The Annihilation Score (A Laundry Files Novel)

We depart from Bob's perspective to see Dominique's. Turns out shes an awful person. All she cares about is her emotions and status, and cites bob giving up on the marriage as the worst thing possible. That's immediately following her date with superman and a heavy makeout session! Her solipsism pissed me off something fierce, bob can do better.

I could start with "the laundry", nuff said. But this one is different, it's the first (and who knows, maybe the only) one in which the narrator is Mo, Bob is just a faint presence in the background always somewhere else. It's not my favourite of the series, but I'd say it's in the top five. It's scary, its' funny, it's weird and as usual makes you want to read the next one NOW!

I have read all of Charles Stross' previous books and I have thoroughly enjoyed them all. I really think Charles is having a mid-life or Bruce (Catliyn?) Jenner crisis of sorts. He should really stick to writing the Laundry Files from Bob's perspective. I have enough sense to know that I don't understand women (I'm 67 years old) well enough to write a book based on a woman's perspective and I hope Charles realizes that before he writes his next book in this series. I am so unhappy in part because I was so looking forward to this book and was so disappointed.

Another great Charles Stross book in "The Laundry" series. I really enjoyed this one! The dry British humor makes it. He's like the PG Wodehouse of dark yet funny Monster/Magic/Government stories. Can't wait for the next one.

If you have ever been in a large corporate environment or a Government agency the political rules and wrangling will be familiar. Dr. Dominique O'brien (Mo) and her spirit infested white violin are the main characters in this saga. Bob, Mo's husband, has left their home because he is afraid of the white violin. Pay attention to the clever ironic language and dialog. That is the charm to Stross books. Example: If you begin the day by swallowing a live toad, nothing will happen worse than that for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, London is experiencing a rash of normal citizens becoming super powered humans with varying powers. Mo is tasked with building a team of special powered crime fighters to counteract the new super powered citizens. Mo's team includes a vampire, a mermaid and a cop that can fly while fighting crime.

What could possibly go wrong with this plan??

I put off getting this for over six months, solely because of all the negative reviews from the store readers. I am glad I finally bought it. It was dark and funny and imperfect, but worth reading if you're into the series.

If all the previous Laundry Files novels are 5-star (and I think they are), this one is a 4-star, at least at the beginning. It starts out as an epistolary that seems rather uncomfortable with itself. Now, Charles Stross writes so well that it's probable he intends this discomfort, but reading the first three or four chapters is,,,well, uncomfortable. That said, somewhere in the book, the fictional author of this fictional journal forgets to address everything to the fictional agent reading said fictional journal, and just tells the story. And it's a good story, full of all the wonderful stuff we've come to expect of Charles Stross. He can imagine more wild things and tell more scathing office jokes in ten minutes than most of us can in our lifetimes. So, even though this book starts out as a 4, it finishes as a 5, and leaves me wanting to know...when is the next one coming out?

I love the Laundry titles, and this one was worth the read, but not ip to the standard of the other books. There were the usual hilarious takes on office politics and a great juxtaposition with some action scenes... But the main character really turned me off. And it felt like there was a lot of details to slog through between interesting bits. Still, it was a good story overall, but not a page-turner like some of the previous books in the series.

Imagine if the Avengers had to fill out after-action reports and deal with committees Charles Stross’s fun Laundry files series started with the odd mixture of an early Len Deighton spy, Bob Howard facing not only British bureaucracy, but Lovecraftian monsters. In the latest there’s a plague of Superheroes. Bob’s wife, Dr. Dominique O’Brien (Mo) has to deal with them. She was facing down a nutty super-powered villain with her evil violin, Lector, when she was caught on tape by news crews. Her fifteen minutes of fame leads to her heading a new division of Scotland Yard with a team of superheroes. But the evil Professor Freudstein wants her and lector to play The Annihilation Score (trade from Ace) broadcast on BBC to warp the minds of the British public. She and Bob are separated so he goes on dates with one of her heroes, Captain Friendly, who in real life is a senior bureaucrat in Scotland Yard. I eagerly await each new addition to the Laundry Files and was glad to have more background on Mo who usually just a minor character.Review printed by Philadelphia Weekly Press

This is an excellent follow up from the previous story. It pulls everything together and turns it into something else. The foreshadowing was clear yet the ending was still a surprise. I really enjoy the combination of fantasy, sci fi, and humor in this series.

