The Apocalypse Codex (Laundry Files Book 4)

Good, though not as good as a standalone story as the others. But built the overall arch of the series more firmly. So plusses and minuses. Will definitely read the next, just not as character building as the previous.

Well, yet again Christians - and mostly American Christians - take it in the neck from Stross. Apart from that bit of tediousness, it's a fun read. (For myself, I just read the bad guys as Wahhabi Islamists like the ones who assaulted the London Underground in July, 2005, and all is well.) I'll not give away the plot points. Let's just say the Laundry occasionally needs plausible deniability, and BOFH (google it) is now, and forever, up to his neck in it.

I really like the way Stross's books have emulated the styles of Len Deighton, Ian Fleming, John Le Carre', and now Peter O'Donnell. The central cast of characters remains the same, but with other players added to make the emulation work.

I look forward to the next book in the series, and wonder who'll be next to be styled. Eric Ambler, perhaps? Or Graham Green? Erskine Childers? Rudyard Kipling? W. Somerset Maugham? Given that Bob's going to be a very senior office by the next novel in the series, and war is at hand, I'd be inclined towards Greene ("The Quiet Englishman." Heh.). Still, we'll see.

A new Charles Stross Laundry novel is always a cause for celebration, and this one keeps up with its predecessors in quality but diverges from them by introducing a new principal character to accompany Bob Howard, the beautiful adrenalin junkie Duchess Persephone Hazard (undoubtedly a pseudonym of Modesty Blaise) and her stoic companion Johnny MacTavish. Persephone is a fun character, more like something from Marvel Comics than from the dark world of the Laundry, and I suspect we will be seeing more of her in the future. An opening sequence in which the two burgle Schoss Neuschwanstein (from the air, no less) and it is implied that King Ludwig II of Bavaria was mad in more ways than one, is more James Bond than Laundry. Those who enjoy following the chronicle of Bob and his beloved Mo, however, may find the amount of space devoted to two new characters instead of to Bob's doings a bit irritating.

The other factor in this book that may cause some controversy is that the villains who Bob confronts this time are from the ranks of American anti-abortion evangelical megachurches, a group that may get irritable and reach for the nearest lawyer when they are mocked (and for those not familiar with Colorado, yes, the New Life Church of Colorado Springs does indeed exist, and is almost as influential as Stross implies). And Stross leaves some loose ends here (some of which will undoubtedly be unravelled later): what happened to those innocents caught in the final mass "conversion"? Did the bad guy really die? Did the Sleeper in the Pyramid turn him into something else? (On the other hand, Charlie still hasn't told us what happened to Jonquil the Sloane Ranger and her boyfriend from "The Fuller Memorandum," unless we are to assume that they were rounded up with the rest of the Wandsworth Coven.)

More disorientingly, for those who play Chaosium's Laundry game as well as reading Stross's books, we learn more about Mahogany Row and that the Laundry is actually only the public face (as much as a black intelligence organization can be public) of something much larger, older and deeper, of which the dreaded Auditors are just the tip of the iceberg. We also learn more about the U.S. black intelligence organization known as the Black Chamber, a spook organization some of whose members are literally spooks, and while it is always tricky to guess where Charlie's active imagination will go next, a few throw-away lines in Angleton's final meeting with them suggests that a head-on collision between the two organizations may be in the future. Finally, as Bob adjusts to the realities of his new status, one wonders exactly how much he will now be able to tell his wife, since his new co-workers are not even supposed to exist! All in all this is good fun, and not quite as dark as the previous novel, but the time when "the stars are right" is still inexorably approaching, something for which Bob and his friends are not at all yet fully prepared.

Well, I'm a fan of Charles Stross' science fiction and picked this up because it was (a) from him, and (b) labelled science fiction. Only one turned out to be correct. This is just fantasy fiction, with really no attempt to be internally consistent or consistent with observed laws of science as we know them. And the story, particularly its conclusion, is simply very weak. Overall, giving it the one star it deserves.

Before you finish reading this novel in the store kindle format it pops up an advertisement that blocks further reading until dismissed.

