Author: Charles Stross
Publisher: Orbit
Bob Howard has a problem; he signed a form. The form said ‘Field Work’ and now Bob’s quiet little world, as an IT support officer for The Laundry, the bastard offshoot of SOE dedicated to stopping the Great Old Ones from taking this universe as a chew toy is now just his cover. Bob Howard, whether he wants it or not, is about to head to the front lines of the most secret war of all.
Charles Stross has carved a reputation for himself as a fiercely inventive and darkly funny writer and both those qualities are on display here. It’s very easy to do supernatural thrillers badly, after all all you have to do is drop vampires, werewolves and demons into a modern day setting, shake well and leave to set. However, Stross doesn’t just do it well, he does it magnificently, balancing moments of horror with the sort of pragmatic, sensible view of the end of the world that only an author steeped in the English mindset of tired, faintly unimpressed courtesy could achieve.
He’s helped immensely by Bob of course. A splendidly down at hell, pissed off ex-hacker, Bob’s Harry Palmer for the Wired generation, a man who just wants a quiet life and is becoming increasingly aware that’s not going to happen. He’s that rarest of things, a nice guy who never comes across as dull and in Bob, Stross has one of the most memorable heroes of recent years.
The world he lives in is equally impressive and feels just to the left of this one. Here, OCCULUS teams deal with demonic incursions just as NEST teams deal with nuclear incidents, touching the wrong thing at the wrong time will instantly leave you open to possession and Alan Turing discovered the multiverses just in time for SOE, in what has since been admitted as something of an error, to kill him. This is a cheerfully skewed world, a fever dream of Le Carre, Deighton and Lovecraft and the end result is an extremely memorable book.
Collecting both The Atrocity Archives and Concrete Jungle, as well as an articulate and fascinating footnote about the surprising similarities between spy fiction and horror fiction, this is a quality book from an author at the top of his game. Highly recommended.
Alasdair started writing when he was nine, powered by a hefty diet of '80s cartoons, Doctor Who and Icepops. He's quite tired by this stage but has written a lot of things for a lot of people, including Fortean Times, Neo and Surreal.