Another great chapter in the Laundry series. It appears that Case Nightmare Blue may be arriving sooner than expected. This is really part 2 of the previous book, since it resolves the cliff-hanger in that book. Can't wait for the next book and the someday incredible climax.

Ok, not the 'traditional" Laundry Files story. This is told from Mo's perspective crossing over on the last dozen pages of the PHANG novel that came out a bit ago.

Nicely plotted with some interesting action although there is a lot of bureaucratic inaction as the plot develops. Not going to post any spoilers so that's as far as I'll go.

Stross seems to do a fair job with the feminine voice (being a guy I really can't say) and all in all this is a welcome new addition to the Files. While this isn't up to the standards of say The Apocalypse Codex, second level Stross still beats out most of what is out there. My personal preference would be for him to drop his other books and focus on the Laundry but that's not my call.

Unlike previous Laundry file stories, this one is written from Moe's perspective. It will be fascinating to see where Charles Stross takes this complicated marriage in his next book. I really enjoy Charlie Stross's laundry series and this one doesn't disappoint.

Loved the view into the other side of the Laundry, a more intimate view of senior civil servants working together, the realistic view of a couple working through a troubled marriage together, when that trouble comes from the job, and their dedication to the job. Great themes, particularly applicable to those chasing their 15-20th professional year, and some (inadvertent?) guidance on surviving the 21st century workplace, whether it's staffed by the metabolically challenged or not.

I enjoyed the change in point of view, although occasionally things did feel quite a lot like Bob instead of Mo. I particularly liked the way the story pushed the over-arching plot forward, not like the other Laundry books, but totally compatible. I sometimes felt like Mo's lot was to be used and abused in ways that aren't necessarily *worse* than Bob's, but also not in the same kind. This might just be a reaction to the extreme events of the last Bob/Laundry book.
All in all, I liked the book, liked what it does with the Laundry universe, and would be happy to read another from Mo's viewpoint.

I cannot comment on Charlie writing first person as a female, as I am not a female. I will listen for a female commenting on that.
Plot is interesting, the bad guys are not the monsters from elsewhen. Politics figure large. The most interesting SF is "If this goes on ..."

Charles Stross continues his highly entertaining Laundry series. This isn't my favorite but it's still head and shoulders above much of the stuff that is out there. And dare I say it's a lot more entertaining and better written than most of the original H.P. Lovecraft from whom it steals its mythos...

The characters in the laundry novels were more interesting and entertaining before (spoiler) and the (spoiler) scrum thing. Plus a lot of DPs (Dead Players) (spoiler?) to climb over. Not his best offering, although interesting development of the oft sidelined (spoiler).

Charles Stross does not disappoint with his latest book on the adventures of the British Secret Service devoted to heading off the coming occult apocalypse. This time we follow Dr. Monique O'Brien, carrier of The Pale Violin, as she fights the beginnings of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, and struggles against the emergent supervillian menace. Well written and engaging. I could not put this book down.

I have found Charles Stross's "Laundry" series to be consistently enjoyable. The stories have followed the rise of everyman Bob Howard through the super-secret department of British military intelligence called the Laundry in classic John Le Carre spy-speak. The Laundry's wheelhouse is dealing with the occult that are being released increasingly more often by the advent of high level computing; it is the fact of mind and mathematics, apparently, that affect the real structure of the universe. Bob has moved from involuntary draftee as a result of stumbling into the occult via computing into field work against eldritch horrors to minor functionary in the Laundry and, as of the last book which killed off the legendary Angleton, to being the current host of the Eater of Souls. During this time he has wooed and married Dr. Dominique O'Brien aka "Mo", a beautiful redhead with a cursed violin.