The poor star rating is thus for the intolerable intrusion into the reading experience.

But buy the paper copy from another vendor. It's a very good Laundry novel.

This was my first Charles Stross book. I expect it will be my last. The writing takes forever to get to the point, the author assumes you just love every bit of incidental trivia about Bob and The Laundry. On top of it this book purports to do an homage to Modesty Blaise, and ends up just miring her in tedium. If you like this character and this series, you may well like this book. I found it contrived and unengaging.

I could not get further than the first fifty pages, as I found it uninteresting, confusing, cryptic. I have gotten to the point where reading is a pleasure and I don't have all the time in the World, as we all die (for good!). We have to carefully select what to do with our time. A book that doesn't grab you because it is beautifully written, you are learning something new, or is simply interesting, drop it fast and get the next one; there are so many and we have so little time...

3.5 stars, Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.

Charles Stross continues to entertain with The Apocalypse Codex, the fourth novel in his LAUNDRY FILES series. I suppose you could read this without reading the first three books, but it’d be better to start with book one, The Atrocity Archives. For this review, I’ll assume you’re familiar with the story so far.

Bob has been unintentionally working his way up in the Laundry, the secret British agency where computer scientists, mathematicians, and physicists have, by accident, become sorcerers. For every case he’s been on, Bob has sort of bumbled his way into a successful outcome just by using his brains and creativity. Now he’s being groomed for a leadership position, so he needs some people skills. A lot of his preparation involves sitting in boring management training classes and seminars where he has to use role-playing to learn how to navigate the upper levels of the British government’s bureaucracy. This is not fun for Bob.

He’s also learning more about how the Laundry functions and he’s surprised to discover that the agency uses “External Assets” when they need something done that is too politically sensitive for a government agency. In this case, the delicate issue is that the Prime Minister has become chummy with a wacky TV evangelist from Colorado Springs. Why is Pastor Schiller trying to get in with the PM? The Laundry suspects something fishy is going on, so they dispatch Persephone Hazard, an External Asset with an unsettling past. Bob is sent to Colorado Springs to monitor her activities and make sure she doesn’t embarrass the Crown… and, of course, he discovers that the something fishy is more than fishy; it’s tentacled, too.

If you’ve read the previous LAUNDRY FILES novels, you know what to expect here. The Apocalypse Codex is fast-moving, has a unique and unpredictable plot, has a great supporting cast (including some new characters who we’ll hope to see again), and is clever and full of silly nerd in-jokes (if you don’t like nerd in-jokes, stay away from THE LAUNDRY FILES).

All of this is fun, as usual, but it would be nice at this point in the series to see a little more development of Bob. Even though he’s moving up in the Laundry, it’s not due to any motivation or intention on his part. He’s essentially the same person he’s been all along, though he’s aged several years since The Atrocity Archives. For someone who has learned the secrets of the multiverse and who has nearly died several times while facing eldritch horrors, you’d think we’d see a little more character development. (Or maybe Bob should start going mad, because that’s what usually happens when humans encounter the Elder Gods).

Stross takes a huge swipe at American fundamentalist Christianity in The Apocalypse Codex. It’s not pretty (it actually sounds like a long angry rant) and is likely to offend some readers. I wonder if Stross really thinks that most American evangelical Christians reject science, believe the earth is only a few thousand years old, dress their daughters in maxi-dresses, and are trying to take over the world with “full quivers.” I hope he knows that what he describes in this story is a CULT, not Christianity. I’d like him to know that there are plenty of American Christians (including myself) who practice science, accept evolution (it’s a theory about how life on Earth has developed, not how it was created), like to hang out with people who have different worldviews, and sneer at televangelists.

Interestingly, Stross introduces an Anglican Vicar in this novel — he’s Bob’s friend who will be dragged into the Laundry in the next novel. It will be interesting to see what Stross does with him. I’ll let you know…

The audio versions of THE LAUNDRY FILES, narrated by Gideon Emery, continue to be excellent.

