The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross

Light-hearted Bond pastiche

This, the second of Stross's "Laundry" novels, about a fictional occult spying agency of the British government, is more light-hearted than its pre-decessor "The Atrocity Archives". Indeed, it is presented as somewhat of a pastiche of the Bond stories - in particular the film versions. I found it thoroughly enjoyables. One potential weak point is all the geeky in-jokes. A reader who doesn't get 'em may be a little confused in a couple of places. With that proviso, go out and buy this book.

Readable, funny, but not quite as good as Atrocity Archives

Bob Howard, SysAdmin and Occult Ops. field operative for The Laundry, continues to have an interesting life. Here, his destiny is entangled with a demon, and he's charged with stopping a billionaire megalomaniac from awakening the Old Ones at the bottom of the ocean, and hastening the onset of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN - and all without blowing his expense account. If you've read The Atrocity Archives, you'll know some of what I mean; if not, I haven't spoiled anything for you and you have some pleasantly diverting reading to do.

Stross's writing style is very accomodating without being patronisingly simple, and I read through this over the course of a few day's worth of train trips. Bob, his main character, has an amusing inner monologue which portrays the clear contempt Stross has for modern executive corporate work practises (and handily serves as a narrative since the book is basically a first-person account), and somewhat oddly this is also a book about how mathematics and physics are actually the basis of demonology (the "demons" in these books are actually extra-dimensional aliens, albeit highly dangerous ones who aren't always sentient). The plot begins to creak a bit once the major plot exposition is underway around the final third of the book, and although this strays into sci-fiction horror, it actually begins to become slightly ridiculous rather than engaging - slightly "schlock", if you ask me. I didn't like where the "James Bond" theme was going, and it kept going right up till the afterword.

The previous novel, The Atrocity Archives (actually a collection of related short stories), is the better bet here, in my opinion. The Jennifer Morgue isn't a bad book, and I enjoyed reading it - but the prequel is better, I think.

Stross Strikes Again

An excellent follow up to the equally superb Atrocity Archives, full of humour, action and weirdness that will definitely entertain.

Another very entertaining book from Charles Stross

The Atrocity Archives was put together following it being issued initially as a series of serialised stories and although a good read this fact showed in the books plot and sequencing. The Jennifer Morgue is a more complete story. It is very funny, I enjoyed the science, and the overall plot is daft but entertaining. I look forward to another Bob Howard book.

cthulhu meets bond

A really good read. More ideas in this book than many others. Any book which, for an afterthought, has a demon-possessed game of the witless Never Winter Nights has to be good. The treatise in the "Afterword" on how SPECTRE has "won" in our "real" world should chill.

Unless of course, it's just the Elder Ones whispering across the ether to be-dazzle us lowly primates ...Fantastic.