Re-read
Charles Stross'
The Nightmare Stacks, latest in his Laundry Files series, before returning it to the library over the weekend, paying a little more attention to the details this time.
The past couple of books have been switching away from usual narrator Bob Howard's viewpoint to present alternate looks into the organization, ostensibly because Bob has now leveled up too much in powerset and experience to be a particularly plausible beleaguered character for the cases being dealt with. While Stross' first-person narrative voice in the series tends to suffer from a certain sameness, IMHO, he seems to be getting a bit better at conveying different internal character styles, and it was nice to see him get experimental with the bits set in the alternate fantasy locale.
I enjoyed seeing how the Laundry and its Lovecraftian bureaucratic procedures looked from the outsider perspective of new recruits Alex and Pete the Vicar, as well as catching up with some older guest characters, and also seeing how our modern human society might look to people not actually from it. Which brings me to Best Out-Of-Context Quote, which beats the usual reptoid royal family conspiracy theories:
Quote:
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Well, there is a queen. — has memories of seeing her on television, waving and smiling. Waving and smiling, not smiting. It's a mystery. How does this ancient and undoubtedly powerful sorceress compel the obedience of so many subjects, if she refrains from smiting?
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I also liked that one of the new characters introduced whom I thought would end up playing only a supporting role for one of the established characters, ended up having the roles reversed so that the established character became an adjunct to their character development and storyline instead, which was a nice play on the usual way that particular trope is handled. Interestingly enough, there was an unusual double footnote at some point leading to separate notes for the same reference, which I normally only see on the backs of my Terry Pratchett paperbacks*†, which I'm wondering how the e-book version will convey, since they usually switch to using single asterisked endnotes throughout, from the copies I already have.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how the fallout of the rather surprising ending will work, given that Stross has stated on his blog that Brexit has jossed what he had in mind and he's now frantically rewriting the political bits which address that in next year's book #8, which is supposed to bring us back to Bob Howard's POV, now that everything has hit the fan and become in need of his leveled up crisis-dealing skills.
Recommended as another entertaining installment for continuing readers of the series, and possibly for interested newbies as well. Apparently this was written with the idea of being a mid-series jumping-on point for new readers, who'd get introduced to how the Laundry worked alongside with recent recruit Alex. This one was a lot more on the action adventure side than usual, if you think you might be interested in seeing the logistics of some fantasy military stuff in the modern world (and don't mind being spoilered for some of the characters' introductory backstory presented in book #5, some of which was originally presented as a mystery for Bob to figure out).
* Informing me that the prices for Australia and New Zealand are only suggested, and not fixed like the ones for the UK and Canada. Presumably this has something to do with fluctuating currency values or import stuff.
† And that the suggested price for one country includes GST (but not the other).