I could not get further than the first fifty pages, as I found it uninteresting, confusing, cryptic. I have gotten to the point where reading is a pleasure and I don't have all the time in the World, as we all die (for good!). We have to carefully select what to do with our time. A book that doesn't grab you because it is beautifully written, you are learning something new, or is simply interesting, drop it fast and get the next one; there are so many and we have so little time...

3.5 stars, Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.

Charles Stross continues to entertain with The Apocalypse Codex, the fourth novel in his LAUNDRY FILES series. I suppose you could read this without reading the first three books, but it’d be better to start with book one, The Atrocity Archives. For this review, I’ll assume you’re familiar with the story so far.

Bob has been unintentionally working his way up in the Laundry, the secret British agency where computer scientists, mathematicians, and physicists have, by accident, become sorcerers. For every case he’s been on, Bob has sort of bumbled his way into a successful outcome just by using his brains and creativity. Now he’s being groomed for a leadership position, so he needs some people skills. A lot of his preparation involves sitting in boring management training classes and seminars where he has to use role-playing to learn how to navigate the upper levels of the British government’s bureaucracy. This is not fun for Bob.

He’s also learning more about how the Laundry functions and he’s surprised to discover that the agency uses “External Assets” when they need something done that is too politically sensitive for a government agency. In this case, the delicate issue is that the Prime Minister has become chummy with a wacky TV evangelist from Colorado Springs. Why is Pastor Schiller trying to get in with the PM? The Laundry suspects something fishy is going on, so they dispatch Persephone Hazard, an External Asset with an unsettling past. Bob is sent to Colorado Springs to monitor her activities and make sure she doesn’t embarrass the Crown… and, of course, he discovers that the something fishy is more than fishy; it’s tentacled, too.

If you’ve read the previous LAUNDRY FILES novels, you know what to expect here. The Apocalypse Codex is fast-moving, has a unique and unpredictable plot, has a great supporting cast (including some new characters who we’ll hope to see again), and is clever and full of silly nerd in-jokes (if you don’t like nerd in-jokes, stay away from THE LAUNDRY FILES).

All of this is fun, as usual, but it would be nice at this point in the series to see a little more development of Bob. Even though he’s moving up in the Laundry, it’s not due to any motivation or intention on his part. He’s essentially the same person he’s been all along, though he’s aged several years since The Atrocity Archives. For someone who has learned the secrets of the multiverse and who has nearly died several times while facing eldritch horrors, you’d think we’d see a little more character development. (Or maybe Bob should start going mad, because that’s what usually happens when humans encounter the Elder Gods).

Stross takes a huge swipe at American fundamentalist Christianity in The Apocalypse Codex. It’s not pretty (it actually sounds like a long angry rant) and is likely to offend some readers. I wonder if Stross really thinks that most American evangelical Christians reject science, believe the earth is only a few thousand years old, dress their daughters in maxi-dresses, and are trying to take over the world with “full quivers.” I hope he knows that what he describes in this story is a CULT, not Christianity. I’d like him to know that there are plenty of American Christians (including myself) who practice science, accept evolution (it’s a theory about how life on Earth has developed, not how it was created), like to hang out with people who have different worldviews, and sneer at televangelists.

Interestingly, Stross introduces an Anglican Vicar in this novel — he’s Bob’s friend who will be dragged into the Laundry in the next novel. It will be interesting to see what Stross does with him. I’ll let you know…

The audio versions of THE LAUNDRY FILES, narrated by Gideon Emery, continue to be excellent.

I've continued to enjoy Stross's Laundry series as Bob Howard, computational demonaloigist finds himself learning more of the Laundry's dirty secrets with each book. Bob has been changed after the events in The Fuller Memorandum (A Laundry Files Novel) and his new boss has decided to give him a field "stress test" by putting him in charge of two "external assets".

I have to say I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as the previous books in the series because a large section of the book moves away from the first person narrative of the earlier novels and is written from the point of view of two new characters. While these points of view make sense in the context of the story I nevertheless found them distracting as I kept on wanting to get back to my favorite character - Bob - for his story. This is always the risk that writers run when they split stories up over various characters...there's always one you want to know more about than the others and this happened to me with this book.

