Book - The Nightmare Stacks (2016) [+]
Oct 31 2022
The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross is the seventh Laundry Files novel and centers on a new character so it's a jumping in point for new readers.
The Laundry Files is a modern-day vs occult horrors, very much like Delta Green RPG (US Spec Ops vs Mythos) except this is a British Civil Service department vs Mythos. It's overworked and underpaid people having to battle the occult, monsters, and the UK civil service bureaucracy. The first six novels center on Bob Howard (correction, the first five are Bob, number six is Bob's wife Dr Dominique O'Brien but still very much in Bob's sphere) who goes starts as a new Laundry recruit with some occult abilities and steadily gains powers until he replaces one of the big wigs in the department.
Nightmare Stacks focuses on Alex Schwartz who in the last novel was an antagonist new vampire who has a change of heart, survives the carnage, and is mandatorily recruited into The Laundry. While Alex has quite a bit more power than Bob had when he started, Alex still has this new bureaucracy to navigate and a bunch of lingo to learn which is great for new readers. There's a huge amount of references to previous novels and some is never fully explained but enough is that I think it's readable for new readers.
Anyway, Alex is sent to Leeds to help set up a new Laundry HQ which is unfortunate for him as he grew up in Leeds and spent his life trying to get away from it. Now he's back and has the addition of parents and a sister to deal with who can't be told what he really does. Meanwhile he finally meets a girl, Cassie, who unfortunately is an elven spy from another world scouting out Earth for an invasion. They meet, fall in love, and now Alex and Cassie have to stop the invasion before too many people die (and there's a lot of dying in this one).
On the one hand, having read six novels already this one is kind of same old same old even with a new main character. The romance story does really hook me in though and the story gets more and more exciting. The ending arrives rapidly without a denouement so not sure what happens to Alex and Cassie afterwards.
Reading the descriptions of the next few novels looks like the series turns kind of dark and then Stross decides to start a trilogy with new characters in the middle of the Laundry Files series. I guess maybe there's no reason to keep reading this series.
The Laundry Files is a modern-day vs occult horrors, very much like Delta Green RPG (US Spec Ops vs Mythos) except this is a British Civil Service department vs Mythos. It's overworked and underpaid people having to battle the occult, monsters, and the UK civil service bureaucracy. The first six novels center on Bob Howard (correction, the first five are Bob, number six is Bob's wife Dr Dominique O'Brien but still very much in Bob's sphere) who goes starts as a new Laundry recruit with some occult abilities and steadily gains powers until he replaces one of the big wigs in the department.
Nightmare Stacks focuses on Alex Schwartz who in the last novel was an antagonist new vampire who has a change of heart, survives the carnage, and is mandatorily recruited into The Laundry. While Alex has quite a bit more power than Bob had when he started, Alex still has this new bureaucracy to navigate and a bunch of lingo to learn which is great for new readers. There's a huge amount of references to previous novels and some is never fully explained but enough is that I think it's readable for new readers.
Anyway, Alex is sent to Leeds to help set up a new Laundry HQ which is unfortunate for him as he grew up in Leeds and spent his life trying to get away from it. Now he's back and has the addition of parents and a sister to deal with who can't be told what he really does. Meanwhile he finally meets a girl, Cassie, who unfortunately is an elven spy from another world scouting out Earth for an invasion. They meet, fall in love, and now Alex and Cassie have to stop the invasion before too many people die (and there's a lot of dying in this one).
On the one hand, having read six novels already this one is kind of same old same old even with a new main character. The romance story does really hook me in though and the story gets more and more exciting. The ending arrives rapidly without a denouement so not sure what happens to Alex and Cassie afterwards.
Reading the descriptions of the next few novels looks like the series turns kind of dark and then Stross decides to start a trilogy with new characters in the middle of the Laundry Files series. I guess maybe there's no reason to keep reading this series.