to far into fantasy for me. The first 4 books(5 went a little south) although containing fantasy elements were still grounded in reality. Sorry Mr stross but i hope the next book redeems you.
Edit
ok after some reflection i have changed my review. It is a good story. Not the story i was expecting or wanted but entertaining none the less.
My above points about being a bit to far fantasy still stand and definetly Mo's attitude and negativity towards bob.
Dissapointing is an understatement, Stross has gone all George Lucas and crystal skull on us. The way Mo talks about bob makes her seems like a dead set bitch. Was completely blown by how callous she is and her complete lack of respect for him. Even the content of the story steered to far into fantasy for me. The first 4 books(5 went a little south) although containing fantasy elements were still grounded in reality. Sorry Mr stross but i hope the next book redeems you.
Edit
ok after some reflection i have changed my review. It is a good story. Not the story i was expecting or wanted but entertaining none the less.
My above points about being a bit to far fantasy still stand and definetly Mo's attitude and negativity towards bob.
August 1, 2015
"Please allow me to introduce myself…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.
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?"
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.
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!~~
November 7, 2019
Welcome to Bureaucratic Government Meetings - The novel!
Gape in wonder as you experience managerial meetings about staff uniforms!
Control your excitement as you witness high-pressure governmental briefings on mission statements and departmental budgets!
Feel the adrenaline, as Mo O’Brien attempts to staff a new government organisation and setup their office with flatpack furniture!
Seriously. For a large part of The Annihilation Score this was my reality. I felt like I had somehow slipped into a text based bureaucracy simulator – a novel version of indie game Papers Please, or a less innovative The Stanley Parable.
You wouldn’t expect this from the novel’s blurb.
The setup is great. Mo O’Brien, a secret-agent operative for a British agency that deals with the occult – and we’re talking the return of Cthulu/end times level occult here – is breaking under the strain of dispatching tentacled demons for a living. Her marriage is on the rocks. Her nerves are shot. The weapon she carries – a necromantic violin of human bone with its own evil personality and a hunger for blood – is constantly trying to possess her for its own nasty ends.
Mo is having a rough year, and when ordinary people in the British population start to develop superpowers, and she gets caught in the middle of a public display of occult energy, things start to get even worse.
Mo’s employers – known as The Laundry – decide she will be the public face and manager of a new agency, one that will get across the threat posed by super-powered joe-publics, and recruit its own team of costumed heroes to act as an example and a warning to both vigilantes and villains.
So far, so good. But then… things start to bog down a bit.
A great deal of this novel is spent in meetings. So much so, that fairly early on I started regularly checking the page count- the reading equivalent of glancing at one’s watch during a less-than-exciting party. There are some cool occult battles, interesting characters, a great backstory behind The Laundry and some nice worldbuilding but… the meetings. Oh, god, the meetings.
Part of this is due I feel to the decision Stross made to write this novel in the first person. We see everything through Mo’s eyes, and Mo has some laborious and draining work to do in order to get her agency off the ground while simultaneously trying not to succumb to her daemon violin.
Having to see this laborious and draining work in person, as occurs in real time, is a touch draining in itself, and for a novel full of daemons, magic, and super-powers, there’s no-where near as much action or drama as I would have expected.
I’ve read other novels of Stross’ and absolutely loved them - Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise were great – but this one, while fun in parts, isn’t up to the same level.
Still, overall I didn’t hate this book. There are some enjoyable segments and some fun characters. I’d actually like to read more about The Laundry as Stross sets up some really interesting backstory and hints towards some world-shaking events that have occurred in his previous books.
I’m hoping however, that the other Laundry books spend less time in the boardroom – this one had me feeling like I should be taking minutes to email to my disinterested colleagues after each chapter.
2.5 Agenda items out of 5.
Gape in wonder as you experience managerial meetings about staff uniforms!
Control your excitement as you witness high-pressure governmental briefings on mission statements and departmental budgets!
Feel the adrenaline, as Mo O’Brien attempts to staff a new government organisation and setup their office with flatpack furniture!
Seriously. For a large part of The Annihilation Score this was my reality. I felt like I had somehow slipped into a text based bureaucracy simulator – a novel version of indie game Papers Please, or a less innovative The Stanley Parable.
You wouldn’t expect this from the novel’s blurb.
The setup is great. Mo O’Brien, a secret-agent operative for a British agency that deals with the occult – and we’re talking the return of Cthulu/end times level occult here – is breaking under the strain of dispatching tentacled demons for a living. Her marriage is on the rocks. Her nerves are shot. The weapon she carries – a necromantic violin of human bone with its own evil personality and a hunger for blood – is constantly trying to possess her for its own nasty ends.
Mo is having a rough year, and when ordinary people in the British population start to develop superpowers, and she gets caught in the middle of a public display of occult energy, things start to get even worse.
Mo’s employers – known as The Laundry – decide she will be the public face and manager of a new agency, one that will get across the threat posed by super-powered joe-publics, and recruit its own team of costumed heroes to act as an example and a warning to both vigilantes and villains.
So far, so good. But then… things start to bog down a bit.
A great deal of this novel is spent in meetings. So much so, that fairly early on I started regularly checking the page count- the reading equivalent of glancing at one’s watch during a less-than-exciting party. There are some cool occult battles, interesting characters, a great backstory behind The Laundry and some nice worldbuilding but… the meetings. Oh, god, the meetings.
Part of this is due I feel to the decision Stross made to write this novel in the first person. We see everything through Mo’s eyes, and Mo has some laborious and draining work to do in order to get her agency off the ground while simultaneously trying not to succumb to her daemon violin.
Having to see this laborious and draining work in person, as occurs in real time, is a touch draining in itself, and for a novel full of daemons, magic, and super-powers, there’s no-where near as much action or drama as I would have expected.
I’ve read other novels of Stross’ and absolutely loved them - Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise were great – but this one, while fun in parts, isn’t up to the same level.
Still, overall I didn’t hate this book. There are some enjoyable segments and some fun characters. I’d actually like to read more about The Laundry as Stross sets up some really interesting backstory and hints towards some world-shaking events that have occurred in his previous books.
I’m hoping however, that the other Laundry books spend less time in the boardroom – this one had me feeling like I should be taking minutes to email to my disinterested colleagues after each chapter.
2.5 Agenda items out of 5.
August 9, 2015
So... superheroes. After nazis, billionaires, culties, megachurches, and a wunch of bankers, it's... the capes.
I'm not sure that this is how I saw CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (the Laundry Novels' code name for a long-forecast rise of magic preceding the fall of human civilization) going public. I guess I was expecting, if anything, the police to go full Judge Dredd... and instead we get The Tick.
It's a little clumsily done, and maybe that's part of the point.
Central to "The Laundry" novels is the recurring theme that the Bad Stuff is out there, and someone has to deal with it, and they aren't going to come through untouched. We might respect, as an existential hero, someone who persists despite proof that doing so is pointless. They keep going back to spackle over the cracks in reality with their own very human blood, because otherwise, it's the worst possible end of the world.
Over five novels and a four shorts, we might have come to respect the usual protagonist, Bob, as one of these heroes, because he keeps coming back for more - not for Queen and Country, but for his wife, his housecat, and his (shrinking) circle of friends.
The horror in this story (because let's remember that this is a horror story) is what's happened to Bob's wife, Dr. Maureen "Mo" O'Brien. Mo has a rich life of her own, as Agent CANDID, as a professor of music, and as the bearer of an Erich Zann violin. She and Bob are each other's anchors in the existential sea, and while we get lots of Bob in every novel, we only occasionally get to ride along with Mo.
So here's a chance to take a trip through Hell on Mo's shoulder. And what do we see?
A woman who really, really deserves better than the hand she's been dealt. In this, the sixth Laundry novel, we get to hear, in Mo's own words, all the things she's given up or missed out on, while on Her Majesty's Occult Service. This is a person who has not just gotten hurt fighting x-threats, but who has actually been diminished as a result, and on the wrong side of 40, it's never coming back.
I have sympathy for Mo in a way that I really can't for Bob. While the Laundry has repeatedly traumatized Bob in unimaginable ways, it has also exalted him. What would Bob be without the Laundry? An aging software engineer dreaming of an exciting life as a spy or an astronaut? A thrice-divorced middle manager slouching through the latest of a list of forgettable Silicon Roundabout firms running on ten thousand lines of PHP and a slick of human blood?