Charles Stross is a writer who grabbed me with the first thing of his I read: `A Colder War', easily and still one of the creepiest things I've ever encountered, also still a favourite by anyone and pretty much responsible for me reading everything the man has written since (as well as some of the before). While the premise is fantastical - the Cold War played out in a Lovecraftian universe - it's disturbing because of its underlying truths: that blind dogmatism in the exercise of power will lead some people to consider, and do, monstrous things.

The same idea underpins The Apocalypse Codex, Stross' latest and the fourth book in his Laundry series. Like the first Laundry novel, The Atrocity Archives, it's disturbing despite its fantastical premises because alongside the out-there elements - parasite dimensions, dead gods - there's the weird shit that people actually believe. In The Atrocity Archives it was the strange mysticism of the Nazi party; in The Apocalypse Codex it's millenialist Christianity, quiverfull sects and the notion that the End Times are worth hastening along.

Bob Howard is a computer programmer and reluctant public servant, drafted into a secret UK government after accidentally discovering a fundamental truth: that we share the universe with entities who believe humanity is barely worth picking out of their teeth. (Let me admit now that I seem to have a Thing for books that involve a secret government agency responsible for defending Britain against supernatural threats. If so, guilty, but it's all Charles Stross' fault. And maybe Fox Mulder's.) Howard has learned, through bitter experience, to fear certain things: Human Resources, the Auditors, corporate training programs and the `One True Religion'. He knows Management has an eye on him, and he knows the End is Coming; he's just not sure which is going to do for him first.

At the beginning of The Apocalypse Codex, Howard has barely recovered from his misadventures in The Fuller Memorandum. His reward for a job well done and barely survived is pretty much what he doesn't want: a promotion, more responsibility and an even better understanding of what's really going on. Unfortunately for him, a megachurch televangelist seems to be getting to close to the Prime Minister and various other notables. Howard is told to investigate, but the Laundry needs total deniability: if he's caught he won't get disavowed, but he might get demonised. And so he's sent off to Colorado with a freelance supernatural security specialist who makes Lara Croft look like Barbie, and a partner with a good religious upbringing and two hungry knives. Waiting for them are a plateau, a pyramid, Fimbulwinter and fish parasites.

The Laundry novels are hugely entertaining: a mix of spy thriller, horror story and Yes Minister. Stross stiches together obscure theologies and half-forgotten ideas with an arcane knowledge of the workings of British government that makes one suspect a traumatic public service experience somewhere in his past. Like his other books, there's a rich subtexture of themes and idea that might have you hunting through Wikipedia and occasionally shaking your head in disbelief, but unlike many of Stross' other books, The Apocalypse Codex doesn't get weighed down by computing in-jokes, references to obscure EU regulations, or relativistic physics. It's an entertaining and creepy read.

fractallogic.wordpress.com

The Apocalypse Codex follows Robert Howard, an everyday office worker, if your everyday office helps keep the world safe from aliens, Lovecraftian monsters, and unspeakable horrors. Howard works for an organization called The Laundry, charged with keeping people safe from things they never knew existed, and he does a good job of it. But when he is tasked with keeping track of a freelance agent, there is nothing that will be able to keep London, or the world, safe.

Author Charles Stross is, first and foremost, a fantastic writer. He is able to create a world in his writing that is both believable and surreal. When an MI5 agent talks about encountering a Cthulhu, the reader believes every word of it. The characters are also fun. It is not uncommon for a character to complain of dealing with upper management when trying to approve first-class train passage, even though that train happens to be carrying them to a pit of eldritch horror.

There are a few pitfalls to the story however. The author tends to capitalize words at random, without explaining why they are important. There is also an excessive use of acronyms throughout the text with no definitions of their meaning.

The Apocalypse Codex is a fantastic, magical read, akin to Jim Butcher or Doctor Who. Readers should line up to purchase their copy this summer.

