The Fuller Memorandum

Laundry Files #3

by Charles Stross

Computational demonologist Bob Howard catches up on filing in the Laundry archives when the top secret Fuller Memorandum vanishes - and his boss, suspected of stealing the file. Bob faces Russian agents, ancient demons, a maniacal death cult, and finding the missing memorandum before the world disappears next.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Urban Fantasy, Fiction, Audiobook, Humor

312 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2010

About the author

Charles 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...

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read 3/27/18:

Buddy reads, total fascination with the storyline and reading this multiple times and STILL getting over-enthusiastic about the orgy of nerdy Lovecraftian bureaucracy? Maybe it's just right for me and I've grown into it so much that I can't destiny disentangle myself any longer. :)

Or perhaps I'm just coming to deeply appreciate this series even more than I did when I first read them. It's all connected, man! :) So I'm upping a star. :)

I'll try not to spoil here, but the fact is... I'm a total fanboy. Bob is my nerdtastic hero. And his boss? Can I have a crush on a DSS? I suppose I can, but that's deeply scary. :)


Original Review:

Such a beautiful thing to be the Eater of Souls. I truly enjoy departmental cockups in lit, and when it all goes pear-shaped, I go all teary-eyed. Maybe if I try to get on the fast-track, I, too, can be an immortal monster determined to defend the Upper-Middle-Class English Lifestyle. We can only hope.

[carol. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bob Howard is having a rough week. His boss has ordered him out to a distant airfield to deal with a supernatural containment issue and in the course of the exorcism, things go very awry. Placed on administrative leave, he’d be at loose ends–except that his boss Angleton gave him an assignment, deputized him for top-secret project BLOODY BARON and has subsequently disappeared. Within short order, his wife Mo is sent on a quick mission-CLUB ZERO–only to return shell-shocked. Even worse, the Russians are sniffing around and there might be a mole in The Laundry. When Bob and Mo are attacked in their home, events start escalating quickly.

If I found the first Laundry files book, The Atrocity Archives (review) somewhat unfriendly with tech-speak, The Fuller Memorandum has become far more accessible. Snarky commentary is scattered fast and furious and ranges far beyond physics and computers. I ‘snerked’ rather often in the first third (that noise you make when you are not-quite soundlessly laughing to yourself), enjoying Bob’s take on:

iPhones (referred to as JesusPhones): “‘Oh, Bob. Don’t you know any better?’
‘It was at least a class four glamour,’ I say defensively, resisting the urge to hunch my shoulders and hiss preciousss. ‘And I needed a new phone anyway.‘”

Lovecraftian horrors: “These things are never terribly good at coordinating a tensegrity structure like a mammalian musculoskeletal system: even when they’re in the driving seat they’re trying to work a manual transmission with automatic-only training.“

attempts to scare him: “I’m sure it’s all very eerie, but when reality starts to imitate a second-rate computer game you know the bad guys have over-egged the pudding… It’s the sort of tactic that might stand a chance of working if I was a little less cynical…”

PowerPoint: “The last time I saw him, he was on what I was sure was a one-way trip to a padded cell for the rest of his life after sitting through one PowerPoint slide too many at a certain meeting in Darmstadt“

On communism inhibiting advances in coping with the supernatural in Russia: “Proximate results: they got into orbit using hand calculators, but completely dropped the ball on anything that required complexity theory, automated theorem proving, or sacrificial goats.“

But it wasn’t all fun and games. There’s actually a lot of basic religious philosophy in this one, heralded by Bob’s Prologue, “Losing My Religion.” Alas, as he explains, he doesn’t so much as lose his religion as lose his atheism. I found it interesting, particularly when Bob tangentially discussed humanity’s predilection for pattern recognition, but it’s clear that Bob regards all religions as foolish attempts to whistle in the dark (or placate a hideous and uncaring evil). It’s the kind of subtext/ongoing issue that elevates the concepts and the writing in this series above the ordinary kind of fantasy.

As Bob struggles to discover the history behind BLOODY BARON and project TEAPOT, events and consequences become more serious. I thought it progressed organically, with tension escalating until I was reading faster and faster. Although the ultimate confrontation was somewhat predictable, and telegraphed early on, it remained suspenseful. There was also twist to the Laundry I really enjoyed. It’ll be interesting to see where Stross takes that angle next, as he seems to be building to an ultimate confrontation in CODE NIGHTMARE GREEN, when the other-worlds entities finally take note of the puny humans and decide to go out to our universe for lunch.

It misses 5 stars for me only because of general emotional disengagement; it’s not a book I must have (my preciousss). I suspect that the fast-and-furious witticisms and references keep me more engaged on an intellectual level than an emotional one.

[Carly · Rating 5 out of 5]

**edited 12/30/13
Have you ever seen the xkcd comic about regular expressions? (If you don't read xkcd, you probably won't enjoy this book, so I'd advise skipping this review.)

Basically, the plot of The Fuller Memorandum is this comic strip, but in novel form and with an invasion of Lovecraftian beasties.

...
Due to my disapproval of GR's new and highly subjective review deletion policy, I am no longer posting full reviews here.

