The Fuller Memorandum (Laundry Files, #3)

by Charles Stross

THERE IS A PHILOSOPHY BY WHICH MANY PEOPLE LIVE THEIR lives, and it is this: life is a shit sandwich, but the more bread you’ve got, the less shit you have to eat. These people are often selfish brats as kids, and they don’t get better with age: think of the shifty-eyed smarmy asshole from the sixth form who grew up to be a merchant banker, or an estate agent, or one of the Conservative Party funny-handshake mine’s-a-Rolex brigade. (This isn’t to say that all estate agents, or merchant bankers, or conservatives, are selfish, but that these are ways of life that provide opportunities for people of a certain disposition to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Bear with me.) There is another philosophy by which people live their lives, and it goes thus: you will do as I say or I will hurt you. It’s petty authoritarianism, and it frequently runs in families.