Book Reviews: New Laundry Files from Charles Stross

Quantum of Nightmares by Charles Stross
Escape From Yokai Land by Charles Stross

More tasty goodness from Charlie.

One common theme suggests that he is spending time with children in theme parks.  Which, obviously, are places where the walls are thin and tentacled horrors seep through to infest the succulent, innocent souls.  Well, succulent and young souls, if not totally innocent.

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Quantum of Nightmares by Charles Stross

In 2020 Stross started a new set of characters in Britain under the New Management.  This book picks up after Eve and Imp take over the company.

So, more adventures of “those darn kids”.  Dark cults!  A private island–with creepy Castle! Corporate raiding in every sense.  Technological zombies. 

Stross is less than totally content with contemporary Britain, and he really lets fly in his fiction.  Corporate life is awesomely wicked.  Privatized policing is as bad as you might expect.  You aren’t going to want to go anywhere near the Deli counter after this.

But, of course, the kids are all right.  Magic is real and astonishing.  Goodness is there, if beat down.

While Eve, Imp, and company are trying to take control of her company, they discover deeper and more dangerous conspiracies.  Aside from everything else, Eve discovers that she has inherited a deep entanglement with a horrible death cult.  The good news is, she’s legally in charge.  The bad news is, it may not be for long.

There is a hostile corporate takeover in process.  Extremely hostile.  Wendy is sent in to unravel what’s up in the supermarket, and it’s much, much worse than expected.

There is also a kidnap plot.  Mary impersonates a Nanny and snatches the four young children of government superheroes, Mr. and Mrs. Banks, AKA, Captain Collossal and Blue Demon.  Mary is a low grade transhuman with a supernatural satchel made by her supervillain dad, Dr. Skullface.  But the kids are transhuman, too, with unknown but evidently extreme powers—and the minds of children.  What could possibly go wrong?

Stross has a lot of fun doing over Blackpool, retail employment, corporate law, channel islands, child care, and a lot of other stuff.  It’s hilarious.

Everything spins out of control, and evil is rising.  It’s up to “those darned kids” to solve the mysteries and defeat wickedness.  Mary turns out to be an awesome if unconventional Nanny, and is the only one who realizes that the kidnapees are possibly the most dangerous foursome in the UK.

Stuff happens.  Magic stuff happens.  The kids are all right.

We haven’t heard the last of this crew.

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Escape From Yokai Land by Charles Stross

In the Delirium Brief (2017) Bob Howard has returned from Japan.  Yokai Land recounts what he was doing in Tokyo.

Spoiler alert:  there was a lot of pink. A LOT.

As the replacement Eater of Souls, Bob was dispatched to Tokyo to inspect and refresh some lockdowns originally supervised by Angleton.  Underinformed, Bob must contend with both unknown supernatural threats and the very bad relations Angleton left with his Japanese counterparts.

The overly-tentacled beings seeping into our reality are similar everywhere, but they manifest according to the psyche and mythos of each locale.  So, Bob finds the usual weird bollocks are Japanese in their weirdness.  Including his two-tailed, cat eared liaison.

Things go critical much sooner than expected, in a very frightening theme park.  “Weaponized cuteness” sounds harmless, but really isn’t.

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1. Charles Stross, Quantum of Nightmares, New York, TOR, 2021.
2. Charles Stross, Escape From Yokai Land, New York, TOR, 2022.

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