The rest of this review can be found on Booklikes.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Teapot, meet ... teacup? *lol*

This is the third in the Laundry Files books and although it didn't have as many laugh-out-loud moments as the last, I actually liked this more. But more about that later.

First, the summary:
Bob Howard is still working for that elusive branch of the British government's agencies that deal with the occult. What was that saying? Any sufficiently advanced technology is like magic? Yeah, well.
This book plays three years after the last and six years after the first so time actually passes here. Bob and Mo are still (happily) married. Sure, they encounter their stressful moments, but those are mostly due to the nature of their work.
Like when Bob is sent on what is supposed to be such a routine mission that a rookie could have carried it out, but then all hell breaks loose, ending in a civilian casualty of sorts.
This immediately sets the tone for this volume, which is much darker than what we've experienced before.
Add to that the fact that many in the Laundry know, much like the Asgardian gods, that the end of days is coming - the question is not IF but WHEN and they need to at least prepare for the event if they can't prevent it. Which is also why Bob and Mo have decided not to have children.
So from the work-related horror incident, we get to Bob's medical leave, the disappearance of his boss, the mysterious Angleton, and the discovery that there must be a mole.
From then on, it's a mad dash to once again figure out what the bloody hell is going on and what everybody is talking about. Oh, and tea with a spy from "the opposition".

What was especially nice was that we finally get a bit more background on some characters, most noteably the man himself, Angleton. The nice thing about that exposition (apart from the information itself) was how the author delivered it: not like an infodump but through a series of clues that the reader could piece together alongside Bob, which amounts to a number of theories and even more enjoyment because when you finally get the truth, even if you were wrong, it feels rewarding.

There are, of course, the a number of funny bits like the introduction of the Jesus Phone and The Cult of Steve. However, like I said at the beginning, this book has less laugh-out-loud moments than the others. Too much comedy just wouldn't fit into a book as dark as this one where we even get dead children! However, the cynical observations made by Bob/the author are spot-on, as usual, and the action felt more intense and breathtaking than ever before. Might be on account of the constant zombie threat or the book's basic outline, which mirrors that of a classic spy thriller with agents on both sides, moves and countermoves and secret upon secret.

A thoroughly enjoyable romp through some very interesting (and real!) parts of London and the audio version was, once again, delightful in delivering the dry humour.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well the third in the "Laundry Files" series. I always vacillate on how to rate these. I mean they should almost have their own shelf(elves) titled "horror sort of" or "urban fantasy sort of". These are largely tongue in cheek novels played for comedy but they are told with an underlying serious tone. They aren't really satire nor are they parody as they aren't making fun of the genres. They go for a "kind of" (or "sort of") absurdest tone with a narrator relating the events that surround a "secret" agency based in London that handles supernatural threats for the British.

He's kind of a James Bond who faces up to horrors from "outside" with a quip on his lips and a joke in his heart.

I tend to like the books overall though often I don't find the (attempts at) humor as funny as some do. Also these books owe a lot to the works of H.P.Lovecraft and his successors as the threats faced seem to be of the type, kind and magnitude of the Great Old Ones (Lovecraft and others are mentioned often in the text).

So...our hero here is tasked with saving the world again while also saving his wife (another agent of the Laundry) and navigating the bureaucracy that is the Laundry. Will he do so...will his wife have to save him....will his employee rating go up....will he miss tea time...are there infiltrators in the laundry....are there scones in the brake room?

All these questions and more will be answered as you battle the evil minions...or is that minions of evil(???) who threaten all of reality as we know it! That includes the parts of reality we don't know also.

So, not bad reads. Lots of humor in the face of certain death.

I am a Christian and I do make it a habit to let readers know (and in this case it would include readers of most any religious/Theist/Deist stripe) that the book is pretty insulting toward religion in general and has some things that may border on blasphemy. Be aware of that going in and shelve it if you can. I've read it in so many books of late I simply take it for what it's worth and ignore it. So the writer's an atheist. It's his right and i can read his work without a problem. I put this here so you'll know as I know it will bother some. I know it takes away a good deal of the enjoyment i could have in the books, but that's life I guess.

Bottom line, not a bad read at all. I can't go all the way to a 4 (which means for me good to great but not a 5) but I enjoyed it mostly and think with certain reservations I can recommend it to those whom it won't offend.

[Chad Pilcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

[MINOR SPOILERS]

In his Laundry Files series, Charles Stross has fun sending raw lumps of genre trope through his own literary Fun Factory. What extrudes out the other end is a tentacular tangle of homage comprising the pulpy horror of Lovecraft, the world-weary existentialism of the Cold War British espionage novel, and the cynicism and techie in-jokes of Simon Travaglia's "Bastard Operator From Hell" stories.