The Laundry series books by Charles Stross are very enjoyable. He combines two of my favorite genres: spy fiction and H.P. Lovecraft, within the context of possibly the best near-future sci-fi being published, not to mention the hilarious pop-culture references. I especially like trying to guess which great Cold War spy novelist Mr. Stross is currently channeling for each new book. In Atrocity Archives, he gives credit to Len Deighton. While he doesn't say as much, Jennier Morgue has many Ian Flemming elements (both books and movies). While the darker Fuller Memorandum is very John LeCarre, with the reader trying to figure out mole - mole- which one's the mole? From the first few pages of Apocalypes Codex I was thinking; "I know these two characters, but from where?" It's been at least four decades since I first bought a used 50 cent paperback copy of Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell, but here she is as the Duchess. Great job, Mr. Stross and please keep writting!

This is a well written book with great characters and plot. It is a series book but there is a good chance you could pick this one up on its own.

This is a world where magic and creatures from other worlds/dimensions exist, mostly fueled by math calculations and pain. The hero is mid level government civil servant in a secret agency trying to keep a lid on things.

I love the series, I love the 1/8 tongue in cheek writing style, I really like the way the world setting fits together.

I knocked the book down one star solely because the author has been crutching for the entire series on one main plot driver, that being the hero being kept in the dark as to most of the setting and facts and mission for each and every storyline.

This time the reason got even thinner, and it really risks the suspension of disbelief for the reader.

Another enjoyable Laundry novel from Stross. As with his other books, a nice combination of clever plotting, some satire, and ingenious articulation of this alternate world. The latter is probably the best feature of this book. This book possesses a couple of other elements that recur in Stross' books; his dislike of fundamentalist religion and his incorporation of older British popular fiction. The evil protagonist in this book is an American fundamentalist preacher and Stross' treatment of fundamentalism is a set piece of caustic satire. Two of the major characters in this book are based on a staple of 1960s and 70s British popular culture, Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise series. Future installments are clearly in the offing, which is a good thing.

Another great story from Stross about the Laundry and Bob Howard. This time around Bob partners with some "external contractors" to investigate a preacher who's trying to get British officials involved in his church. The church, of course, is trying to release the "Sleeper" from the pyramid that gives Bob nightmares from a previous mission; this, of course, will introduce the Apocalypse to Earth. Bob and the contractors end up in Denver to figure out what's really going on and get caught in a trap after forcing the church to move up their schedule for Armageddon. Fortunately, Bob comes prepared. And don't forget to read the highly restricted GOD GAME RAINBOW briefing at the end of the book. Only open thing at the end is: what about all the "Saved" people in Colorado?

I have read the comments about the Apocalypse Codex. Some have been disappointed in this book. My take is different. While it is a work of fiction, important themes used in the book are non-fiction. Quiverful, powerful mega church, intolerance, illegal abuse of minors and those vulnerable, much of the background is based in factual accounts. Think Waco, Warren Jeffs, Jimmy Jones, Westboro, 700 Club, Scientology, the Vatican, the list goes on. Events went unnoticed until they blew up and became newsworthy. You don't need ritual magic or computational demonology to open a conduit to Otherworlds to seek out very serious threats. Like a fictional theme in Men In Black, those threats are here, living and existing along with all of us wherever we are. There is no Capital Laundry or Bob Howard to protect us from them is there? I may be the oddball who views the book in this way but I find it disquieting that it appears no one else has mentioned this. Of course Stross just wrote a fictional story.

To Mr Stross: 'Be calm and Laundry on'.

I enjoy the author's writing most when the events described are 90% grounded in reality and only 10% involved with fantasy. The fantasy is there just to add a bit of spice where appropriate. For most of this novel, the author conforms to my 90/10 guideline with marvelous results; only the ending veers into excessive fantasy for my taste. The author created computational demonology, and so far he seems to be taking good care of it. I hope he keeps up the good work!

The Bob Howard/Laundry series contains some hits and some misses, as adventure stories. This one is pretty fun to read, with scary bad guys, and an interesting set of problems for our hero, Bob Howard, to confront. I enjoy the sense of fun these novels bring. This one is more fun than his last one, which had a sort of depressing feel about relationships and Mo,Bob's wife.

Layered through this book is hatred.

