The Rhesus Chart

Bob Howard, former eldritch IT manager, now field agent and applied computational demonologist and suit-in-training for the no-such-agency called the Laundry, really isn't having a good day. The strain of being involved in Lovecraftian peril isn't helping his marriage – especially when his wife Mo is also a field agent with a combat violin made by Erich Zann. He's barely got a grip on the responsibilities that are headed his way as the newest member of External Assets on "Mahogany Row". And then Andy, another Laundry employee, unleashes [ Continue reading... ]

On My Shelves: The Apocalypse Codex

Bob Howard, former network admin, now applied computational demonologist and sometime field agent for the it-doesn't-exist agency called the Laundry, has managed to survive the nearly soul-shattering events of The Fuller Memorandum, which puts him directly in line for something more terrifying: promotion, possibly into even having responsibility for other people. Unfortunately, as with many things Laundry-related, promotion is an offer you can't refuse – at least, not safely. And with CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (more colloquially known as "When [ Continue reading... ]

On My Shelves: The Fuller Memorandum (Laundry Files #3)

Bob Howard, IT expert, computational demonologist, and sometime field agent for the ultra-top-secret U.K. agency called The Laundry, is back. Fresh from the James Bondian adventure of The Jennifer Morgue, Bob's married to Mo, who he rescued in the first book and who returned the favor with a vengeance in the second, and while any marriage that includes two people who know about the Great Old Ones and their impending arrival in CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN isn't going to be filled with picket fences and cheery nights all the time, you might hope that [ Continue reading... ]

On My Shelves: The Jennifer Morgue

Bob Howard is back. A hacker-turned-agent for the supernatural covert agency of the United Kingdom, The Laundry, Bob has recovered from his earlier encounters with a parallel-world Nazi plot to summon an energy-consuming "ice giant" into the world and an internal power struggle that revealed part of the government's plans for CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (when the Stars are Right and Things emerge from beyond the realm of sanity). But things are never quiet when you're one of the people on the front lines between the rest of humanity and someone who [ Continue reading... ]

On My Shelves: The Atrocity Archives

The idea that thoughts, concepts, mathematics, logic themselves can affect reality is hardly unique. I've previously reviewed The Incompleat Enchanter by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague deCamp, in which Harold Shea and Reed Chalmers work out the Mathematics of Magic which allow the users to cross to other worlds, Doctor Who has frequently used the concept (Castrovalva, the Shakespeare Code, etc.) and numerous other authors have taken their turns with it. The Atrocity Archives is Charlie Stross' take on the concept, done in a more modern and [ Continue reading... ]