The Laundry Files detail the exploits of one Bob Howard, network sysadmin, field operative, and self-described "computational demonologist" for the Laundry, the British government's occult intelligence agency. Over the course of the series' ten-year arc, we've seen Bob stumble up the org chart from upstart IT lackey to mid-level manager and trusted operations specialist, along the way facing down sundry gibbering horrors both literal and bureaucratic. In the process, we've watched both Bob and his narrative framework mature somewhat; for example, the Laundry's hilarious auditing of paperclip usage, first referenced in The Atrocity Archives as a sort of jokey shorthand for the penny-pinching and micromanagement typical of bureaucracy, is here revealed to be an entirely practical and necessary measure in a world of occult espionage (sympathetic magic and all that, you see). In The Fuller Memorandum, the overarching plot creeps somewhat closer to endgame (referenced by the codename CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN), as Bob finds himself embroiled in a cultic plot to hasten the apocalyptic return of unspeakable entities from beyond space and time--and Russian skullduggery, to boot. Certain readers (such as myself) might find the pace of this creep a bit slow for their liking, perhaps even feeling a touch of anticlimax at the rather abrupt resolution in Fuller's final chapters. Still, I can understand the author's reluctance to hurry the final showdown along--after all, you can't spell "endgame" without e-n-d, and the world of The Laundry Files still holds a lot of potential for further excursions.


The notion of a multiverse teeming with Lovecraft's dead gods and Great Old Ones being accessible to us via applied mathematics and esoteric computation remains an interesting one, and I'd like to see Stross expound upon it in even greater detail in future Laundry novels. For now, The Fuller Memorandum is another worthy addition to a series that never fails to intrigue and entertain.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

***2018 Summer of Spies***

3.5 stars—the best one of the Laundry Files that I’ve read so far.

Perhaps because we’re into historical references that I’ve actually lived through. Younger folk may roll their eyes at all the Cold War references in this volume the way I rolled mine during all the WWII/Nazi references in the first book of the series.

There’s much less computer jargon in this third novel, for which I was thankful. Bob may be a computation demonologist, but he talks more like a regular guy here. There was also a section in the first few pages of the story about “Losing my Religion,” which in Bob’s case means that he must give up his comfortable atheism because of his current knowledge of the eldritch gods who could easily wipe out humanity if their attention was drawn our way. Much more philosophical that you would normally expect from such a fantasy tale.

The series does contain a lot of amusing pop culture references. Bob’s coworkers, Pinky & Brains, show up again in this installment and although Brains is not trying to take over the world, he does take over Bob’s new phone to install beta software that prevents Bob from returning the phone. Bob & Mo also name the phone—the NecronomiPod. Highly appropriate for a series that references Lovecraft in many fond ways. Not to mention Bob’s reading material while on the train, which he describes as “a novel about a private magician for hire in Chicago,” which would seem to me to be Harry Dresden! Plus Bob’s kidnappers at one point ask, “What has it got it its pocketses?” (along with 2-3 “my Precious” occurrences). Stross’ geek cred is maintained with these details.

At least in this installment we learn the significance of paper clips, which perhaps explains the zeal of the Auditors in questioning the Laundry employees regarding their inventories of those office supplies. (It’s not all just the Pointy Haired Bosses trying to make their employees’ lives miserable).

The author (unsurprisingly a former computer programmer) manages to continue to combine elements of James Bond, Lovecraft, and Dilbert successfully to create a funny and readable sci-fi series. The Laundry—successfully defending humanity against the NIAs (Nightmarish Immortal Aliens).

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

The book took its sweet time to grab my attention properly. No idea why.

Only after reading it (or, to be honest, somewhere in the last third) did I realize how insane and crazy good The Fuller Memorandum is. It is essentially a report on the Fuller Memorandum situation (an understatement).
As usual, Bob has to read a lot of old reports on whatever is relevant at the moment. The thing is, there is no actual case this time, so it takes time to move forward. More than half of the book Bob stumbles around wondering where Angleton has gone, why he is missing, where the certain document is and a lot of other things.
Most of it is told in the first person (Bob's), while the rest is told in third following mostly following Mo.

There are twists and turns here and I can't exactly write about the things I loved the most because all of them are spoilers. Let's just say, Angleton is awesome.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s safe to say that the Laundry Files is my favourite of Charles Stross’ series. It’s starting to rank up there with the Dresden Files as far as urban fantasy goes. The two series have a lot in common: each book is a self-contained, madcap thriller with supernatural elements; while overall, the series mythology continues to grow and head towards some kind of apocalyptic climax.

In The Fuller Memorandum, Bob and Mo become tangled up in a plot by some cultists to steal Teapot, also known as the Eater of Souls. (One guess what this entity does.) The cultists are being manipulated by a bigger, badder, blacker order that wants to bring on CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (also known as the end of the world) sooner rather than later. If that’s not bad enough, Bob’s boss, Angleton, goes missing, and Bob is suspended from work with pay pending an investigation into a civilian fatality he accidentally caused.

Once again, Stross combines the most hilarious parts of British bureaucracy with the spoofiest of James Bond spoofs. Bob is not your typical suave secret agent; he is a civil servant. Mo isn’t a smoking hot assassin; she’s a professor of philosophy. Together, or sometimes separately, they work for the Laundry.

Immediately The Fuller Memorandum endeared itself to me more than The Jennifer Morgue. The plot is somewhat more straightforward. Mostly, though, it’s just more fun. I had fun watching Bob stalk through London, being used as bait, and basically getting fed up with everyone stonewalling him. I had fun with the way the bureaucratic parts of the Laundry can be as much of an obstacle as the cultists armed with shotguns.