What would Mo be without the laundry? A higher profile academic career. Making friends without concern for an Oath of Service. Nights out without the world ending the next day. A decent bloke and a couple of kids. Perhaps even the violin soloist at Last Night of the Proms.
Any number of things. Much, much happier, to be sure.
And thus I was horrified to see how badly poor Mo gets used to defeat an occult plot that (as usual) has less to do with the desires of the Awful Things and more to do with the limits of human idiocy.
The Laundry made Bob into a dark demigod, and it gets in the way of relating to people like nothing else, short of a conviction as a serial killer. But I think that, like every nerd who ever picked up dice with more than six sides, Bob is a big enough fool to think that fighting Cthulhu is a more worthy way to spend his life than in the allegedly real world. Despite all his protestations to the contrary, The Laundry has exalted Bob.
It has NOT exalted Mo.
Many readers will not agree with me. But the older I get, the easier it is to understand that middle age and the power of the dollar are scarier and far more proximate to all of us than the King in Yellow or the Pharoah in Black or the Dreamer in R'lyeh. For me, the biggest crisis of the story was the uncertainty over whether marital infidelity is the best idea Mo has had in ten years, or the last and bleakest thing I could stand to read in a story that's already inflicted so much trauma on an awfully likeable and well-meaning character.
And they're not done yet.
Three out of five because the superhero stuff was a goofy sideshow, but we love Mo, and we're so, so sorry.
I'm not sure that this is how I saw CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (the Laundry Novels' code name for a long-forecast rise of magic preceding the fall of human civilization) going public. I guess I was expecting, if anything, the police to go full Judge Dredd... and instead we get The Tick.
It's a little clumsily done, and maybe that's part of the point.
Central to "The Laundry" novels is the recurring theme that the Bad Stuff is out there, and someone has to deal with it, and they aren't going to come through untouched. We might respect, as an existential hero, someone who persists despite proof that doing so is pointless. They keep going back to spackle over the cracks in reality with their own very human blood, because otherwise, it's the worst possible end of the world.
Over five novels and a four shorts, we might have come to respect the usual protagonist, Bob, as one of these heroes, because he keeps coming back for more - not for Queen and Country, but for his wife, his housecat, and his (shrinking) circle of friends.
The horror in this story (because let's remember that this is a horror story) is what's happened to Bob's wife, Dr. Maureen "Mo" O'Brien. Mo has a rich life of her own, as Agent CANDID, as a professor of music, and as the bearer of an Erich Zann violin. She and Bob are each other's anchors in the existential sea, and while we get lots of Bob in every novel, we only occasionally get to ride along with Mo.
So here's a chance to take a trip through Hell on Mo's shoulder. And what do we see?
A woman who really, really deserves better than the hand she's been dealt. In this, the sixth Laundry novel, we get to hear, in Mo's own words, all the things she's given up or missed out on, while on Her Majesty's Occult Service. This is a person who has not just gotten hurt fighting x-threats, but who has actually been diminished as a result, and on the wrong side of 40, it's never coming back.
I have sympathy for Mo in a way that I really can't for Bob. While the Laundry has repeatedly traumatized Bob in unimaginable ways, it has also exalted him. What would Bob be without the Laundry? An aging software engineer dreaming of an exciting life as a spy or an astronaut? A thrice-divorced middle manager slouching through the latest of a list of forgettable Silicon Roundabout firms running on ten thousand lines of PHP and a slick of human blood?
What would Mo be without the laundry? A higher profile academic career. Making friends without concern for an Oath of Service. Nights out without the world ending the next day. A decent bloke and a couple of kids. Perhaps even the violin soloist at Last Night of the Proms.
Any number of things. Much, much happier, to be sure.
And thus I was horrified to see how badly poor Mo gets used to defeat an occult plot that (as usual) has less to do with the desires of the Awful Things and more to do with the limits of human idiocy.
The Laundry made Bob into a dark demigod, and it gets in the way of relating to people like nothing else, short of a conviction as a serial killer. But I think that, like every nerd who ever picked up dice with more than six sides, Bob is a big enough fool to think that fighting Cthulhu is a more worthy way to spend his life than in the allegedly real world. Despite all his protestations to the contrary, The Laundry has exalted Bob.
It has NOT exalted Mo.
Many readers will not agree with me. But the older I get, the easier it is to understand that middle age and the power of the dollar are scarier and far more proximate to all of us than the King in Yellow or the Pharoah in Black or the Dreamer in R'lyeh. For me, the biggest crisis of the story was the uncertainty over whether marital infidelity is the best idea Mo has had in ten years, or the last and bleakest thing I could stand to read in a story that's already inflicted so much trauma on an awfully likeable and well-meaning character.
And they're not done yet.
Three out of five because the superhero stuff was a goofy sideshow, but we love Mo, and we're so, so sorry.
July 20, 2015
2.5 stars. When I realized the book was from Mo's point of view I was excited, she's always been a favorite character that we didn't get to see enough of. But it was pretty disappointing. I didn't need her to be a typical urban fantasy kick-ass heroine. I liked that she's a forty-three year-old wife with marriage issues. I wasn't so keen on her self-esteem issues, or at least on the assumption that all women eventually have "middle-aged invisibility syndrome." I'm two years older than her and it didn't even occur to me until half way through the book or more to even think about if it applied to me or my friends, it just didn't at all seem relevant to my experience enough to think about it. But I could see that in major cities like London, New York, LA, DC that it could be more of a factor, cities with more high-power careers and where appearances are judged more harshly. Anyway, a lot of the rest of the book was quite slow, there are a lot of administrative functions and meetings and reports. I've done too much of that myself and while I sympathize with Mo and her team having to do it, I isn't something I actually want to read about it all that much.
Also, I didn't really quite get who Stross was telling me Mo was. For example, on the one hand, she's this strong woman who's carried that horrible bone violin for eight years and in the process had to be the person who fixed a whole lot of absolutely horrendous situations. She not only witnessed truly awful situations, she had to use her instrument to do beyond horrible things to end incursions from other universes or whatever nightmares she was sent to fix. But she also found a dirty litter box to be "icky" and the cat doing her business made her flee the room. That didn't seem like much of a frightening sight compared to the horrors of the multiverse, dead bodies floating in the air, and other things Mo was having nightmares about. I don't think a male writer would write anything like that about a (middle-aged) male protagonist. The box might have been gross or disgusting and he might not want to deal with his spouse's cat's mess or to watch it take a s*** or piss but the language wouldn't be suddenly infantilized, that's for sure. Mo kills demons, blood and guts give her nightmares, some poop might stink but I don't see it making her Oh Dearing about how icky it is and fleeing the making of such. She's a grown woman! And she said she's have cats before, for that matter. She grew up in a house with cats. So where's the shock from? She's seen it all before, from the making of the stank to the cleaning up of said stank. It's just a dumb scene that made a strong heroine look weak to no purpose. I just didn't quite get the whole character, what he was driving at. I liked the imperfect, human woman who didn't give up and kept driving forward despite her fears and insecurities. I just didn't get who this woman was, she was so different from the Mo as presented in the past. She really didn't have anything to do with music, except to go to some concerts. She gave up teaching without a second thought. She barely seems to care about her marriage or her husband, despite some lip service to the contrary. She's totally reasonable all of the time with Ramona and Mhari and all of the people she works with, where the heck did her temper go? She felt like a totally new character who happened to be named Mo and be living in the house that Bob and his wife live in. Maybe she really was possessed after all and we'll find out in the next book.
It's very disappointing because it should have been a fun book. Superheroes are fun! Mo used to be a witty, cool character. This Mo was a total downer, bitter and mean-spirited. She had reason to be down about a lot of things, but writing it that way didn't make for a good book. And a plot was really weak, she was just screwed around with a lot in the end, and it just turns out to be a bridge book to get things to the last two pages. It was just weak, Mo deserved better.
