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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
The Laundry Files started with an element of situational comedy juxtaposed on a background of nightmarish horror: the government agency for protecting us from the likes of Cthulhu turns out to be just another secret civil service bureaucracy with forms, committee meetings, and an obsession with secrecy. Into which we inject a narrator who is a brash young hacker-nerd from the late 90s dot-com culture (who has been conscripted willy-nilly into something structured a lot like a very 1950s-ish Len Deighton spy agency, if updated in line with health and safety and HR legislation). “The inappropriate hero” is one of the classic humorous narrative forms because it gives us a sympathetic viewpoint from which to explore the lunacy of a situation, and there’s plenty of humor in any bureaucracy (as the early Dilbert cartoon strips illustrated, before it jumped the shark circa 1998).
By the eighth book in the Laundry Files, Bob isn’t an outsider anymore; indeed, he’s at the lower end of senior management, representing the agency in public. But there’s still plenty of situational humor to be extracted by watching how a government deals with a whole new bureaucracy it was hitherto unaware it possessed.
And then, of course, there’s the horror element. Like humor, horror is a tone you can apply to any other genre of fiction. (You can have a horror-spy crossover, or horror on top of SF, or horror on top of historical fiction, or . . .) And I find combining horror and humor particularly useful because the one contrasts with the other to great effect.
I really enjoyed the first few Laundry Files novels (and novellas), but the most recent books don’t have the same energy. Now that Stross has established the universe, and made MCs major players in it, the Office Space vibe is gone, which removes a lot of the humour. It’s hard to quantify, but the recent books feel like contractual obligations: they don’t have the same pep, and they aren’t as fun to read.
Yeah, it feels like he has painted himself into a corner as the characters and setting has evolved. He’s basically at a point where their actions are all world changing. He could focus on others or introduce another lower level character to the Laundry or, as CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is imminent, just pull the trigger on it.
Nightmare Green is definitely coming, but that’s been the plan for a while. And he’s been pretty up front that the god guys can’t possibly win. Which makes it harder to read, since were invested and want a good ending. Seems like it’ll be more like a Delta Green ending - push back the darkness as long as possible and celebrate the fight as long as you can.