In this book, we learn a little more about Angleton. Last time we learned that Angleton has been with the Laundry since practically its inception—yet hasn’t seemed to age. I like that Stross continues to spin out bits and pieces of Laundry mythology. It’s this kind of exposition that I find so tantalizing.

The other kind of exposition, where Bob goes on for paragraphs at a time about Chthonic beings and Lovecraftian monsters and computational demonology … well, it’s cute the first time. And the second time. But the third, fourth, and nth times, it starts becoming a drag. Bob is a fun character, but after a while, Stross’ style of narration can become a drag. He has a very clever voice, one that moves kilometres a minute and wants to include witty political and historical allusions. It’s all well and good for a bit, and then I just feel like being one of those Terry Gilliam animations from Monty Python: “Get on with it!”

While you could jump into this book without reading the rest of the series, I recommend you check out The Atrocity Archives and work your way forward. They aren’t long—though, pleasantly for such short books, the stories themselves are dense. I feel like I really get a lot of story for my $8.99 (Canadian), and you can’t say that about every book. The Fuller Memorandum is another reliable instalment in the series, and I look forward to reading the next books.

My reviews of the Laundry Files:
← The Jennifer Morgue

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Dilbert, the office nerd from the eponymous comic strip, was working for a top-secret English organization (called The Laundry) which specializes in tracking down Lovecraftian critters and Old Gods who are escaping from other dimensions into our own, you’d have the personality and life of main character Bob Howard, narrator of the Laundry Files series. ‘The Fuller Memorandum’ is the third in author’s Charles Stross’ alternate universe science fiction/horror/fantasy series. Howard is a computer geek who has by necessity learned special skills of magic in addition to those of a computer technician. Besides being a whiz at math and computer programming, he now knows a lot of magical spells and the art of dispelling demonic Cthuloid attacks.

Howard is not happy about this, but he doesn’t have a choice in working for The Laundry. In the first book, The Atrocity Archives, he accidentally almost destroyed an entire English city by creating a magical computer algorithm. So. He was given a choice - work for the good guys of The Laundry, or die, or something. Because he activated a portal, he demonstrated he had the talent The Laundry needs. This talent made him dangerous to be loose in the world without any knowledge or training about his skill set. Besides, in the second book, The Jennifer Morgue, he falls in love with another Laundry employee, Dr. Dominique (Mo) O’Brien.

There is an American and a Russian spy department which also deals with the Old Gods and the various magical monsters who invade our universe. Everyone in these national organizations try to play nice together, but, you know, nationalist pride of place in defeating horrific stomach-turning monsters.

I have copied the book blurb:

”Bob Howard is taking a much needed break from the field to catch up on his filing in The Laundry's archives when a top secret dossier known as The Fuller Memorandum vanishes - along with his boss, whom the agency's executives believe stole the file.

Determined to discover exactly what the memorandum contained, Bob runs afoul of Russian agents, ancient demons, and the apostles of a hideous faith, who have plans to raise a very unpleasant undead entity known as the Eater of Souls...”

It's in the book of rules for agents of The Laundry that officers keep a classified journal of their assignments, thus Howard’s narration. This is a good thing, gentler reader. The horrors of Howard’s job, both human- and monster-caused, puts his life in exciting jeopardy every time he must go into the field. Not to mention the awful rules of corporate life which drain the mind of energy because of the time-sucking horrors of required expense and activity reports, and attendance at Human Resource meetings, with which many of us can sympathize. We readers would never know about the terrors going on behind the screen of what we think of as ordinary life, or the bravery of the secret agents of The Laundry otherwise, if not for these books! You go, Bob!

[Soo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Notes:

Nice mix of humor laced into the general choas. I liked the first half more than the wrap up. It's great that Bob is a computer nerd and his lady-love is the hero with a violin. =)

[Michael Shelton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a solid entry in The Laundry Files series but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two. The Cold War style of espionage didn't really interest me and this book has A LOT of that. However I did like it and will definitely continue with the series. This is a very unique universe where Lovecraftian Elder Gods threaten to invade our reality and it's the Laundry's job to make sure that doesn't happen. Since I have a degree in Math I particularly like the idea that magic is based on computational mathematics and that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Bob Howard is a "computational demonologist" who juggles the bureaucracy of working for the Laundry with saving the world from the next tentacled abomination who tries to extinguish the human race. It's a weird combination that actually works well and has a much different feel than most urban fantasy novels on the market today.

The first half of The Fuller Memorandum is a much slower pace than I'm used to with this series. It wasn't even sure what the plot was suppose to be for at least 50 pages. Once the Fuller Memorandum is revealed the pace picks up and various plot threads come together for a FANTASTIC ending complete with zombies, cultists and the Eater of Souls.

The worldbuilding was more prominent here than in the past and I appreciated that. We get a lot of backstory on Bob's boss Angleton, Mo's bone-white violin and the auditing of paper clips. Bob even upgrades his PDA to an iPhone so the technology aspect seemed a lot more current and believable.