Also, I didn't really quite get who Stross was telling me Mo was. For example, on the one hand, she's this strong woman who's carried that horrible bone violin for eight years and in the process had to be the person who fixed a whole lot of absolutely horrendous situations. She not only witnessed truly awful situations, she had to use her instrument to do beyond horrible things to end incursions from other universes or whatever nightmares she was sent to fix. But she also found a dirty litter box to be "icky" and the cat doing her business made her flee the room. That didn't seem like much of a frightening sight compared to the horrors of the multiverse, dead bodies floating in the air, and other things Mo was having nightmares about. I don't think a male writer would write anything like that about a (middle-aged) male protagonist. The box might have been gross or disgusting and he might not want to deal with his spouse's cat's mess or to watch it take a s*** or piss but the language wouldn't be suddenly infantilized, that's for sure. Mo kills demons, blood and guts give her nightmares, some poop might stink but I don't see it making her Oh Dearing about how icky it is and fleeing the making of such. She's a grown woman! And she said she's have cats before, for that matter. She grew up in a house with cats. So where's the shock from? She's seen it all before, from the making of the stank to the cleaning up of said stank. It's just a dumb scene that made a strong heroine look weak to no purpose. I just didn't quite get the whole character, what he was driving at. I liked the imperfect, human woman who didn't give up and kept driving forward despite her fears and insecurities. I just didn't get who this woman was, she was so different from the Mo as presented in the past. She really didn't have anything to do with music, except to go to some concerts. She gave up teaching without a second thought. She barely seems to care about her marriage or her husband, despite some lip service to the contrary. She's totally reasonable all of the time with Ramona and Mhari and all of the people she works with, where the heck did her temper go? She felt like a totally new character who happened to be named Mo and be living in the house that Bob and his wife live in. Maybe she really was possessed after all and we'll find out in the next book.
It's very disappointing because it should have been a fun book. Superheroes are fun! Mo used to be a witty, cool character. This Mo was a total downer, bitter and mean-spirited. She had reason to be down about a lot of things, but writing it that way didn't make for a good book. And a plot was really weak, she was just screwed around with a lot in the end, and it just turns out to be a bridge book to get things to the last two pages. It was just weak, Mo deserved better.
July 12, 2015
This is an excellent entry in the Laundry series.
Dominique ("Mo") O'Brien, the protagonist of this book, is the wife of Bob Howard who has been the protagonist of the rest of the books in this series. She's a combat epistemologist, a fairly unique job description that only really makes sense in the Laundry universe, and the wielder of a demonic necromantic violin which kills demons (and pretty much anything else).
At this point in the series CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN has been going for 18 months. That's the Laundry codename for the point at which there are so many thinking creatures on Earth that things from other dimensions are taking notice of us. One of the outcomes of this is people are manifesting superpowers and this book is how superheroes and villains get integrated into the Laundry universe. Mo gets her normal cover blown while dealing with a supervillain in a public setting, and thus is tapped by the Laundry to be the public director of a Superpower Coordination department.
If you dislike Charlie's sometimes over-smug writing you probably won't get this far in the series, so that's one major flaw out of the way. What I felt were the two other major flaws here are entwined. If you remember the events of the previous book, Mo is in a bad place. Early on she's hauled in front of the Auditors and her service geas is activated and her "monitor" is queried about her. It answers that she's green in terms of operational status, but her internal status is amber approaching red. The rest of this book is about taking her from amber, to red, to whatever is after red. She completely misses the obvious plot twist (it's too obvious which is another of the flaws), but that makes sense given her mental state.
This whole series is a very delicate balancing act, between the abject horror of Lovecraftian reality, the things that the Laundry people have to do and have done to them to combat that reality and the hilariousness of doing so within a government department that acts like an IT department that practices modern management techniques. Bob Howard, the usual protagonist, has a delightful sense of the absurd in all of that and navigates it all with aplomb. Mo, on the other hand, has always been portrayed as the smarter, more competent one in their partnership. But that comes with a more adult attitude which skews the balance towards the grim, which is the last major flaw with the book in my opinion.
All that being said, Mo's viewpoint is welcome even though grim and deteriorating, and the aftermath of this story to the world of the Laundry should be fascinating and I'll be very interested to see who the protagonist for the next one is going to be.
Dominique ("Mo") O'Brien, the protagonist of this book, is the wife of Bob Howard who has been the protagonist of the rest of the books in this series. She's a combat epistemologist, a fairly unique job description that only really makes sense in the Laundry universe, and the wielder of a demonic necromantic violin which kills demons (and pretty much anything else).
At this point in the series CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN has been going for 18 months. That's the Laundry codename for the point at which there are so many thinking creatures on Earth that things from other dimensions are taking notice of us. One of the outcomes of this is people are manifesting superpowers and this book is how superheroes and villains get integrated into the Laundry universe. Mo gets her normal cover blown while dealing with a supervillain in a public setting, and thus is tapped by the Laundry to be the public director of a Superpower Coordination department.
If you dislike Charlie's sometimes over-smug writing you probably won't get this far in the series, so that's one major flaw out of the way. What I felt were the two other major flaws here are entwined. If you remember the events of the previous book, Mo is in a bad place. Early on she's hauled in front of the Auditors and her service geas is activated and her "monitor" is queried about her. It answers that she's green in terms of operational status, but her internal status is amber approaching red. The rest of this book is about taking her from amber, to red, to whatever is after red. She completely misses the obvious plot twist (it's too obvious which is another of the flaws), but that makes sense given her mental state.
This whole series is a very delicate balancing act, between the abject horror of Lovecraftian reality, the things that the Laundry people have to do and have done to them to combat that reality and the hilariousness of doing so within a government department that acts like an IT department that practices modern management techniques. Bob Howard, the usual protagonist, has a delightful sense of the absurd in all of that and navigates it all with aplomb. Mo, on the other hand, has always been portrayed as the smarter, more competent one in their partnership. But that comes with a more adult attitude which skews the balance towards the grim, which is the last major flaw with the book in my opinion.
All that being said, Mo's viewpoint is welcome even though grim and deteriorating, and the aftermath of this story to the world of the Laundry should be fascinating and I'll be very interested to see who the protagonist for the next one is going to be.
July 4, 2016
Adequate but disappointing. I love the Laundry series and have been anxiously waiting to get my eldritch fix for what seems like forever, but Annihilation Score didn't quite satisfy. The main reason for this is, as the other reviews here point out, is Mo, the protagonist in this story is very unlikable, especially if you are a fan of the series (and, thereby, a fan of Bob).
To be fair to the author, he has been consistent throughout the series in his portrayal of Mo and she has always been self-centered but it was never so obvious because Bob is a nice guy and doesn't dwell on it. But with Mo being the central character, it is really hard (impossible) to cheer her on to victory.
The only redeeming quality to this book, imo, is Mr Stross' continuing stellar (and humorous) job at portraying a Dilbert-esque nightmare bureaucracy in action. Masterful and the only reason I give this one any stars at all.
Having said all of the above, unfortunately, if you are a Laundry fan, you can't skip this book cuz it does advance the overall story arc dramatically. Hopefully the next one will return to Bob's viewpoint and we can see him mature as he manages to get a handle on his new "stuff"...
To be fair to the author, he has been consistent throughout the series in his portrayal of Mo and she has always been self-centered but it was never so obvious because Bob is a nice guy and doesn't dwell on it. But with Mo being the central character, it is really hard (impossible) to cheer her on to victory.
The only redeeming quality to this book, imo, is Mr Stross' continuing stellar (and humorous) job at portraying a Dilbert-esque nightmare bureaucracy in action. Masterful and the only reason I give this one any stars at all.
Having said all of the above, unfortunately, if you are a Laundry fan, you can't skip this book cuz it does advance the overall story arc dramatically. Hopefully the next one will return to Bob's viewpoint and we can see him mature as he manages to get a handle on his new "stuff"...
July 4, 2015
Oddly keen to attend the proms now.
September 3, 2016
I'm a huge fan of Charles Stross' Laundry Files series.
I'm also a critic of it.
When it's good, like The Apocalypse Codex, it's very-very good.
When it's bad, The Jennifer Morgue, it's really bad.
Don't hate me Charlie, it's just my opinion.
Here?
It's kind of weird because the really-really good parts are on display right next to the parts I found troublesome. I had to check myself, as well, because I needed to separate what was upsetting characterization from what is bad writing. Which is to say that the characters do actions which are upsetting to me but, which, are perfectly well-written. As a reader, I am merely an observer after all and need to accept the show is not always going to go the way I want it to.
