Normally when someone recommends a book for me to read the typical turnaround time is somewhere in the vicinity of 3-4 years. On one end of the spectrum I have a friend who has been trying to get me to read something from Peter Straub since the 1980s and I finally went out and bought Koko a couple months ago. Over on the other end my brother told me about Charles Stross' The Atrocity Archives this past autumn and I finished it about a week ago.
I'm not sure why it took me so little time to check it out but it probably has to do with the fact that I'm an IT person who enjoys H.P. Lovecraft's world of Chtulhu and the hero of The Atrocity Archives is one Bob Howard, a network admin who works for an agency whose mission is to keep the Elder Gods and their minions out of our green and pleasant lands. It is a natural fit.
Howard works for The Laundry, a super-mega-ultra-secret British agency. The book introduces us to him as he is breaking into the offices of a company that employs a mathematician who has stumbled upon some formulae that are just too dangerous for him or pretty much anyone else to know. You see mathematics has a distinct thaumaturgical side to it in Stross' world. It can be used to wield magic, summon demons, and create portals to other universes.
The break-in is Howard's first field operation. Normally he is found at a desk ensuring that The Laundry's computers and networks are secure and in working order as well as navigating the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the agency. He proves himself a decent field operative and is given another assignment in the States where he is to meet up with another mathematician whose theories can be used for more than simple postulating. This is Mo or, more properly, Dr. Dominique O'Brien. Unsurprisingly the American authorities are quite keen on harnessing her work for their own ends.
Mo is a very fine-looking woman and Bob is attracted to her. Unfortunately an attempt on his life combined with a desperate call from Mo for help throw Bob's operation off. Against protocol he goes after the girl who has been kidnapped by a gang of Middle Eastern terrorists one of whom speaks like a German. Things can get very weird very quickly.
And the book is at its best when things get weird. The first 50-60 pages get bogged down at times with Howard's beleagured IT genius routine. Stross has a lot to introduce to the reader – the characters, The Laundry, and how mathematics and lasers can take the place of sacrifices and pentagrams scrawled on the floor when summoning magic and unearthly creatures. But there are times when Bob's whining and holier-than-thou routine just get stale. I get it that non-IT folks, especially accountants, are idiots who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to computers and make life miserable for others with all their paperwork. Stross just harps on this too much in the opening chapters of the book.
However, once things get going, the book becomes a real page turner and Stross does a great job of capturing some Lovecraftian dread. The scene when Bob and Mo are in The Atrocity Archives is not jump out of your seat scary but is genuinely terrifying in this existential/bearded Spock humanistic kind of way. It's bad enough that malicious creatures with unknown powers lurk in the universe next door but to have sick, twisted, power hungry loons right in your own backyard trying to summon them just makes one lose faith in one's fellow man.
The final scenes in a dying alternate universe are likewise chilling. It was perhaps not particularly smart on my part to read the book in the dead of winter. They were genuinely horrifying in an edge of your seat kind of way with Stross dialing down the sarcasm and the technical jargon to a more manageable level.
In addition to the titular novel the book also includes a novella called “The Concrete Jungle”. While Howard's off-handed jabs at bureaucracy are present, they are integrated well here. They come across more like Douglas Adams' comments about the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation and less as whining.
Here Bob is sent to investigate the appearance of several concrete cows in Milton Keynes. We get the history of gorgonism – someone turning to stone after being gazed upon – and learn that there are malevolent forces at work within The Laundry seeking to use England's notorious CCTV cameras for their own nefarious ends. As a shorter work “The Concrete Jungle” is fun although perhaps a bit less satisfying that the novel. There are no real revelations to be had and Bob carries on as we expect him to. Still, it was an engaging little tale and further proves that Stross can write some great spy thriller story when he doesn't overdo the sarcasm.
No comments:
Post a Comment