All in all this was a solid 3rd book that fleshed out the Laundry universe and advanced a few ongoing plots that will probably get more focus in later books. If the spy-babble had been toned down just a little bit I would have given this 4 stars. Stross has a great series here and I can't wait to see where he takes us next.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just can’t get enough of THE LAUNDRY FILES. This series has almost everything I want in an urban SFF adventure — an intelligent hero with a wry sense of humor and a great voice; an eclectic supporting cast; a fast pace with lots of action and plot twists; a cool mix of fantasy and science fiction; occasionally odd (and interesting) structural choices; a reverence for geek culture; and a smattering of computer science, mathematics, quantum physics and neuroscience. And Lovecraft. I love it.

In The Fuller Memorandum, the third LAUNDRY FILES novel, things start badly for Bob after he accidentally kills a bystander during a mission. He’s sent home to await an inquiry. That’s pretty bad, but soon things get worse. His enigmatic boss goes missing, there ... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

[AndrewP · Rating 3 out of 5]

The timeline in this books seems to have moved forward a few years from the first two books in the series. Bob is described as having worked for the Laundry for 8 years and I am sure he only just started in the first book.
Overall I enjoyed the continued humor of the series. But in this one there was some much darker horror elements. These do fit with the Cthulhu portion of the background but for me seemed disjointed from the humor.

I did not like this third installment as much as the previous two, but will continue with the series for sure.

FYI - in this book we find some bizarre logic behind the infamous paper clip audits. (It has something to do with Quantum Entanglement and sympathetic magic.)

[Maggie K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy this series, but it sometimes seems it can be a little TOO hectic, making it harder to buy into. Luckily, this entry of the series had a bit of a slower start, as it took the laundry a bit to figure out what was actually going on.
Then the boss goes missing, it's clear there is a mole in the office, and Bob and Mo need to hurry and figure some things out before they are turned into Cthulu sacrifices....but where to start?


Super enjoyable read!

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good paranormal thriller, leaning toward horror as Bob learns an awful lot about his boss after his boss goes missing. And then he has to deal with fanatical Elder Gods' cultists, leading to Bob's Very Bad, No Good, Completely Horrific Day.

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to give The Laundry series another try after being gravely disappointed with The Jennifer Morgue. I was intrigued in The Atrocity Archives by the possibilities of a Lovecraftian spy agency, particularly since I was a huge fan of Delta Green, but The Jennifer Morgue's parody of James Bond was shallow and uninteresting.

The Fuller Memorandum, by contrast, is a return to form and I appreciate it. It takes the premise of a Lovecraftian threat to the world seriously while simultaneously also keeping some of its humor. Unlike The Jennifer Morgue, the humor of the novel doesn't go overboard and remains on the right side of this-close-to-ridiculous.

The premise is Bob screws up during a routine exorcism and things go from bad to worse in his professional life. Even worse, this is occurring when there's something happening with a long-buried secret of the Laundry's organizational life.

Part of what I enjoyed about this novel is it remembers the terrifying forces the Laundry deals with are actually terrifying. The Atrocity Archives made a nice balance between humor and horror, never going too far into one area or another like The Jennifer Morgue. The humor is actually funny, too, which allows it to be enjoyed for its own sake.

The book deals with one of my favorite elements of H.P. Lovecraft's writings, specifically cultists. What does inspire a person to want to worship the Great Old Ones? The book gives the obvious answer and expands on it, horrifying Bob with its logic. It also does a nice parody of upper-class English life, highlighting the kind of secrets which can hide under seemingly respectable people with tongue-firmly-in-cheek.

I also enjoyed the story's emphasis on the 'secret history' of the world. Spy fiction depends on realistic politics or, at least, understandable ones. Here, there's nothing realistic about extra-dimensional monsters and creatures from the deep--but the books acts as if they are. I appreciated that as the incorporation of people in real-life political situations trying to use demons somehow "sells" the premise to me.

I enjoyed Bob's characterization this time around, the befuddled bureaucrat struggling with his position as well as relationship, which nicely contrasted to previous volumes. Moe also felt more "real" this time around, as opposed to the perfect fantasy girlfriend she's been portrayed as before. I even enjoyed the revelations about Bob's boss, each of them fitting with what we knew about him from before.

I can't say The Fuller Memorandum blew me away. This isn't one of those books I walked away feeling like I absolutely had to read the next story but I appreciated it. It's gotten me interested in the series again and I'm going to finish reading it. Kudos, Charles Stross, you've won me back over.

8/10

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beware the manager who treats you well; she probably wants to use you as a vessel for an alien from beyond space-time...

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

Awesome science fiction thriller / horror / mystery. I loved the start of this series it is tailor made to my likes. This is my first Stross novel even though he has been on my to read list for a very long time.

Great characters.
Great world.
Great science fiction.
Lovecraft!
Gadgets.
And more.

I really liked it.

This is was a great read.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

You will want to have read the first two Laundry novels—The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue—before picking up this third excursion into the eldritch horror of higher mathematics and computational conjuring. And I do mean that you will want to have read them, and in order; not only do those earlier works contain essential background, they're also cracking good yarns, and the world of the Laundry is one of the all-around neatest conceits I've ever run across.