So, where was I?
Oh yes, this is a very well-written novel. It's also got a premise I don't think jives with the Laundryverse as has been established.
Also, Mo is a terrible person.
She's a great lead, though!
The premise of the Annihilation Score is the saturation of the world with magic by CASE: NIGHTMARE GREEN (the rise of the Great Old Ones) has resulted in people spontaneously developing superpowers across the world. A minority of these people have decided to put on costumes and become superheroes.
This, of course, necessitates a cover-up by the Laundry as they create an artificial Superman Crime Department for Dominque "Mo" O'Brien to head up. Joining her is Bob's ex-girlfriend Mhari and his brief love-interest Ramona. Mo is not in the best position to be doing this start-up as she is struggling with her control over the White Violin, which she named Lecter, that is attempting to seduce her both mentally as well as physically into becoming its prey.
First, the positives. This is a delightfully off-beat premise for a story and the unromantic way which Charles Stross handles superheroes is entertaining even if it hits on the same problems which made me dislike the Jennifer Morgue. Which is, to say, that I like superheroes much the same way I like James Bond and he spends much of the book making fun of them. Still, a lot of what he touches on like the silly costumes for women and inherent right-wing fantasy elements are things I've often complained about myself.
As for Mo as the viewpoint character? She is a well-developed three-dimensional character with a lot of hidden depths. Mo's also extremely self-absorbed, shallow, and selfish. It's rather striking given the amount of puppy-dog devotion Bob Howard shows her in previous entries that Mo doesn't reciprocate. She seems to vaguely hold her husband in contempt, constantly criticizing him and missing his deep personal trauma.
Mo focuses entirely on whether she's getting emotional satisfaction from their marriage and wonders whether or not its salvageable based on the benefits it derives to her. Bob's recent losses both emotional and personal are kind of ignored in favor of her career issues. Speaking as a married man, this is rather horrifying. To be fair, this isn't bad writing. It's just a sharp contrast with Bob's concern about Mo's own emotional health.
The choice to start dating while they're not formally separated is minor compared to the general callousness, in my humble opinion.
I'm a big fan of tying the White Violin to the King in Yellow, Carcosa, and True Detective. I admit, though, it's kind of weird to have a world where the latter is on television while Doctor Mabuse is a real person. I enjoyed the homage to the movie Labyrinth which the White Violin conjures in Mo's dreams even if I felt their encounters had more than a whiff of sexual assault about them. Thankfully, this element is downplayed. The supporting cast in this book is excellent with Mhari, Ramona, Officer Friendly, and others all being excellent.
In conclusion, this is a well-written book but an uncomfortable one and my second least favorite Laundry Files volume.
I'm still picking up the next.
7/10
I'm also a critic of it.
When it's good, like The Apocalypse Codex, it's very-very good.
When it's bad, The Jennifer Morgue, it's really bad.
Don't hate me Charlie, it's just my opinion.
Here?
It's kind of weird because the really-really good parts are on display right next to the parts I found troublesome. I had to check myself, as well, because I needed to separate what was upsetting characterization from what is bad writing. Which is to say that the characters do actions which are upsetting to me but, which, are perfectly well-written. As a reader, I am merely an observer after all and need to accept the show is not always going to go the way I want it to.
So, where was I?
Oh yes, this is a very well-written novel. It's also got a premise I don't think jives with the Laundryverse as has been established.
Also, Mo is a terrible person.
She's a great lead, though!
The premise of the Annihilation Score is the saturation of the world with magic by CASE: NIGHTMARE GREEN (the rise of the Great Old Ones) has resulted in people spontaneously developing superpowers across the world. A minority of these people have decided to put on costumes and become superheroes.
This, of course, necessitates a cover-up by the Laundry as they create an artificial Superman Crime Department for Dominque "Mo" O'Brien to head up. Joining her is Bob's ex-girlfriend Mhari and his brief love-interest Ramona. Mo is not in the best position to be doing this start-up as she is struggling with her control over the White Violin, which she named Lecter, that is attempting to seduce her both mentally as well as physically into becoming its prey.
First, the positives. This is a delightfully off-beat premise for a story and the unromantic way which Charles Stross handles superheroes is entertaining even if it hits on the same problems which made me dislike the Jennifer Morgue. Which is, to say, that I like superheroes much the same way I like James Bond and he spends much of the book making fun of them. Still, a lot of what he touches on like the silly costumes for women and inherent right-wing fantasy elements are things I've often complained about myself.
As for Mo as the viewpoint character? She is a well-developed three-dimensional character with a lot of hidden depths. Mo's also extremely self-absorbed, shallow, and selfish. It's rather striking given the amount of puppy-dog devotion Bob Howard shows her in previous entries that Mo doesn't reciprocate. She seems to vaguely hold her husband in contempt, constantly criticizing him and missing his deep personal trauma.
Mo focuses entirely on whether she's getting emotional satisfaction from their marriage and wonders whether or not its salvageable based on the benefits it derives to her. Bob's recent losses both emotional and personal are kind of ignored in favor of her career issues. Speaking as a married man, this is rather horrifying. To be fair, this isn't bad writing. It's just a sharp contrast with Bob's concern about Mo's own emotional health.
The choice to start dating while they're not formally separated is minor compared to the general callousness, in my humble opinion.
I'm a big fan of tying the White Violin to the King in Yellow, Carcosa, and True Detective. I admit, though, it's kind of weird to have a world where the latter is on television while Doctor Mabuse is a real person. I enjoyed the homage to the movie Labyrinth which the White Violin conjures in Mo's dreams even if I felt their encounters had more than a whiff of sexual assault about them. Thankfully, this element is downplayed. The supporting cast in this book is excellent with Mhari, Ramona, Officer Friendly, and others all being excellent.
In conclusion, this is a well-written book but an uncomfortable one and my second least favorite Laundry Files volume.
I'm still picking up the next.
7/10
February 5, 2017
A very good addition to the series, this book was from Mo's perspective (instead of Bob's) as her life changes direction abruptly - possibly more than once even. Life is unpredictable when you wield a possessed violin made from human bone...
I can't help but notice that many of the lower ratings are from men and have to wonder a bit about that, what with this book having a strong female protagonist. :/
I can't help but notice that many of the lower ratings are from men and have to wonder a bit about that, what with this book having a strong female protagonist. :/
July 17, 2015
4.5 stars
Paperwork, procedures, politics - saving the world is fun, right?
If superheroes were real, but appearing almost randomly in the population, and the civil service needed to get a handle on it, I suspect it might look very much like this. If you've ever wondered why movie heroes all get a sudden urge for Lycra, this proves you're not alone...
The narrator is a middle-aged woman who's been inflicted with (or trusted with) a weaponized maniacal violin which may or may not be trying to kill her husband (and her, and everyone else. While taking over the world). The role of superhero is a lot less interesting when you start talking about liabilities, vigilantism, lawsuits and procedural errors.
From the jargon-infested acronyms (PHANG) to the politically correct way to handle a mermaid and with a sprinkling of footnotes a la Terry Pratchett, the humorous and blunt style will also delight fans of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. (I may be the only one making a mental connection between a Lecter and another Bob though. And I love the asides and snide commentary.)
This was my first glimpse of this world, but I plunged right in. It's often hard to pick a book up mid-series, but the deft framework ensured I had a sense of previous adventures without the feeling that I had no idea what was going on. (That said, I'm definitely going to go back and start reading from book 1; it'll be a year or so before there's another new installment, but this is going on my "Series to follow" list!)
A great fun read, as proven by the excerpts I was compelled to read out loud. Can't wait for more!
Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Paperwork, procedures, politics - saving the world is fun, right?
If superheroes were real, but appearing almost randomly in the population, and the civil service needed to get a handle on it, I suspect it might look very much like this. If you've ever wondered why movie heroes all get a sudden urge for Lycra, this proves you're not alone...
The narrator is a middle-aged woman who's been inflicted with (or trusted with) a weaponized maniacal violin which may or may not be trying to kill her husband (and her, and everyone else. While taking over the world). The role of superhero is a lot less interesting when you start talking about liabilities, vigilantism, lawsuits and procedural errors.
