The Nightmare Stacks (A Laundry Files Novel) Hardcover – June 28, 2016

While I miss Bob and Mo, Alex does an excellent job taking their place and while I'd gotten a bit tired of the eldritch horrors, the threat in this book was creative and well conceived. This book was actually refreshing for being a part of the horrific Laundry Files series.There is such a pleasant melange of ingredients making up this story. Cassie and cosplay. Cassie as a possessed entity. You were led to believe that the force coming against the "queen's fortress" in Leeds was starkly alien but turn out to be the Unseelie court, still alien but perhaps coming from our own mythical history.I'm still trying to find out if there's any significance to Cassie's/Agent Second of Spies and Liars spoken tick "YesYes". It just sort of snuck in and became more and more frequent but I never got tired of it.Despite it being the title, the "Nightmare Stacks" were only mentioned twice in the book and I still don't remember their significance.

THE LABYRINTH INDEX is probably the book which is the most like a James Bond pastiche after a long period of the series poo-pooing on the very concept. It stars an arrogant sexist protagonist who fights against a sinister cartel with a world-ending scheme that doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense. The big difference being that Mhari is a woman sexist against men (referring to her boyfriend and partner as "****boy" for most of the novel) plus she has a team of minor Laundry characters accompanying her on a mission. In that respect, it's more like the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movies.I can't be too hard on Charles Stross because he's reversed one of his earlier decrees of the Laundry when he declared that everything from Howard Phillips Lovecraft was true(ish) other than the existence of Cthulhu, who he calls Old Bat Wings. Charles said that was the one element of the series which wasn't true--and is apparently now like vampires in that he was totally lying. Cthulhu's presence is revealed early on and he is also revealed to be the master of a longtime group of petty antagonists for the Laundry in the Black Chamber.In this book, Mhari is dispatched by the Prime Minister (Mr. Everyman who is basically Johm Simm's Master with godlike power and a hatred for all Jews--which include Christians and Muslims BTW) to the Americas. Someone has wiped the President of the United States from its 300 million citizens' memories and this is probably the prelude to something bad. Much gunplay, shoggoth summoning, and character growth for Mhari occurs. We also get snapshots into other characters views on events.Charles Stross has been struggling to keep the Laundry relevant with the cataclysmic weirdness in politics these past few years and this is the book he finally gives up on. Brexit, Trump, and other contemporary issues flat out don't exist in the Laundryverse now with a fictional new heroic President taking their place while the U.K. has bigger issues than its withdrawal from the EU. It's probably for the best but costs the series some of its meticulously researched realism. Then again, I suppose that went out the window with K-syndrome superheroes and PHANGS.The short version is this book is...okay. I give props for the use of the Black Chamber, Cthulhu, American military history, and the return of characters I like such as Peter. However, the fact Stross writes his heroes as overtly evil (siding with Nyarlathotep versus Cthulhu is even namechecked as "Stalin over Hitler" but that's not exactly reassuring). A bit like Mo in The Annihilation Score, Mhari is a deeply unpleasant person. While she undergoes some character growth, it seems consistent Stross prefers to write his men as nardy and devoted to their partners while the women are overtly dismissive to them when not doing "necessary" evils. It showed up in The Nightmare Stacks aswell.So, it was okay, I guess? I think the series has lost a lot of its charm without Bob Howard and none of the other protagonists really work well. I liked Mhari more than Mo and she's probably the second best protagonist but this feels like the kind of fiction which Charles Stross used to mock in earlier books and that's a bit odd to now have to take completely straight.6.5/10

THE NIGHTMARE STACKS is absolutely terrific. Bob and Mo make ultramicroscopic cameos (by reference only) and the star is Alex, one of the PHANGS self-created two novels ago in the THE RHESUS CHART. No worries if you haven't been keeping up. This is a great stand-alone to jump in on. If you are a fan, there is plenty of backstory to grab hold of.After the mixed reception of THE ANNIHILATION SCORE that focused for the first time on Mo, Bob Howard's wife and Laundry colleague, Stross's signature Laundry series is firmly back on track, albeit with another new narrator and POV. Alex Schwartz is a 24 year old virgin, nervous about his vampiric PHANG status, lack of a social life and temporary reassignment to Leeds where his parents live. He's lost his high paying job as a mathematician/analyst for an international bank (as did his whole team, many of whom did not survive the events of THE RHESUS CHART, the remainder of which are now PHANGS) and now works for the Laundry at a much reduced salary as an apprentice computational demonologist. One evening (days are not so good for him without SPF1000 latex sun block) he meets a Cassie, a cosplaying bride of Dracula in Whitby, a nearby town and things start looking up. That is, until Alex is forced to call a CASE NIGHTMARE RED as we see the first large scale incursion, this time of an invading force from an oddly similar yet totally bizarre parallel earth.THE NIGHTMARE STACKS is packed with the trademark humor that infuses the best of the Laundry series. The "meet the parents" scene contains several laugh out loud moments, and both Alex and Cassie are likable protagonists. Stress stays away from some of the heavier themes that caused a relatively mixed reaction to his last, THE ANNIHILATION SCORE, and returns to the bureaucratic satire of old, seen through new eyes. Pinky and the Brain are back and play strong supporting roles and are as weirdly competent as ever.I love the Bob Howard and Mo O'Brien characters, but Stross is happy to introduce us to a number of new main characters that are almost certain to play roles in the anticipated build up to CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, which, although getting closer, hopefully, remains many novels away.Highly Recommended.JM Tepper

It is rather unusual plot and delivery for this type of fiction ( urban fantasy ?) but it is really really worth reading. By the way - the previous one has the same quality, but i had not rated it. Sorry

I certainly wouldn't have read this book if I were not looking around for more titles by this author, but I enjoyed it, through and through, in all its wacky nerdiness. Need I say more? It is a much lighter read than Neal Stephenson, but shows the same quality of sci-fi imagination.

A very welcome return to form. I thought the Laundry novels had peaked with the Fuller Memorandum, and wasn't too impressed by the next three in the series, but Nightmare Stacks is superb. His elves are terrifically powerful and otherworldy creepy, and I would never have thought he had such a talent for mil-sf (Eurofighter Typhoons v dragons? One hundred and one useful things to do with a Kettenkraft?)

In der Qualität weit von den ersten 3 Büchern der Serie entfernt, aber immer noch eine deutliche Steigerung gegenüber dem unterirdischen letzten Band. Der trockene Humor ist zurück, die Handlung wieder interessanter durch die Wahl eines neuen Protagonisten.

This was staggeringly good fun in line with all the other Laundry novels.The mind numbing minutiae of the civil service and the mind shattering terror of alien gods and inter-dimensional parasites and monstrosities.And vampires. And elves.Of course Ilsa is the unsung hero of the whole book.