Charles Stross hits all the right notes, at least for me—the secret history ("this could all be true, and you'd never know"); the symbiosis between magic and mathematics (especially computational mathematics—these books make me think of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's incomparable light fantasies, as collected in The Compleat Enchanter—consider that a plug if you like); the derring-do of international (heck, interuniversal) espionage; the sly and cynical humor (or "humour"); the way these books consistently trigger my Anglophilia...

More than the other two, though, The Fuller Memorandum seems to me like a middle volume, escalating the tension dramatically while resolving very little. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing—it bodes well for more Laundry novels being in the pipeline, after all. But even though I think this book is the weakest of the three, I really liked it; the Laundry books as a whole are still head and shoulders above most other series-in-progress.


Bob Howard here again appears as narrator and protagonist. Bob begins his tale,

"There can be only one true religion. Are you feeling lucky, believer?"

The true believers in this case being worshipers of the Elder Gods from some Lovecraftian other dimension, beyond space and time... no matter how horrible a godlike being is, there will be humans with an inexplicable wish to throw in with our species' worst nightmares, simply because these creatures are apparently all-powerful. Bob doesn't really sympathize with this viewpoint.

When Bob's not counting paper clips for Accounting or writing up plans for the network cabling in the newest subbasement of the Laundry's New Annexe in London, Bob is trying to avoid being kidnaped—or worse—by the forces of darkness and their (sometimes rather laughable) grim human minions. I do think the dust jacket of this edition is somewhat misleading; I've always seen Bob Howard as looking less... heroic, more like the actor Bob Hoskins (perhaps just because of the similarity of names) or maybe like Ian Holm. An unlikely spy, in other words, unprepossessing and likely to be overlooked by the bad guys.

The bad guys certainly do seem to be after Bob in particular in this novel, though, and his beautiful red-headed wife Mo as well. After a rather horrible event in Amsterdam, Mo returns to London to find Bob in disgrace and under close scrutiny, his efforts to exorcise a haunted aircraft having led to the unintentional demise of a civilian. He's not in any danger of losing his position—once you've joined the Laundry, you can never really leave. But he could receive a demotion, possibly all the way down to "remaindered human resource" (i.e., shambling zombie). And his superior, Angleton, has gone missing, too...


There's not a lot more detail I can go into without spoiling at least some of the fun... so just read the damned things already, will you?

[Wing Kee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weirdly humorous.

World: The world building is solid, there is a lot of it here and there are bits of info dumping here and there but the world is strange and weird that it makes it interesting. Also the dry and nonchalant way in which Bob introduces us to the world makes for a very interesting read. The calls to Lovecraft and the lore is great and really makes this a series I enjoy.

Story: The story is good, it reminds me of the Rook in it's matter a fact way in which it tells of horrors cosmic and human and this being the third book is what we expect from the series. The stakes this time are personal which is great and also tied to the past which I absolutely love. I love lore stories and this is what you get here. The pacing was good and the telling was done well with Bob being what he is. A good addition to the series.

Characters: Characters are dry and it's on purpose. Bob is Bob and it makes for an interesting read when facing these huge monstrosities we get a narrator that sounds like a BBC newscaster. But his dry wit and sarcasm make for a fun point of view. The rest of the cast is also very matter of fact making this very grounded but fantastical at the same time.

I like the tone and I like the dryness making this series one a very much enjoy.

Onward to the next book!

[Christine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. I read the first two in the series one after the other (bam-bam) and couldn't wait to get started on this one.

I love the premise of the books - computational demonology secret service agents....

This one was just.... I don't know... too dark?

The first two was like a roller-coaster, tongue in cheek horror-satire... this one lacked the roller-coaster tongue in cheek aspects, I think. After a few chapters, where it already became apparent that Bob is not going to have a good time in this book; with his wife having a breakdown, him having a breakdown, and me peeking at the end to see if it is worth continuing the trudge, seeing what happens with Bob and it basically ending with another, even worse breakdown, I just couldn't go on with it. Someone at least tells me that it gets better again with book 4 since as I said, I really like the first two.

Feeling disappointed...

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of increasingly disturbing events. I <3 Bob.

[Kam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many people have their own personal indicators that tell them whether or not what they’ve got on their hands is something really good. For some, it’s how much they smile while they’re reading something, or playing a video game, or watching a TV show or movie; for others, it’s whether or not they cry at the end; for yet others, it’s a combination of both. Others might have somewhat more unusual indicators: I know of at least one person who knows they are reading something good if, from time to time, they have to put down what they’re reading and walk around a little bit, muttering “Oh my God!” over and over again as they do so, before they can calm themselves down enough to sit down again and pick up where they’ve left off.

My indicator is, I would like to think, relatively normal: I smile. Smiling in public over a book is considered charming in most circles, and in private no one is going to see, so it hardly matters. This is, however, only a baseline: a book has to, at the very least, make me smile in order for me to think of it as a good book. If it escalates from there, to grinning, to giggling, to laughing, all the way to incoherent keysmashing on my liveblogging Twitter account and (metaphorical) screaming at all my friends to read the book right now on pain of losing my friendship, then it’s a very good book indeed.