The fun of the Laundry Files is how Stross works LeCarre's spycraft, stratospheric levels of nerd culture and the Cthulhu mythos into an eclectic pastiche. Another fun aspect is how Stross works each book into a different genre. The early books were Cthulhu horror, one book was James Bond, the last book was a vampire story, and this one, most improbably of all, and yet completely logical, is a superhero story, complete with origin stories and flamboyant characters with costumes and superpowers.

Apparently, as the stars have have come into the dread configuration presaging Case Nightmare Green, the interpenetration of the other place where the mindless horrors who threaten human existence reside is becoming more complete. This phenomenon is giving average people "superpowers." It's really the "ritual magic" that the Laundry specializes in, and has turned into a science and technology, but the contemporary mind conceives of this turn of events as involving superpowers.

Enter Dominique O'Brien. This novel starts right at the end of the last novel, with O'Brien crashing in on Bob and Bob's ex-girlfriend, and current vampire, who seem to be in a compromising position, except that's a mistake. Unfortunately, O'Brien's cursed violin has issues with Bob's new status as Eater of Souls and the couple are estranged.

Then, it seems that O'Brien has to deal with an outbreak of superpowers by forming her own superhero team - including herself, a mermaid (from the James Bond Laundry novel), the vampire, and a superpowered British cop who goes by the name "Officer Friendly." A supervillain runs rings around O'Brien's team as she has to create her "Transhuman Police Force" and deal with British bureaucratic regulations and the collapse of her marriage and the possibility that a mole is in her team and a burgeoning romance with Officer Friendly and the increasing power of her evil, quasi-sentient violin.

All the balls are kept in the air with a mashing of superhero motifs and spycraft and bureaucratic-jargon.

The story works mostly. A nit I picked was how easily Mo was able to shunt aside Bob for Officer Friendly. I didn't buy the break-up at the end, but I wonder if Bob isn't becoming less of a human thing with his amalgamation with the Eater of Souls. The fun part of Bob was his lack of confidence, his learning the ropes and the vast pools of ignorance, lit up by the occasional nerd gem of knowledge, that made him our entry-point into this mad world. Maybe Bob is off the books as our focal character from this point on? Or maybe Stross intends to two-track the Laundry Files into "Mo books" and "Bob Books"?

A final bit of advice I would give is that if you have not read the previous Laundry File books, do not start here. The story arc and mythos of the series is too far along without a new reader wondering what is going on. Start here and a new reader might give up reading the rest of the series out of frustration.

Which would be a shame.

The Laundry Files series puts a satirical spin on technology and bureaucracy. The series is a fun combination of thriller, mystery, social/political satire, and science fiction. One of the core premises is that sufficiently advanced computer programming attracts otherworldly powers into the brains of practitioners. Technologists can therefore be dangerous to themselves and others. Earlier books in this series have been told through the eyes of Bob Howard, a computer sysadmin who becomes a troubleshooter and fix-it guy for those "magical" problems.

In The Annihilation Score, we see that events in the previous books have caused increasing numbers of ordinary humans to develop what appear to be superpowers. How would a government "handle" the superhero problem? Who you gonna call? Mo! The narrator in The Annihilation Score shifts from Bob Howard to Dominique "Mo" O'Brien. Mo has spent years fighting the bloodthirsty tendencies of the powerful violin she carries (and refers to as Lecter, which is quite appropriate). How can she deal with government bureaucracy, managerial headaches, superheroes, a failing marriage to Bob Howard, and a violin that wants to use her for nefarious purposes? Read it and see. :) I've loved all the books in this series, but particularly enjoyed getting Mo's viewpoint for a change.

I thoroughly enjoyed this entry in the Laundry Files. It's easy to forget that Bob isn't the axis around which everything spins so it was nice to see things from a different perspective. One where HR isn't necessarily the enemy (even if they aren't your friends) and the fallout is big. I expect there'll be a Bob-centric work with an overlapping time frame coming up too.

A pleasant surprise to delve into Mo's POV -- and in the process get a more rounded portrait of The Laundry than we have seen before. Stross tackles riffing on a handful of interesting new sub-genres he hasn't taken on before.