Bob Howard is a computer ubergeek employed by the Laundry, a secret British agency assigned to clean up incursions from other realities caused by the inadvertent manipulation of complex mathematical equations: in other words, magic. In 1975, the CIA used Howard Hughes's Glomar Explorer in a bungled attempt to raise a sunken Soviet submarine in order to access the Jennifer Morgue, an occult device that allows communication with the dead. Now a ruthless billionaire intends to try again, even if by doing so he awakens the Great Old Ones, who thwarted the earlier expedition. It's up to Bob and a collection of British eccentrics even Monty Python would consider odd to stop the bad guy and save the world, while getting receipts for all expenditures or else face the most dreaded menace of all: the Laundry's own auditors.
| ISBN | 1841495700 | | Pages | 432 | | ISBN13 | 9781841495705
(What's this?) | | Weight (grammes) | 225 | | Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group | | Published in | London | | Imprint | Orbit | | Height (mm) | 177 | | Format | Paperback | | Width (mm) | 108 | | Publication date | 06 Sep 2007 | | Spine width (mm) | 26 | | DEWEY | 823.92 | | Academic level | General | | DEWEY edition | DC22 | |
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Wonderful fun Publishers Weekly Tremendously good, geeky fun Daily Telegraph
Speculative fiction, set in the same ``spies meet sysadmins meet Cthulu'' mash-up universe as the author's {\bf Atrocity Archive}. This time the emphasis was on a sometimes mindbendingly self-referential homage to James Bond; the villain in this book protects himself bysetting up a geas that forces everyone to slot themselves into one ofthe many James Bond character archetypes; the Good Bond Girl, the Bad Bond Girl, the Longwinded Villain, and so on. The villain's plan is to
pull the plug on the geas at the moment that Bond is at the villain's mercy, and well before Bond blows up his lair. Complications ensue. This sounds entertaining, and it often was; but not, I think, often enough. And the rest of the time it was awkward, even ponderous. Recommended only to Bond or Stross fans. -
Bill Philips
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