So where does that leave The Fuller Memorandum, the third book in Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series? In a place somewhere between “pleasant surprise” and “give me more”, mostly, because I wasn’t quite expecting this series to become as good as it has, especially considering how problematic I found the first book. But I’m rather glad I stuck it out, because it’s been a while since I read anything that played so well with the Cthulhu Mythos, and The Fuller Memorandum has all the things I love about the Mythos, with wonderful extra bits thrown in.

The Fuller Memorandum is set six years after the events of The Jennifer Morgue. Bob and Mo are married, and appear to have settled down to their lives working for the Laundry, the United Kingdom’s defence ministry against all manner of dangerous and creepy entities that would like nothing more than to see humanity stamped out for good. Bob’s life as an applied computational demonologist hasn’t changed much, but Mo has become one of the Laundry’s most lethal assets, going from philosopher to what Bob calls a combat epistemologist, armed with a bone-white electric violin that gives everyone near it the willies, and for good reason.

For six years since their marriage, everything has been relatively normal—or at least, as normal as they can be, working for a government institution that is entirely aware of, and is preparing for, the ultimate apocalypse, codenamed CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN in the Laundry. But when a seemingly ordinary exorcism goes horrifically wrong for Bob; an assassin shows up on their doorstep after Mo comes back from a gruesome job in Amsterdam; and Angleton suddenly ups and disappears—all in the span of a few days—Bob realises things are about to get really, really bad: CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN bad.

The first notable thing about this novel is that it is the first one thus far in the series that really stands on its own in terms of its overall world building. The Atrocity Archive, the first book in the series, contained so many echoes of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy graphic novel series that it was hard not to keep seeing the characters from the graphic novel at the edges of my vision while reading the book. However, the second book The Jennifer Morgue took a step away from that and instead played with the tropes and narrative of James Bond (both books and movies) in a way that made the whole thing relatively fun to read, if one is familiar with the way the James Bond narrative tends to go.

But none of that is really an in-depth attempt to draw out the world as Stross imagines it to be. One is given a basic idea of the overall structure, but it’s obscured by references to other things (Nazis in the first book, James Bond in the second). It’s only in The Fuller Memorandum that Stross really lets the reader inhabit the world he imagined for the Laundry, and I have to say, it’s a pretty good world. I know, from reading the first two books, that this version of reality is interesting, but I haven’t really been given a chance to see it for what it is until now. Sure, that whole James Bond business in the second book was rather fun, but it really was time to get down to brass tacks, as it were, and I’m glad Stross finally does so in this third book.

One thing, in particular, that I deeply appreciate about Stross’ world building is that he adheres to one of Lovecraft’s tenets regarding the Elder Gods: that they are an unstoppable force, and nothing—no weapon, and certainly no Judeo-Christian god—is going to prevent them from coming through and destroying the world and our species once the time is right for their return. The problem I have with some writers who play in Lovecraft’s sandbox is that they assume that there is a just and moral god out there, and that invoking said god’s power will somehow save us all from the many-tentacled ones waiting to eat us all. Stross makes it very clear, right from the beginning of this novel, in fact, that in his world’s version of reality, there is no such thing, and anyone who says otherwise is ignorant, or lying. The whole appeal of the idea of the Elder Gods, at least to me, is that they are part of a universe that doesn’t care about a puny species that’s only existed for what, to them, is a mere eye blink of time, and there’s something so humbling about that idea that gets muddled (often to my annoyance) when one tries to wedge the idea of godly salvation in there.

So: the apocalypse is inevitable, and there’s nothing humanity can do but hope (albeit hope faintly) that it survives the coming storm. In the meantime, organisations like the Laundry try their best to make sure that the coming of the Elder Gods isn’t hastened, whether through accident or by design; unfortunately, there are many elements out there that want to do precisely the latter, for various reasons of their own. Some are individuals, but they’re rare: it’s hard to pull in even a shoggoth on one’s own, even if one has all the money in the world. No, to call in an Elder God, one needs organisational knowhow and logistics of the sort that can only be managed by large groups of people fanatically dedicated to a single goal and ideology. In other words, a cult: a trope that Lovecraft himself liked using, and one Stross introduces and uses in this novel, to great effect.

As for the characters, Bob hasn’t really changed much, except perhaps gotten a bit more sarcastic since the last time readers may have encountered him. It’s been six years since The Jennifer Morgue, after all, and he’s been through some very, very tough times since then. But at base, he’s still the slightly (all right, more than just “slightly”) bumbling, wise-cracking applied computational demonologist the reader remembers from the first two books, albeit with a bit more steel in his spine thanks to work experience. His familiarity will be a comfort to the reader, a familiar space to return to when the plot gets hairy—and it does, in a most spectacular manner, in this novel.

As for the other characters, they’re more interesting. Mo’s role is significantly expanded; it’s implied in the second novel that she’s become a weapon for the Laundry, and that status is made very clear in The Fuller Memorandum. She is, in essence, a weapon of last resort for the Laundry, sent in only when things get really, really bad—which, frankly speaking, was an utter delight to learn about. Stross is careful to depict the kind of toll Mo’s job has, though, on both her and on her husband. I appreciate that, by the way: Mo is unquestionably a badass, but there is a price for her being such, and yet it’s also true that her choosing to pay that price makes her a truly strong person—something that Bob points out often enough.