From the jargon-infested acronyms (PHANG) to the politically correct way to handle a mermaid and with a sprinkling of footnotes a la Terry Pratchett, the humorous and blunt style will also delight fans of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. (I may be the only one making a mental connection between a Lecter and another Bob though. And I love the asides and snide commentary.)
This was my first glimpse of this world, but I plunged right in. It's often hard to pick a book up mid-series, but the deft framework ensured I had a sense of previous adventures without the feeling that I had no idea what was going on. (That said, I'm definitely going to go back and start reading from book 1; it'll be a year or so before there's another new installment, but this is going on my "Series to follow" list!)
A great fun read, as proven by the excerpts I was compelled to read out loud. Can't wait for more!
Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
July 15, 2015
I have read each and every 'Laundry' novel and loved every minute of them....until this one. I don't mind the fact that it's not a Bob book; the previous novels always left me wanting to hear more about the reasonably mysterious AGENT CANDID. Unfortunately this is where the story falls down. Mo goes from being a badass James Bond secret agent with a fully relatable and multi-dimensional human side to a thinly drawn, self obsessed, hypocritical and thoroughly unlikeable character. The end of the book merely left me feeling sad for Bob and hoping he would divorce her at the earliest opportunity.
The whole thing left me feeling rather cold - I have seen that Mr Stross is active in the twitter sphere et al with the ongoing issue of 'Social Justice' and this stance is strongly reflected in the novel; disparaging comments towards men in general and comic book fandom in particular are par for the course - I was surprised not to see a reference to 'Gamergate' in there in fact. The way Mo treats Bob is appalling - furious at him because he was in a position to cheat on her but didn't (Which she knows), she then goes ahead and wilfully heads a lot further down that road herself. Her general disdain of Bob is unreasonable and out of character given the previous novels.
The plot regarding the 'King in yellow' also seems like a mis-step - tagged on at the least minute to turn a tale of superpowers and bureaucratic in-fighting into a palpable 'CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN' style threat. It didn't really gel with the rest of the plot and the foreshadowing was poorly done.
Overall a disappointing novel which ruins the character of Mo, adds very little in the way of depth to the world of the laundry and is overpowered by the Authors politics.
The whole thing left me feeling rather cold - I have seen that Mr Stross is active in the twitter sphere et al with the ongoing issue of 'Social Justice' and this stance is strongly reflected in the novel; disparaging comments towards men in general and comic book fandom in particular are par for the course - I was surprised not to see a reference to 'Gamergate' in there in fact. The way Mo treats Bob is appalling - furious at him because he was in a position to cheat on her but didn't (Which she knows), she then goes ahead and wilfully heads a lot further down that road herself. Her general disdain of Bob is unreasonable and out of character given the previous novels.
The plot regarding the 'King in yellow' also seems like a mis-step - tagged on at the least minute to turn a tale of superpowers and bureaucratic in-fighting into a palpable 'CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN' style threat. It didn't really gel with the rest of the plot and the foreshadowing was poorly done.
Overall a disappointing novel which ruins the character of Mo, adds very little in the way of depth to the world of the laundry and is overpowered by the Authors politics.
August 26, 2015
A crushing disappointment. Some excellent snark and a hilarious send-up of corporate culture saved this book from a two-star review, but I can't get past Mo. She's extremely well written and pretty believable as a character, which just makes my problem with her worse: I hate her. I don't know if the author is a misogynist or is so pro-feminist he's post-feminist (e.g., he's celebrating the fact that women are finally breaking through the glass ceiling enough that we're getting a gender-reversed example of Mo turning into an insecure Mad Men-style mid-level exec who dumps his wife when she starts to out-earn him...?), but I couldn't sympathize with her enough to stop desperately wishing Spooky would grow tentacles in the night and just chew her face off once and for all.
Bob, you can do better.
Bob, you can do better.
July 16, 2015
I looked forward to another Laundry book but I just really dislike Mo. I have a hard time understanding why the other characters within this world (the laundry) would find her someone they would like. She came across to me as very unpleasant. I was frankly hoping it would end up being a tragedy where the violin gets her in the end no pun intended. I've re read all the other for fun but I don't have that draw to this one. Sorry but I wasn't impressed
September 28, 2025
I like Mo, OK. I really do. And I find her an interesting character. But I rode 5 books with Bob and prefer his narration. I'm all for different perspectives and all, but I found this one to be fun but not as fun as Rhesus Chart just before. Maybe there'll be a bigger payoff later. I think Alex narrates the next one...do you guys like Mo as a narrator here?
July 15, 2015
I loved it. There's so much here that writing a review has been a challenge I've put off for several days. I've loved Stross's Laundry Files for years, but often more as an abstraction than as actual books: more than a few have fallen flat for me. And, I confess, I've had a huge crush on Mo forever, and wanted to know more about her and her demon-slaying bone violin. So it was with quite a bit of both eagerness and trepidation that I approached this book.
It's *great,* Stross's best in years. Writing from Mo's perspective seems to have curbed Stross's shortcomings and forced on him - or just evidenced - a maturity often not on display particularly when writing from series hero Bob Howard's perspective as a Gen X net-culture Peter Pan reluctantly coming to terms with responsibility. Mo is a grownup, and self-aware (mostly), and ferociously responsible - as she has a ferocious responsibility as the carrier of that violin.
Much of Stross's work is based on taking a fictional trope and giving it a real-world stress-test, from "medieval fantasy world's chosen one raised in the present as a foundling" to the Moore-era Bond villain to vampirism. Here he takes on superheroes. His approach is delightful, ranging from getting costume designs past milspec and health-and-safety to team interviews reminiscent of the "Fired X-Men" videos.
The Laundry Files, beyond the core notion of combining computer programming and Lovecraftian horror, are a particularly British genre of "comedy of bureaucracy." Having lived subject to British bureaucracy for a couple years, I've found it a lot funnier than I had in the past, but it's still a fairly alien world. If you work in a bureaucratic environment, you may enjoy the humor more than I do.
The five-star rating is mostly for glee: if I were honest, I'd take off a star for some shortcomings. The biggest one is that it should have been obvious to all that the Big Bad's endgame was to get the violin in play. That everyone glossed over that up to the last minute seemed like a reversal of Stross's usual sin of over-complicating his plots. And, the Big Bad's superhero name was both transparent and profoundly off-point, it seemed to me. Finally, there was an odd trope that went nowhere, of middle-aged (Mo is in her early 40s) women of being "socially invisible."
But all in all, Mo is a great SF heroine, grownup, not idealized, steady of purpose and bearing a terrible burden. My crush is bigger than ever, and I hope we get to see a lot more of her.
It's *great,* Stross's best in years. Writing from Mo's perspective seems to have curbed Stross's shortcomings and forced on him - or just evidenced - a maturity often not on display particularly when writing from series hero Bob Howard's perspective as a Gen X net-culture Peter Pan reluctantly coming to terms with responsibility. Mo is a grownup, and self-aware (mostly), and ferociously responsible - as she has a ferocious responsibility as the carrier of that violin.
Much of Stross's work is based on taking a fictional trope and giving it a real-world stress-test, from "medieval fantasy world's chosen one raised in the present as a foundling" to the Moore-era Bond villain to vampirism. Here he takes on superheroes. His approach is delightful, ranging from getting costume designs past milspec and health-and-safety to team interviews reminiscent of the "Fired X-Men" videos.
The Laundry Files, beyond the core notion of combining computer programming and Lovecraftian horror, are a particularly British genre of "comedy of bureaucracy." Having lived subject to British bureaucracy for a couple years, I've found it a lot funnier than I had in the past, but it's still a fairly alien world. If you work in a bureaucratic environment, you may enjoy the humor more than I do.
The five-star rating is mostly for glee: if I were honest, I'd take off a star for some shortcomings. The biggest one is that it should have been obvious to all that the Big Bad's endgame was to get the violin in play. That everyone glossed over that up to the last minute seemed like a reversal of Stross's usual sin of over-complicating his plots. And, the Big Bad's superhero name was both transparent and profoundly off-point, it seemed to me. Finally, there was an odd trope that went nowhere, of middle-aged (Mo is in her early 40s) women of being "socially invisible."
But all in all, Mo is a great SF heroine, grownup, not idealized, steady of purpose and bearing a terrible burden. My crush is bigger than ever, and I hope we get to see a lot more of her.
