"Bob Howard is a low-level
techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are
out saving the world, Bob's under a desk restoring lost data. His world was
dull and safe - but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob is up to his neck in
spycraft, parallel universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder
gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more
than a full system reboot to sort this mess out."
The Atrocity Archives was the
first book in Stross’ The Laundry Files series, a collection of tales that mix Lovecraftian
horror, spy thriller, science fiction, and workplace humor. This first book
contains a short novel (the title tale) and a novella (The Concrete Jungle),
both that feature the main character of "Bob Howard" (a pseudonym
taken for security purposes), a one-time I.T. consultant turned occult field agent.
“Howard is recruited to work for the Q-Division of SOE, otherwise known as ‘the
Laundry’, the British government agency which deals with occult threats. ‘Magic’
is described as being a branch of applied computation (mathematics), therefore
computers and equations are just as useful, and perhaps more potent, than
classic spellbooks, pentagrams, and sigils for the purpose of influencing
ancient powers and opening gates to other dimensions,” as the description goes.
The short novel reminded me a
lot of Tim Powers Declare, which also dealt with supernatural elements and
spies during World War II. From what I found online, it appears neither knew each
other or what they were working on. However, Stross has also indicated that the
role playing game Delta Green also has similar themes to his tale. As wrote in the
afterword, "All I can say in my defense is… Ihadn't
heard of Delta Green when I
wrote The Atrocity Archive.”
Meanwhile, Stross also mentions his love of Len Deighton, whose spy thrillers
of the early 1960s through the 1980s were huge influences on him (Deighton is
still with us, and will turn 96 in October).
The Concrete Jungle is a bit weirder,
but more straight forward (so to speak, as it reminded me a lot of Ben
Aaronovitch’s River of London series) and picks up little bits of story lines
from The Atrocity Archive and expands them to fully exhibit the dry humor and typical
British bureaucracy that is the backbone of both these tales.
I liked these two tales, even if I didn’t understand
all the abbreviations, acronyms, and organizations the characters spouted off,
but it’s a wonderfully fun universe.
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