Monday, July 15, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross




The Atrocity Archives is the first novel in Charles Stross' long-running series, "The Laundry Files."  Wikipedia describes the series as a combination of "Lovecraftian horror, spy thriller, science fiction, and workplace humor."  And that's a pretty accurate description of what's going on in this short novel, featuring a world where magic is powered by advanced mathematics, which has the potential to lead to nasty things from other worlds (Lovecraftian things) to enter ours if not used carefully.  The first book here introduces the British agency devoted to studying these phenomena and the agents who have to go out to deal with it - aka the Laundry.

And the result is fun.....but not particularly special?  I hadn't given the series a try until now since I have little interest in Lovecraftian takes, with notable exceptions (Ruthanna Emrys' Innsmouth Legacy for example), and my experience with Stross' Merchant Princes series had me mixed on his long term plotting.  But the series got nominated for Best Series this year, so I aimed to give the first two books a try: and again this first book is enjoyable and reads quickly, but never much more than that.  We'll see if book 2 is significantly better, but the first book isn't really anything particularly notable or awards worthy on its own.

Note: The first book contains a novella, The Concrete Jungle, so that is also reviewed in this post.


---------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
Bob Howard is an IT guy for The Laundry, the secret agency dedicated to guarding the British people against other worldly threats....or just people accidentally stumbling onto the advanced mathematics necessary to summon beings of power from other dimensions (or more mundange inhuman dangers) into our own.  Bob almost did that once, which was how he wound up at the Laundry, but he's long since come to terms with that....it's just he wishes he could instead be on active duty, as an agent in the field.

But when Bob gets that chance, and a mission to make contact with a British subject in the US - a woman named Mo with some expertise in math - Bob finds things going wrong very quickly: with Middle Eastern and/or German agents, Dangerous Rituals, and the works.  Soon Bob finds himself in the field with dedicated agents going up against forces that could threaten all of England....assuming Bob can deal with his old bosses who are still up against him for his new duties taking up time and moneys that they have to fit onto their budgets....
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The Atrocity Archives essentially works as a combination of genres.  On one hand, we have the spy noir genre, with our protagonist Bob Howard being our narrator throughout, explaining things in his thoughts, etc.  On the other hand, it's also a fish out of water/person getting more than he bargained for story as Bob finds himself partly out of his depth as things get crazier and crazier in the field.  There's also an office comedy angle as Bob has to deal with both mundane people at work - like his old bosses haranguing him about budget usage - and supernatural elements - inhuman coworkers, the potential for possession at a training, etc - and this extends to Bob's crazy also Laundry-employee roommates at home.  And lastly there's our Lovecraftian element, with beings from other planes teased and coming into play at various points, with Bob mentioning technobabble explanations for these beings and how they work.

And honestly, the combination works fine.  The book reads fairly quickly, never drags, and Bob is a very solid guide through it all.  I found myself glazing over a lot of the technobabble explanations (sorry, not really doing much for me there), but I was perfectly fine in doing so, and the book's plot takes some decent twists and turns throughout.  Bob is a very solid main character, who's definitely likable as he makes some decisions more with his conscience/personal-feelings than his training at times, and yet uses his smarts and training in other ways to make sure things don't end up disastrously in the end. The atmosphere at the laundry is similarly really well done, with the book definitely demonstrating a typical dysfunction of the workplace while at the same time showing how the agency works with the supernatural world in interesting ways - as well as the kind of people who would naturally tend to work there.

Still, there's a lot of things here that prevent the book from really being more than just.....fine.  Other than Bob, there are basically no characters (I guess other than Bob's roommates and Mo) who make really any sort of impression - in fact I got two characters rather confused near the end and it took me a while to realize a character suffering a dangerous injury wasn't another character altogether.  The second major character, the British/American Mo who gets caught up in everything winds up basically as a damsel-in-distress, which is again fine, but not exactly an exciting plot element, and doesn't make her a particularly interesting love interest.  And the elements of humor of everything didn't really do much for me.

Again, none of these are deal-breakers, and perhaps these issues are just the result of this being a first book in a series, which is why I have the second book out from the library (Though Stross' treatment of women in his Merchant Princes series also didn't inspire).  But it just makes this book rather eh.  Oh well.

The book version of The Atrocity Archives also contains a novella, The Concrete Jungle, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novella.  And it's again, it's totally fine - maybe a little better than the Atrocity Archive since it doesn't have the whole damsel in distress angle that's kind of annoying.  At the same time, it's gimmick - the case involves research into the powers of gorgon's eyes and someone combining those powers with the cameras installed all around London - isn't really that interesting. Again, it's a nice piece of work for a quick spy adventure using supernatural powers as a mechanic to be dealt with by the protagonists, but nothing about it screams "must read," despite the Hugo.

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