December 30, 2015
I really wanted to like this book. I love this series to death, but this novel has so many problems. First, the plot continues the trend of getting less Lovecraftian and less interesting that the previous books suffered from. The entire super hero plot straight up abandons all that made the original Laundry Files great. Worse, Mo absolutely sucks in this novel.
I like Mo. Mo was a neat character. She is a scary bad ass with a crazy demonic violin. You get only glimpses of her in the other novels, but they are welcomed glimpses when you do. This novel destroys Mo as an interesting human. It relegates her abilities to administrative work and fighting with her violin in a very boring way. It was better when her full talents were a mystery. Knowing the boring inner workings of the violin was worse than leaving me to imagine them. When Mo isn't infrequently pointing her violin at stuff, she is doing administrative work. She apparently is utterly useless without the violin. Way to turn an interesting bad ass into a glorified secretary with one worthwhile weapon and barely the wits to use it.
Worse than making Mo an unskilled hack, they made her personality awful and boring. She is basically talks in the same cynical voice as Bob, but without the wit or humor. Her personality consists of swooning after big boring muscle guy, complaining about being invisible, and being tired from doing too much really boring administrative work. She has not a drop of wit or humor. She is just a bland and tired complainer who happens to have a bad ass and now very boring weapon.
Stross was trying to make Mo her own person that exists when Bob isn't around, and he utterly failed. I understand what Stross was going for, and I like the concept of fleshing or Mo into her own person, but he failed miserably. He took an interesting and likable character and made her utterly bland and boring. Uhg.
This mess is a dumb and boring plot that trashes all the fun Lovecraftian elements that makes the Laundry Files great, and it destroys what was once an interesting character. Give this one pass and hope that Stross finds his muse again. I would hate to see this great series end on such a flat note.
I like Mo. Mo was a neat character. She is a scary bad ass with a crazy demonic violin. You get only glimpses of her in the other novels, but they are welcomed glimpses when you do. This novel destroys Mo as an interesting human. It relegates her abilities to administrative work and fighting with her violin in a very boring way. It was better when her full talents were a mystery. Knowing the boring inner workings of the violin was worse than leaving me to imagine them. When Mo isn't infrequently pointing her violin at stuff, she is doing administrative work. She apparently is utterly useless without the violin. Way to turn an interesting bad ass into a glorified secretary with one worthwhile weapon and barely the wits to use it.
Worse than making Mo an unskilled hack, they made her personality awful and boring. She is basically talks in the same cynical voice as Bob, but without the wit or humor. Her personality consists of swooning after big boring muscle guy, complaining about being invisible, and being tired from doing too much really boring administrative work. She has not a drop of wit or humor. She is just a bland and tired complainer who happens to have a bad ass and now very boring weapon.
Stross was trying to make Mo her own person that exists when Bob isn't around, and he utterly failed. I understand what Stross was going for, and I like the concept of fleshing or Mo into her own person, but he failed miserably. He took an interesting and likable character and made her utterly bland and boring. Uhg.
This mess is a dumb and boring plot that trashes all the fun Lovecraftian elements that makes the Laundry Files great, and it destroys what was once an interesting character. Give this one pass and hope that Stross finds his muse again. I would hate to see this great series end on such a flat note.
July 5, 2015
Charles Stross is a prolific author, and it's his Laundry Files that I enjoy most. Set in a secret goverment department that deals with all things "weird" they're almost Lovecraftian comedies, with a very British slant.
This one takes a decidedly darker turn. The overall arc of the stories continues (CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN) and this novel starts, or kind of overlaps, the end of the previous, The Rhesus Chart. The big news is that it's point of view is now Mo, not Bob Howard, and her violin...
Fans of Stross or The Laundry will love it, just enough to bite your teeth into, and just enough to make you uncomfortable at times. It still takes the piss out of bureaucracy, especially the genius idea of creating a fake government department (to deal with an epidemic of superheroes) to draw attention from a real secret department department. The mix of comedy, horror, and deep dark marital depression is perfect here.
5/5 - it'd be a crime not to.
This one takes a decidedly darker turn. The overall arc of the stories continues (CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN) and this novel starts, or kind of overlaps, the end of the previous, The Rhesus Chart. The big news is that it's point of view is now Mo, not Bob Howard, and her violin...
Fans of Stross or The Laundry will love it, just enough to bite your teeth into, and just enough to make you uncomfortable at times. It still takes the piss out of bureaucracy, especially the genius idea of creating a fake government department (to deal with an epidemic of superheroes) to draw attention from a real secret department department. The mix of comedy, horror, and deep dark marital depression is perfect here.
5/5 - it'd be a crime not to.
April 18, 2022
I've no idea why there's been a five year gap between me reading the previous Laundry book, The Rhesus Chart, and this one. I know that last one was a lot - end of the world barely averted, and at huge cost - but I guess it just got put aside. I also seem to remember Stross saying that he was thinking of bringing the series to an end, so I didn't want to rush through those that remained.
Stross is one of my favourite authors, and doesn't disappoint. This is the first of the series that is not told from the viewpoint of IT Support Professional and Computational Demonologist Bob Howard - instead, while Bob is running around clearing up the various messes left by his predecessor, we follow Mo O'Brien, Bob's wife and fellow Section Q employee, combat magician, music lecturer and wielder of possibly the only remaining Erich Zahn violin, created from the bones of tortured murder-victims to house a demonic soul.
The narrative interweaves Mo being promoted to head a new department and dealing with these difficulties along with the strains on their marriage, all while the nation is becoming aware of random people developing strange and powerful abilities.
The first few books in the series were each a pastiche of a particular espionage style - Len Deighton, Ian Fleming, etc - while pitting the British Civil Service against Unspeakable Lovecraftian Entities from Beyond Time. He's introduced more mythic creatures into the mix while connecting them with the basic premise - mermaids are connected to the Deep Ones, of course, and in The Rhesus Chart we met vampires, whose abilities and weaknesses are caused by quantum viruses.
In the Annihilation Score, the sudden and unexplained powers suddenly appearing are, due to the pop-cultural dominance of Marvel movies and the like, seen by those who have them as superpowers, so Stross bring superheroes in. The fact that he can pull this off and have it make sense really is a great indication of his skill as a writer.
Along with great plotting and characterisation - and the fact that the characters really do grow and develop and behave like humans - make this a great read.
Glad to be back on the Laundry train, with a couple of books still to go. I won't leave it another five years.
Stross is one of my favourite authors, and doesn't disappoint. This is the first of the series that is not told from the viewpoint of IT Support Professional and Computational Demonologist Bob Howard - instead, while Bob is running around clearing up the various messes left by his predecessor, we follow Mo O'Brien, Bob's wife and fellow Section Q employee, combat magician, music lecturer and wielder of possibly the only remaining Erich Zahn violin, created from the bones of tortured murder-victims to house a demonic soul.
The narrative interweaves Mo being promoted to head a new department and dealing with these difficulties along with the strains on their marriage, all while the nation is becoming aware of random people developing strange and powerful abilities.
The first few books in the series were each a pastiche of a particular espionage style - Len Deighton, Ian Fleming, etc - while pitting the British Civil Service against Unspeakable Lovecraftian Entities from Beyond Time. He's introduced more mythic creatures into the mix while connecting them with the basic premise - mermaids are connected to the Deep Ones, of course, and in The Rhesus Chart we met vampires, whose abilities and weaknesses are caused by quantum viruses.
In the Annihilation Score, the sudden and unexplained powers suddenly appearing are, due to the pop-cultural dominance of Marvel movies and the like, seen by those who have them as superpowers, so Stross bring superheroes in. The fact that he can pull this off and have it make sense really is a great indication of his skill as a writer.
Along with great plotting and characterisation - and the fact that the characters really do grow and develop and behave like humans - make this a great read.
Glad to be back on the Laundry train, with a couple of books still to go. I won't leave it another five years.
July 12, 2015
I've read the book's first half. I'll read the rest, and I hope I won't regret finishing it.
I hope for two things in the next book. First, that Mr. Stross returns to paying homage to Len Deighton or John le Carré. I don't what author inspired this book nor its predecessor, and I wish I did. They belong on my do-not-read list. Second, that he eases up on the H. P. Lovecraft bashing. The man had feet of clay, we get it. We got it in Equoid. So did Poe. Both of them tower over the genre regardless of modern ingratitude.
