I am a huge fan of “The Laundry Files” and will buy these books in hard cover the day they’re released. For anyone else who’s a fan but who’s not watching release dates, the next installment in the series will be titled “The Labyrinth Index” and is scheduled for release on March 3, 2018.
For those of you who haven’t experienced this series, it’s an insanely funny take on the Lovecraftian universe, set in the present day, where summoning and demonology and magic are all driven by theoretical mathematics. Magicians become computational demonologists and all of the major 20th century powers have government agencies whose mission is to both control the occasional outbreaks of Lovecraftian horrors – which have been steadily increasing since the development and adoption of new information processing / computing capabilities – and preparation for an inevitable “Case Nightmare Green”, an event described in the The Laundry Files Wiki as a time “when the human population has grown sufficiently large – with the result that a critical number of minds are observing reality – and our solar system moves into a region of space with particular properties, thus allowing all kinds of magical and Cthulhoid chaos to take place…A mass-extinction level event, those in the know are hoping for enough of humanity to survive for the seventy or so years it’ll take for our solar system to move out of position, so that the survivors can repopulate the Earth.”
There’s so much to enjoy in these books – what I’ve always particularly appreciated is the way Stross juxtaposes the insane with the mundane. Anyone who’s worked for a government agency whose mission is central to national security will love the way Stross places a pivotal struggle for the survival of humanity in the hands of a traditionally bureaucratic government agency ruled by HR, Finance, Procurement and bound by the dysfunctional nature of any national government’s budgetary process. On top of that, Stross’ principal characters are purposefully and amazingly average in so many ways – typical British reserve, a cynical, beaten down attitude to their own bureaucracy, lives that focus on living within a middle class budget and trying to find a way to get normal, everyday errands taken care of – yet always somehow capable of finding either the creativity, the courage or the overwhelming good luck they need to keep saving the world.
Honestly, I love books that find a way to always make me laugh out loud and these novels almost always do – they’re awesome reads. This is also probably a great time to dive in since Stross finished an initial story arc and assembling a pretty fascinating cast of characters with his most recent book – “The Delirium Stacks” – and is set to launch what sounds like it will be his “Case Nightmare Green” story with a new book scheduled for release in “The Labyrinth Index”.
The Fuller Memorandum is the 3rd book in the series – following The Jennifer Morgue and preceeding The Apocalypse Codex. I double bought this hard cover and would love to find a good home for my second copy. The condition of the copy in question is Used – Like New and ranges in price on Amazon from $5.99 to $15.00. This copy has very minor damage to the corners – otherwise as close to new as you can find.
Contact me if you’re looking for a copy.
Cheers,
Brian