The true nature of her violin is also revealed in this novel, and as expected it’s a thoroughly spine-chilling story. I will also admit that, though it’s explicitly called an “Erich Zahn original” in the second book, that name didn’t really click in my head until I read this novel. This only means it’s been that long since I last curled up with Lovecraft’s eldritch delights, and I’m overdue for a reread.

Also revealed in this novel are Angleton’s origins. They’re intimately tied up with the rest of the plot, so I won’t go into them too deeply, but suffice to say that, on one hand, it was to be expected, and on the other hand, completely unexpected too. The sharp reader will not, however, be too surprised by the revelation when it finally comes, since it’s already hinted at pretty heavily in the early parts of the novel, and I’m sure they’ll pick up on it right away. Either way, this new information regarding Angleton also gives some vital information regarding the origins of the Laundry itself, and will, hopefully, be the launching pad of some interesting plot points further down the line.

As for the plot itself, there’s a marked improvement from how it was done in the last book. It rather feels like Stross has (finally) taken the trainer wheels off of himself and has come up with a rather fun story without having to resort to the framework of other stories that have gone before. Much as I liked the whole James Bond narrative of the second book, I’m much happier now that Stross is going off on his own path. To be sure, there are still quite a few references to other narrative tropes—not least the Cold War-themed spy thriller, Russian assassins and all. At the very least, it finally feels like Stross is coming into his own in this novel, and hopefully this trend will continue in other, later books.

Overall, The Fuller Memorandum is an excellent continuation of Stross’ series—in fact, it’s far better than the first two books. This is rather a rare occurrence in series, since the general rule is that books tend to get weaker the further along a series goes. Regardless, it’s still something I appreciate very much, especially since Stross has finally written a story that stands independent of any overt references to anything else, set firmly within the bounds of the world he’s created. To be sure, there are still many references to tropes from other media, but at the very least, it’s clear that Stross has made up his mind about his world, and isn’t going to go mucking about with all-too-obvious James Bond narratives. Some characters don’t really change, but others do, or at least are more clearly characterised than they were before, and Stross plays in Lovecraft’s sandbox in a way that doesn’t make me want to roll my eyes in annoyance. This novel makes it clear that Stross, as a writer of urban fantasy, has arrived, and the ride he promises is very interesting indeed.

[Dave Packard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a bit less enthralled with this one in the series, probably from having just come off the James Bond one. I will continue on to see how Bob and friends make out - and see if he ends up buying Mo a “Jesus Phone” of her own!

[Kelly Is Brighid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius!! Mathemagics. Characters you become attached to. Fulfilling on numerous levels. Highly recommend for braniacs with a sense of humor.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, fast, cosmic-horror-filled!

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun. I'm enjoying this series a great deal.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

While very well written, this book did not make me want to read the next volume. The reason was that, overall, the world of the story was just too grim. The author, through the main character, convinced me that the "end of the world" scenario being described was, in fact, inevitable from the information given. Not "inevitable if we don't fight it" kind of bad, but really, truly of the "mankind is doomed no matter what" kind of inevitable. That, combined with the good guy organization being too secret for anyone to know when or how to alert the good guys to problems, makes for a long-term downward spiral. I'm not sure I want to go along for that ride.
That said, this book was very well-written, kind of Terry Pratchett blended with Ian Fleming by way of H. P. Lovecraft. The main character is an agent for The Laundry, a branch of British intelligence that deals with the supernatural at more of a macro-level. These are the guys who call themselves in when an evil cult is trying to bring about the end of the world. Even M probably doesn't have the clearance to know for sure that they exist, but Q probably knows their armorer, socially. The Laundry also takes the concept of "even death does not release you" to entirely new levels.
There were lots of inside jokes and easter eggs, referencing everything from old spy novels to the Dresden Files, so you might enjoy that aspect of it, as well as the clever dialogue and interesting concepts. As described in this book, though, the end is coming, it can't be stopped, and it should be arriving within a few books of the series. That may not be the best way to intrigue new readers...

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stross writes sci-fi horror. At least, that's what the collection known as The Laundry Files novels are. And I love them.

The phrase "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" appears once or twice in his books, and seems to sum up his writing style. Bob, the main character in The Laundry Files, works in IT, has access to a pair of geniuses called Pinky and Brains (and if you don't get that reference you're too young, so go read something else), carries around an iPhone (alternately called the JesusPhone or the NecronomiPod) with which he detects, reflects, creates and protects himself from magic, and has a wife with her own secret code name. I'm not saying his life is complicated, I'm just saying I wouldn't want it.

Stross tends toward the Dickens/Sagan method of writing: lots of words, lots of description, lots of explanation. To this he adds lots and LOTS of technobabble. Which makes sense since he and Bob are both technophiles and come from IT backgrounds. Sometimes, I feel like a deer in headlights reading the technical jargon, but mostly, Stross writes a fast-paced book with plenty of scares and not a few laughs.