The Fuller Memorandum: A Laundry Files Novel

By now, just about any mythos fan worth his/her/its tentacles will have heard of Bob Howard and the Laundry, Charlie Stross' singular (um, er..) contribution to Lovecraftian fiction. If not, here is the saga to date.The Atrocity ArchiveThe Concrete Jungle (a novella included with The Atrocity Archive)Overtime (a short story available free online)The Jennifer MorguePimpf (a novella included with The Jennifer Morgue)The premise of this marvelous series is pretty simple. "The realm of pure mathematics is very real indeed, and the ...things...that cast shadows on the walls of Plato's cave can sometimes be made to listen and pay attention if you point a loaded theorem at them." Previously folks like Abdul Alhazred stumbled across ways to access these alternate dimensions and their inhabitants; with the access of modern computing such incursions are becoming more common and more deadly. Governments have set up secret organizations to deal with the problem. If you succeed or come close to crossing the threshold, you are forcibly recruited onto the team. In the UK, it's SOE Q department (officially disbanded) AKA the Laundry). Agents go to the field armed with hands of glory, geases and wards, and try to tamp down the incursions. Unfortunately, the tentacles of government bureaucracy snake into every aspect of everything. As we approach CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, when the stars are right, accessing these other planes will be very easy and the world will be a much more dangerous place. In fact, the reason CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is approaching turns out to have nothing to do with the stars and everything to do with computational power (but maybe not the way you'd think).The Fuller Memorandum is a novel released by Ace Books in the US. It is a great production and runs 320 pages. I only have one complaint. Previously, Mr. Stross' Laundry novels had their original hard cover release by small press Golden Gryphon Press with wonderful cover art by Steve Montiglio. The cover here is by Mark Frederickson and it pretty much sucks by comparison.You do not have to be particularly conversant in Lovecraft to enjoy this novel, but it certainly helps to know a little bit about his more famous stories. I don't think you absolutely have to have read the previous Laundry stories either but it certainly would help to be familiar with Stross' cast of characters (and heck, all the other novels/novellas are corking good reads).All I can say is this is a bloody brilliant book. I've read just about every Cthulhu mythos novel in print and this is the best. I never thought anything could displace Radiant Dawn by Cody Goodfellow, but in my estimation, The Fuller Memorandum does. The Atrocity Archive and The Jennifer Morgue were warm ups; the author really hits his stride here. Mr. Stross has a nuanced appreciation of Lovecraft, an incomparable gift for techy writing and a razor sharp sense of humor. Like Lovecraft, Stross will take real places and people, incorporating them into his narrative to give it a feeling of veracity. Here Stross uses the real life almost mythic figure of Ungern von Sternberg, the Bloody Baron, to great effect. Apart from the trappings, however, Stross also can create a horrific scene that makes the flesh crawl. I was intensely creeped out while the expert was examining the Zann model violin. In The Fuller Memorandum we find out more about Bob Howard's wife, Mo, and his boss, Angleton, about CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, about the Laundry and the worsening dangers everywhere. With only 310 pages of text, compared to modern fantasy novels) the book rockets along. Once you start, you will be swept away and done in a few short hours. I know Mr. Stross is putting the finishing touches on The Apocalypse Codex but it won't see the light of print until 2012. No worries! In addition to Mr. Stross' works, here is my list of excellent mythos novels you can while away the time with:Radiant Dawn - GoodfellowRavenous Dusk - GoodfellowDelta Green: The Rules of Engagement - TynesBalak - RaineyThe Gardens of Lucullus - TierneyThe Midnight Eye Files: The Amulet - MeikleWhere Goeth Nyarlathotep - ReinerHaunting of Alaizabel Cray - Wooding (Lovecraftian, not Cthulhu mythos really)A Night in the Lonesome October - ZelaznyGemini Rising - McNaughtonDownward to Darkness - McNaughtonWorse Things Waiting - McNaughton (The House Across the Way, although good, is not Lovecraftian or mythos, imo)Queen of K'n-Yan - KenThreshold - Kiernan (very Lovecraftian but not mythos)Mall of Cthulhu - CooperThe Darkest Part of the Woods - CampbellThe Ceremonies - KleinThe Drums of Chaos - TierneyLow Red Moon - KiernanDaughter of Hounds - Kiernan (these last two by Kiernan deal with the society of Lovecraftian ghouls)The Red Tree - Kiernan (arguments can be made but I view this as a story of a portal into the Dreamlands, with references to ghouls)