Hatred is a strong word, but there is no other word to describe how the author feels about Christians, and in this book, about aspects of Roman Catholicism.

Having read a number of atheist philosophers, I find two camps: the jaunty arguers, cheerfully making their case on a rational basis, and the angry haters, spitting venom and froth at what they see as the evil of religion. Stross is in the latter camp. His villians in this book perform a version of transubstantiation, perverted and made evil. His description of the one true faith is an abomination. These are layered into the story like little poison pills of invective.

One result of the great space that Stross allows himself -- to denigrate and derogate religion -- is that Stross has no space left to offer anything positive for the reader, other than the pluck of the main character, Bob Howard. The result is an emptiness, a washed out feeling that the reader has been taken on a journey of hatred without any redeeming vision.

This is a lot to stick into an adventure story written to appeal to a science fiction audience. Stross needs to write a non-fiction book about his views on religion, and confront the fact that there are arguments on both sides, and his sick little jibes are unworthy of an adult author.

The Apocalypse Codex (2012) is the fourth SF novel in the Laundry Files series, following The Fuller Memorandum. The initial work in this series is The Atrocity Archives.

In the previous volume, Angleton sent Bob to RAF Cosford to investigate reports of eerie manifestations in an airframe at the Museum. He took a train to Wolverhampton and then caught a local to the air base.

At the RAF Museum, he asked the old lady at the reception desk for Mr. Hastings. She told him that the admission is five pounds. Then she asked if his warrant card is a season pass.

When Bob mentioned Hangar six, she paged Geoffrey. Hastings had prior experience with the Laundry and was the person who reported the problems. He took Bob to the hangar and showed him the airframe and the detached console.

Bob soon knew that he should have been briefed before his trip. He learned that the aircraft had been a Lightning used to fly escort on white elephants doing recon of a plateau in another dimension. The airframe had a high radiation level and the console had a huge thaumic field.

Bob started by degaussing the airframe, but the console flared up and a blast of purple light lit up the hangar. The old lady from the front desk had just stepped into the hangar and got the full effects of the thaumic field. Her eyes melted and then her body turned to ash.

In this novel, Robert Howard has worked for the Laundry for about twelve years. He is the IT manager, but also has been working as a field agent about eleven years.

James Angleton is Secretary of the Director. He has been Bob's boss for the past eight years. He is possessed by a preta (codename TEAPOT).

Dominique O'Brien is a Professor of Philosophy in the University of California at Santa Cruz. Mo is married to Bob and also works for the Laundry as an agent.

Pinky and Brains are Laundry agents in Technical Services, i.e., Q Branch. They are a homosexual couple.

Gerald Lockhart is four grades higher in the Laundry than Bob. He runs the External Assets unit.

Persephone Hazard is an independent agent. She used to run an occult intelligence agency. Now she often works for External Assets as a contractor.

Johnny McTavish is also an independent agent. He usually works for Persephone.

Raymond Schiller is an American preacher. He is the head of Golden Promise Ministries.

In this story, Persephone and Johnny are in Bavaria breaking into Mad King Ludwig's castle. They are replacing a stolen amulet into its display case. Everything goes well, except for the Hell Hound attack on Johnny.

Meanwhile, back in the Laundry New Annex, Bob is being enrolled into a leadership case by HR. He will start the following Monday and the class will take a week. He is posing as an IT manager in the Highways Agency.

Mo is not pleased with the class or the agency. She hates to have him gone for a whole week and knows that his cover will not make him any friends in the class. But she thinks that he does need to learn more about relating to people.

The following Monday, Bob is sitting in class while his classmates introduce themselves. He gets some interesting looks when he mentions working for the Highway Agencies. Then they start some team building activities. He is bored stiff.

That evening, Bob goes out for a drink. He orders lemonade and sits down at a table. Then a distinguished looking gentleman asks to sit at the table.

The man seems to know Bob, at least by reputation. At first he doesn't introduce himself, but then he shows a Laundry Warrant Card. Lockhart suggests that Bob develop a better cover story the next time he takes such a class.