Failing those, I wish Stross would turn his talents at genre-blending to Harry Potter fan-fiction. J.K. Rowling drew inspiration from Henry Fielding and his book The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. I'd gladly read Mr. Stross doing the same "school for magic" variant with inspiration from George MacDonald Fraser and his Royal Flash.
I hope for two things in the next book. First, that Mr. Stross returns to paying homage to Len Deighton or John le Carré. I don't what author inspired this book nor its predecessor, and I wish I did. They belong on my do-not-read list. Second, that he eases up on the H. P. Lovecraft bashing. The man had feet of clay, we get it. We got it in Equoid. So did Poe. Both of them tower over the genre regardless of modern ingratitude.
Failing those, I wish Stross would turn his talents at genre-blending to Harry Potter fan-fiction. J.K. Rowling drew inspiration from Henry Fielding and his book The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. I'd gladly read Mr. Stross doing the same "school for magic" variant with inspiration from George MacDonald Fraser and his Royal Flash.
February 6, 2017
From the start, I wasn't thrilled to have this new book from the viewpoint of Mo rather than Bob. I've seen a number of different series try that viewpoint-shifting in the middle, and it rarely works. Here, I did enjoy seeing a bit more about Mo, but her viewpoint just wasn't as interesting. Worse, I came to like Mo less and less as she actively betrayed Bob over the course of the book. When you put together an unwanted, uninteresting, and unlikeable protagonist ... you start to have a problem.
As for the rest ...
Yeah, I know the Laundry has paid homage to quite a few different writers in its past volumes. But to suddenly shift to superheroes!? Who thought that was a good idea!? (Charles Stross.) The shift left me with a constant feeling of cognitive dissonance. I came in to read The Laundry 6 and instead got the Avengers 3 and it felt wrong.
By the end of the book, I was fiercely hoping that Mo would wake up in the shower, and discover that everything was a violin-induced nightmare. Though that would ruin this individual book, as least it wouldn't ruin the entire series, as Super-Laundry was threatening to.
In the end, the book is (barely) saved by the last 30 pages, which are classic Laundry, instead of the unwanted superhero stuff that we were getting for the rest of the book. Still, this wasn't a book that I wanted in the Laundry series, and I hope that it's largely ignored afterward, else I might be done with the series myself.
As for the rest ...
Yeah, I know the Laundry has paid homage to quite a few different writers in its past volumes. But to suddenly shift to superheroes!? Who thought that was a good idea!? (Charles Stross.) The shift left me with a constant feeling of cognitive dissonance. I came in to read The Laundry 6 and instead got the Avengers 3 and it felt wrong.
By the end of the book, I was fiercely hoping that Mo would wake up in the shower, and discover that everything was a violin-induced nightmare. Though that would ruin this individual book, as least it wouldn't ruin the entire series, as Super-Laundry was threatening to.
In the end, the book is (barely) saved by the last 30 pages, which are classic Laundry, instead of the unwanted superhero stuff that we were getting for the rest of the book. Still, this wasn't a book that I wanted in the Laundry series, and I hope that it's largely ignored afterward, else I might be done with the series myself.
November 9, 2021
This was a thoroughly disappointing and generally terrible book.
I like the series, and when I saw that the story's main character was Mo, the normal main character's (Bob's) wife, who often sallies forth at the end of the books to save Bob with her magical violin, I was optimistic.
However, it was not to be. First of all, the dynamic between Bob and Mo is that they have different personalities, and Mo especially has a job that strains her to the max, and their differences are what help keep her grounded in her high stress supernatural secret agent assassin job. However, in this book, Mo was written as a female Bob, with the same ADHD frenetic energy and drive.
But, and this is the really bad part, the author's method of turning a character female is to make her flaky in relationships, really focus in there about her makeup regimen and how many sets of clothes she has, cheat on her husband, and generally be terrible at everything all the time. She lets herself get mansplained so many times, at the tail end they even gave it to her as a freaking superpower.
As for the plot, it was also terrible. It starts off by rehashing the end of the last book, then telling us that, "Oh yeah, didn't we mention? There are superheroes now." Superpowered people are cropping up because the stars are aligning just right (blah blah, this used to be a mixture of computer stuff and Lovecraft mythos, but I guess we're taking a break). So, people are getting superpowers, and they're taking the form they think they should have based on public perception, which in this case means the Marvel comic movies , and they want Mo to create and take charge of a new unit to deal with supervillians, by creating super hero teams to A: combat the villains directly, B: get the more powerful supers under direct government control and C: create a good role model for emerging supers.
Even before Mo is roped into this, a supervillain emerges. It turns out to be... not a supervillain exactly, but a rogue group of cops! They had a scheme to use Mo's violin to mind rape Britain into following their orders, not realizing that, aside from being an evil act on its own, would kill everyone by leaving them open to alien entities called 'feeders' that would eat their brains out, a side effect of magic in this universe that they would be opened to. At this point, Mo's violin tried to take over the world, and the violin was tackled away from her.
It's a real problem that this book can be summed up as 'A bunch of bad stuff happens to Mo, and she's too weak to take care of herself'. Come on! She's the one who takes care of business!
Problems:
1: Mo is written as a hyperactive autistic dishrag. She lets men in her life jerk her around, and they don't get their comeuppance, either.
2: Mo is weak. She has zero control over her violin, and despite a line in there stating that she was well on her way to being able to 'take care of herself' without her magic violin, we've never, ever, seen any evidence of this, nor do we here. Prove it, Stross.
3: Mo wonders how her people are going to overcome having their brains continually being eaten by the Feeders, but never does anything about it.
4: Mo is upgraded to Senior Auditor at the end for no good reason. The whole point of the Senior Auditors is that they're all super sorcerers, and she has no arcane powers of her own anymore. And if she did, she'd get her brain eaten by the feeders. In fact, she's vulnerable to that already because of her 'being ignored' superpower.
5: The author wrote up the sexual harassment and blatant misogyny that Mo experienced as a god damned superpower.
6: The entire book was just a list of exceedingly boring meetings, one after another... This was seriously 95% of the book! The few times there were action, it was usually not Mo doing anything.
7: Even a random shmo could make a better superhero team than Mo did. She just sat on her butt for months! Then Mo goes along with it when they decide to make the 'superheroes' into regular police somehow. Lame!
8: So, they're trying to find this specific supervillain... and one day they discover that an entire subway station has been sealed off by perfectly placed stainless steel! Look, I realize that the book took a different tack at the end, but at this point everyone should have been all "Holy Bollocks, this is the work of our supervillain! We're breaking through this instant! Officer Friendly, punch the hell out of this thing!" Instead they leave, and a couple of weeks later they're told it was just some missing paperwork. Weeks! What the hell were they doing all that time?
9: We never find out the full story about what happens at the end. I guess some people died, but some people got the feeders in them, but lived? The heck? These damned things are written as if they're action reports, so there's no reason not to have that in there.
10: After an entire book of Mo slowly writing off her marriage to Bob and getting more romantic with the superpowered, influential, well off, and charismatic Jim, she's just told to 'work things out with Bob'.
11: Hey, Bob died for real when he the whole "Eater of Souls" thing happened... and might still be dead? Are they even really married anymore?
12: Are they pretending that the violin is gone for good, when anyone with the right computer program can pop open a portal to that same world and grab it again?
13: Stross is really playing fast and loose with his mythos. Before, we got alternate worlds destroyed by CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, or where the nazis took over and lasered Hitler's face in the moon, or what not. This time, the King in Yellow had a city on earth like Atlantis, but it was destroyed, but also somehow existed in an alternate place with two weird moons, but also also somehow created music in our world and later got someone to make evil violins?
14: Oh yeah, they only ever found one real supervillain! He could effect people's minds, and they had him in their office. They had him beat, then let him go. That was super, super dumb.
15: And another thing! At one point, as a red herring, the creepy Senior Auditor asked Mo if she could be sure that Officer Friendly was really Jim. He was worried that it could just be random people in super power armor, which evidently is being made with alien tech by multiple arms dealers. Mo worried about this for months! It's stupid because earlier in this same book she showed us that her violin is a freaking tricorder that can track life signs and read souls! How about... just use that?