The Fuller Memorandum is Charles Stross' third entry into the Laundry series, and like its predecessors, this one owes something to a particular type of spy thriller---this time those of Anthony Price (even down to a few characters sharing the same name). The Laundry Files, as they are sometimes called, center around the idea that computation (whether via computer or human brain) is capable of opening gates to other realities, and that there are numerous intelligences out there which regard us as food.... It's Lovecraft's cosmology updated and tinged with some of the wilder ideas of folks like Turing and Babbage, and it's also a satire of the civil service and bureaucracy.To The Fuller Memorandum itself, then. The Prologue opens with a discussion of the One True Religion, in which we learn that Earthly religions have got it all wrong, and that there IS a god. The problem is that God is coming back, and he's hungry. This is hardly comforting to Bob Howard, the pen name of the protagonist, who is writing his memoirs as required by his boss so that the Laundry itself will not lose the value of his experience. And so Howard begins the story of the beginning of the end of the world.The book is well-plotted, and it explores the background of Howard's boss, Angleton, the DSS (Detached Special Secretary or Deeply Scary Sorceror, depending on who's asking). Previous novels have given us plenty to look at in terms of the world in general, as well as the capabilities of Bob and his wife Mo, so this look at Angleton is a fascinating one. The novel also makes it clear that Bob underestimates his own abilities.For all that, though, this book is darker and nastier than its predecessors. There's still the tried-and-true silliness of the bureaucracy, including training programs, an insane urge to track each paper clip, and the like, but this time all of it takes place in front of the looming backdrop of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, the codename for the end of the world. In spite of the darkness, I found the book to be fun and engrossing.The first novel truly excelled in creating tension---I was actually nervous about the results as the main novella progressed. Stross' second outing, The Jennifer Morgue, really lacked that tension, but here in the Fuller Memorandum it's back. The climax was stirring, thrilling, exciting, and it kept me on the edge of my seat---which is all you can ask. I didn't feel quite the same sense of nameless dread this time around, but it was disquieting and unpleasant, which means that Stross was successful.Bob's voice, which is really the center of the book, is basically unchanged from the previous two novels. But since Stross is focusing on some really ugly things, and since Howard is older and much more in the know, that darkness resonates. He and Mo won't have children because they know what the future has in store; that darkness also manifests itself in ways some have interpreted as anti-Christian. If that bothers you, you may wish to avoid this book, but for me, I simply took it in stride as the fairly natural opinions of someone in Bob's circumstances.

Keeps getting. The Laundry serirs is definitely one of my favorite. Excellent story, crazy blwck humor: it's just that good

Einfach ein wirklich gutes Buch!

Great action sequences. Loooove Bob and Mo. What a hugely entertaining read!Now I get to move on to the next book...

Charles Stross nos sigue deleitando con su particular combinación de humor y horror lovecraftiano en esta tercera entrega de la saga de The Laundry Files. Divertida, ocurrente y con toques de terror en el momento preciso. Un poquito mejor que los dos títulos precedentes (que también son muy buenos). El personaje de Angleton es ya sencillamente inolvidable.

C'est la suite attendue de "Jennifer Morgue The Jennifer Morgue ", ce sont les mêmes personnages, le même monde et toujours cette extraordinaire capacité de l'auteur à nous faire sourire alors qu'objectivement nous lisons un livre d'horreur cosmique. L'atmosphère est a chaque livre plus noire car nous nous rapprochons de "case Nightmare Green", mais j' y prends toujours autant de plaisir. The Jennifer Morgue