Lockhart explains that Angleton is assigning Bob to his department for a little project. He gives Bob a book to read. At least Bob will have something to read after class.

The following Monday, Bob goes into the office early. He wants to ask Angleton about Lockhart. Later, he goes to Lockhart's office for instructions.

Lockhart takes Bob with him to a meet with Penelope and Johnny. Bob keeps his mouth shut for the most part. After the meeting, Lockhart takes him back to the office to explain the details of the assignment.

Lockhart tells him that Schiller seems to be getting close to the Prime Minister. Lockhart explains that the various intelligence agencies cannot investigate the Prime Minister. However, Penelope and Johnny are not officially connected to the Laundry, so their actions are deniable.

Bob gets a diplomatic passport and packs his go bag. He will follow Penelope and Johnny as they follow Schiller. He will be their contact and support.

This tale takes Schiller back to the Golden Promise Ministries compound near Denver, Colorado. Penelope and Johnny follow him. Then Bob flies to the USA as a British Cultural Attache.

Penelope visits the GPM compound for a special class. Johnny sets up her getaway routes. Bob contacts Johnny and then waits in his hotel room.

As usual, almost everything goes wrong. The next installment in this sequence has not yet been announced on the store.

Highly recommended for Stross fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of programmed magic, covert operations, and hacker attitudes. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

This was the least fun, scary, or original of the Laundry Files books. The previous volumes really worked the Cthulhu mythos, doing a very nice job of intertwining it with a work-a-day world in the the spy agency tasked with combating those Eldritch horrors. And when we visited those worlds previously, they were very creepy and convincing.

Much of that has been lost in "Codex." The biggest part of the novel is given over to what amounts to tragically hip bashing of Christianity, particularly evangelical, conservative Christianity, by positing an antagonist who masquerades as a Tele-Evangelist, but the god he is trying to awake isn't Jesus.

How trite. Why not make it a bunch of whacko Greens who are happy to sacrifice a bunch of humanity for the betterment of Gaia? That would at least be original. But no, it's the buffoonish Christians, those dopey pro-life and pro-family low brows who are the dupes of those On The Other Planes. I know by having those kinds of caricatures of believers, Stross will keep getting invited to the right parties, but he shows a tremendous lack of creative verve by falling back on such a tired device.

Due to his incredible field performance in spite of himself (see The Fuller Memorandum), the Laundry top brass considers Bob Howard as a strong managerial candidate. To mentor him, they assign reluctant Bob to the opaque Externalities Department, which outsources to private contractors much of its work.

His superior Gerald Lockhart assigns Bob as handler to paranormally-skilled field agents Persephone Hazard and Johnny McTavish as they investigate American miraculous healing evangelist Ray Schiller who has become a close friend of the Prime Minister. Over the objection of the American agencies, Hazard goes undercover inside of Schiller's Golden Promise Ministry while Bob as her handler must make sure this female bull (don't call her a cow) in a china shop does not cause a cross Atlantic embarrassment. However, the mission changes with the attack of parasites from another dimension and a bible with additional sections.

The fourth Laundry Files is a fabulous out of control paranormal espionage horror thriller. The protagonist is a geek who prefers his wife Mo and computers to Bond put in the tundra missions. He makes the twisting storyline work as he ends up in the middle of another clusterf*** fiasco. Aptly surnamed Persephone is a hazard to his health and that of others as once again squeamish Bob is tested by Lockhart, zombies, parasites, religious fanatics, espionage agencies and his direct reports team.

Harriet Klausner

Charlie Stross was one of my favorite science fiction authors a while back - Iron Sunrise, the first few books in the Laundry Files universe, and more.

I'm not sure if his style is changing or if my preferences are, but recently I've been less and less able to tolerate his writing. It strikes me as smug, self-righteous, and very VERY pleased with itself. The less clever he's actually being, the more self-regard his fiction seems to exude.

I'd pre-ordered this book months ago, and it arrived yesterday on release date.

I forced myself to read to page 100 before giving up on the novel and throwing it on the "donate to library" pile.