So TL;DR... The usual main character, Bob, usually has adventures, and gets saved by Mo at the end. But, Bob has gotten incrementally more powerful with each book. So, to keep the same dynamic, the author had to power up Mo too. Unfortunately, he built her up to be the leader of a super hero team, then yanked it away at the last minute and made her a powerless 'auditor' instead. In so doing, he damseled her, and subjected her to misogyny and sexual harassment, and she just had to take it. Screw you Stross!
But why? My theory is that when he was planning Mo's powerup, he wanted it to be similar to Bob's. Bob got a physical powerup, but also made a big deal about getting into the management track at work. He not only replaced his boss Angleton as 'Eater of Souls', he got his pay grade too. Stross started this book by hamfistedly breaking Mo's cover and getting her into a position where she immediately got a triple promotion. Then, after trying to write his equivalent of putting together the Justice League, but accidentally writing hundreds of pages of boring meetings, infidelity, dream rape, and lame britishisms, he cut his losses, made it all about the evil violin at the last minute, threw in a new mystical baddie, and completely ruined Mo (took away her useful magic, gave her a superpower she can't turn off that'll eat her brain)... then gave her another promotion anyway.
A better version would have been to make the damned team in the first week, actually seen some of these thousands of other supers at some point, done something with that, then at the end - she uses her super mystical music powers to dominate her violin and turn it good, or at least bend it to her will for good. Or make a new violin that isn't evil. That would have been much better.
I'm sorry Mo. You're very poorly written.
Update: The next book in the series also follows a different main character, this time one of the random vampires from a couple of books ago...
I like the series, and when I saw that the story's main character was Mo, the normal main character's (Bob's) wife, who often sallies forth at the end of the books to save Bob with her magical violin, I was optimistic.
However, it was not to be. First of all, the dynamic between Bob and Mo is that they have different personalities, and Mo especially has a job that strains her to the max, and their differences are what help keep her grounded in her high stress supernatural secret agent assassin job. However, in this book, Mo was written as a female Bob, with the same ADHD frenetic energy and drive.
But, and this is the really bad part, the author's method of turning a character female is to make her flaky in relationships, really focus in there about her makeup regimen and how many sets of clothes she has, cheat on her husband, and generally be terrible at everything all the time. She lets herself get mansplained so many times, at the tail end they even gave it to her as a freaking superpower.
As for the plot, it was also terrible. It starts off by rehashing the end of the last book, then telling us that, "Oh yeah, didn't we mention? There are superheroes now." Superpowered people are cropping up because the stars are aligning just right (blah blah, this used to be a mixture of computer stuff and Lovecraft mythos, but I guess we're taking a break). So, people are getting superpowers, and they're taking the form they think they should have based on public perception, which in this case means the Marvel comic movies , and they want Mo to create and take charge of a new unit to deal with supervillians, by creating super hero teams to A: combat the villains directly, B: get the more powerful supers under direct government control and C: create a good role model for emerging supers.
Even before Mo is roped into this, a supervillain emerges. It turns out to be... not a supervillain exactly, but a rogue group of cops! They had a scheme to use Mo's violin to mind rape Britain into following their orders, not realizing that, aside from being an evil act on its own, would kill everyone by leaving them open to alien entities called 'feeders' that would eat their brains out, a side effect of magic in this universe that they would be opened to. At this point, Mo's violin tried to take over the world, and the violin was tackled away from her.
It's a real problem that this book can be summed up as 'A bunch of bad stuff happens to Mo, and she's too weak to take care of herself'. Come on! She's the one who takes care of business!
Problems:
1: Mo is written as a hyperactive autistic dishrag. She lets men in her life jerk her around, and they don't get their comeuppance, either.
2: Mo is weak. She has zero control over her violin, and despite a line in there stating that she was well on her way to being able to 'take care of herself' without her magic violin, we've never, ever, seen any evidence of this, nor do we here. Prove it, Stross.
3: Mo wonders how her people are going to overcome having their brains continually being eaten by the Feeders, but never does anything about it.
4: Mo is upgraded to Senior Auditor at the end for no good reason. The whole point of the Senior Auditors is that they're all super sorcerers, and she has no arcane powers of her own anymore. And if she did, she'd get her brain eaten by the feeders. In fact, she's vulnerable to that already because of her 'being ignored' superpower.
5: The author wrote up the sexual harassment and blatant misogyny that Mo experienced as a god damned superpower.
6: The entire book was just a list of exceedingly boring meetings, one after another... This was seriously 95% of the book! The few times there were action, it was usually not Mo doing anything.
7: Even a random shmo could make a better superhero team than Mo did. She just sat on her butt for months! Then Mo goes along with it when they decide to make the 'superheroes' into regular police somehow. Lame!
8: So, they're trying to find this specific supervillain... and one day they discover that an entire subway station has been sealed off by perfectly placed stainless steel! Look, I realize that the book took a different tack at the end, but at this point everyone should have been all "Holy Bollocks, this is the work of our supervillain! We're breaking through this instant! Officer Friendly, punch the hell out of this thing!" Instead they leave, and a couple of weeks later they're told it was just some missing paperwork. Weeks! What the hell were they doing all that time?
9: We never find out the full story about what happens at the end. I guess some people died, but some people got the feeders in them, but lived? The heck? These damned things are written as if they're action reports, so there's no reason not to have that in there.
10: After an entire book of Mo slowly writing off her marriage to Bob and getting more romantic with the superpowered, influential, well off, and charismatic Jim, she's just told to 'work things out with Bob'.
11: Hey, Bob died for real when he the whole "Eater of Souls" thing happened... and might still be dead? Are they even really married anymore?
12: Are they pretending that the violin is gone for good, when anyone with the right computer program can pop open a portal to that same world and grab it again?
13: Stross is really playing fast and loose with his mythos. Before, we got alternate worlds destroyed by CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, or where the nazis took over and lasered Hitler's face in the moon, or what not. This time, the King in Yellow had a city on earth like Atlantis, but it was destroyed, but also somehow existed in an alternate place with two weird moons, but also also somehow created music in our world and later got someone to make evil violins?
14: Oh yeah, they only ever found one real supervillain! He could effect people's minds, and they had him in their office. They had him beat, then let him go. That was super, super dumb.
15: And another thing! At one point, as a red herring, the creepy Senior Auditor asked Mo if she could be sure that Officer Friendly was really Jim. He was worried that it could just be random people in super power armor, which evidently is being made with alien tech by multiple arms dealers. Mo worried about this for months! It's stupid because earlier in this same book she showed us that her violin is a freaking tricorder that can track life signs and read souls! How about... just use that?
So TL;DR... The usual main character, Bob, usually has adventures, and gets saved by Mo at the end. But, Bob has gotten incrementally more powerful with each book. So, to keep the same dynamic, the author had to power up Mo too. Unfortunately, he built her up to be the leader of a super hero team, then yanked it away at the last minute and made her a powerless 'auditor' instead. In so doing, he damseled her, and subjected her to misogyny and sexual harassment, and she just had to take it. Screw you Stross!
But why? My theory is that when he was planning Mo's powerup, he wanted it to be similar to Bob's. Bob got a physical powerup, but also made a big deal about getting into the management track at work. He not only replaced his boss Angleton as 'Eater of Souls', he got his pay grade too. Stross started this book by hamfistedly breaking Mo's cover and getting her into a position where she immediately got a triple promotion. Then, after trying to write his equivalent of putting together the Justice League, but accidentally writing hundreds of pages of boring meetings, infidelity, dream rape, and lame britishisms, he cut his losses, made it all about the evil violin at the last minute, threw in a new mystical baddie, and completely ruined Mo (took away her useful magic, gave her a superpower she can't turn off that'll eat her brain)... then gave her another promotion anyway.
A better version would have been to make the damned team in the first week, actually seen some of these thousands of other supers at some point, done something with that, then at the end - she uses her super mystical music powers to dominate her violin and turn it good, or at least bend it to her will for good. Or make a new violin that isn't evil. That would have been much better.
I'm sorry Mo. You're very poorly written.
Update: The next book in the series also follows a different main character, this time one of the random vampires from a couple of books ago...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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