I know from his blog that Stross is active in attendance at science fiction conventions, and I've got a theory that the first habit that bugs me (more on this in a moment) comes from that. He seems to think that in-jokes and witt-less witicisms are the soul of cleverness. This is now the second - third? - novel in which his characters use the oh-so au-courant [for 2009] phrase "Jesus Phone" to refer to iPhones. He re-uses and re-uses and re-uses science-fiction nerdom catch phrases [ example dialogue: "any sufficiently advanced lingerie is indistiguishable from a weapon" ] that are intended to be funny, but fall utterly flat. In a single word, the nerd-to-nerd dialogue is embarrassing, and it's embarrassing on two different levels: if I worked with a self-described nerd who thought he was being clever issuing the lines that Stross' characters deploy with regularity, I'd cringe for his or her sake. ...and given that this is not actual dialogue, but written fictional dialogue that rings so false and so flat, I cringe for Stross' sake.

The final thing that made me realize that this is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly [ see the Dorothy Parker quote for the rest of that thought ] is the self-righteous smug condemnation he, through his characters, hands out to all of the mouth-breathing evil Jesus freaks from the snake handling continent of North America.

Stross' unconstrained hostility to Christianity is normally present in his blog, but it usually doesn't impact his fiction ... but in this book it's hard to go a page without being hit over the head with Stross' opinions being mouthpieced through either the characters or the plot. The villain is a cartoonish two dimensional televangelist (a totally up-to-the-minute target of hate...if this was 1982 and the 700 Club was on the air) of a TV megachurch. The preacher is a horrible man, engaging in gluttony and lust towards his daughter. Because he is a sexual pervert [ I think, having read only to page 100 ] he's castrated himself...but none-the-less he forces his daughter to mortify his flesh, as holy punishment, which involves something unspecified off in the direction of painful oral sex.

All of Stross' sympathetic characters roll their eyes in all the right places, and violently agree with each other on how evil and stupid those who don't share their sophisticated opinions are. At one point a teacher notes approvingly the de-Christianization of England (in that there are Hindus, Muslims, etc. in her class) but mention her big problem with the religious: fanatic parents - not Muslims, mind you, but Christians - take their children out of religion class. There can be no explanation for this other than the one presented - the small minded Christian parents are afraid that their children learn FACTS.

It is during this same coversation that one of the good left-wing anti-Christian characters that we are meant to identify with "sips his wine thoughtfully" in the between explaining that Christians are fanatics and, after the sip, explaining that Christians are fanatics.

Moving off of the utterly arrogant and snide tone to a new topic of critique: one of Stross' pitfalls as a writer is that he often throws a barrage of word-salad at the reader in - I believe - an attempt to come off as more knowledgeable than I suspect he actually is. In some of his science fiction the phrase "time-like curves" appears far more often than is defensible, and the context fails to provide any example that Stross actually knows what he's talking about. In this, his horror fiction, it's a barrage of theological terms. "Dispensationalism" gets used as if it's just a synonym for "fundamentalist", "prosperity theology" gets used in a similar way. The "quiverful" movement of some Christian religions teaching that large families are good is denounced as a plot because the people who adopt such opinions are seeking to either indoctrinate their children or use them for unwholesome purposes.

Despite the fact that most of the oxes that Stross is goring are not my own, I finally got SO annoyed at how he stacked the deck so strongly against his ideological enemies, so that every character sympathetic to his own point of view is wise, patient, sophisticated and urbane, and every character with the other opinions is a snake-handling con-man, I couldn't even stay with the book up to the point where - I presume - the fairly entertaining Chtulian plot begins.

It's a shame - Stross used to be a good writer.

Like Heinlein in his late period, though, writing good fiction and entertaining the reader now takes a backseat to the author's own tired rants.

Dear Mr. Stross:

the store tells me that the Kindle price of US$12.99 is set by the publisher. Yet the paperback price is US$7.19, a savings of US$5.80. Although I am a long-time Kindle user, I refuse to be gouged by such an ignorant pricing scheme. (I wonder if your publisher will show you statistics describing how physical sales greatly exceed eBook sales?) Would you please drag them into the 21st century?