THE DEEP ONES: "Overtime" by Charles Stross

"Overtime" by Charles Stross

Discussion begins December 20, 2017.

First published online on December 22, 2009 at Tor.com.



ONLINE VERSIONS

https://www.tor.com/2009/12/22/overtime/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1124034

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Three Tales from the Laundry Files (ebook)

MISCELLANY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-charles-stross/
https://www.sffworld.com/2016/03/charles-stross-interview/
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/04/faq-the-laundry-filesseries-...
http://tinyurl.com/ybpekvld

Online for me, looking forward to finally getting some Laundry done.

Really glad paradoxosalpha noticed this one. Perfect timing, too!

Note for those of us reading the larger "Laundry Files" series: This story falls between The Fuller Memorandum and The Apocalypse Codex, in a simpler, more idyllic time prior to the full bloom of Bob's managerial responsibilities.

Hm. Having trouble with the "About" on this thread, even though there is a work record for Overtime. Touchstoning here to make the connection.

Despite their lack of actuality, I think Forecasting Ops also features in one of the novels. The Rhesus Chart, maybe?

The climax of the whole story for me was Andy's "joke" about the hideous threat of the Filler of Stockings, who oozes through chimneys and ventilation ducts every Dead God’s Birthday-eve to perform unspeakable acts against items of hosiery. After that, it was all just working out the plot to get back to the status quo ante for the benefit of the novel series.

I would say this is the least of all the Laundry stories I've read. Still, converting Santa into Krampus is a neat trick. If my daughter were a little younger, I'd be tempted to menace her with warnings about the Filler of Stockings. No, it's best that she's older--old enough to get the joke even.

Also: Readers current on the series will note that Kringle's prophecy is fulfilled--no more Laundry office Xmas parties. And the punchline of the final paragraph was cute.

>6 paradoxosalpha:

I agree that this is a lesser Laundry file. I certainly wouldn't recommend it an an introduction to the series, which is fantastic, but it is still a nice little Xmas tale.

"If I can keep it out of the New Annexe until dawn it’ll be too late for the Bringer of Gifts to claw its way through the wall between the worlds, for this year at least" is hilarious if you transpose it to our often-dreaded annual visit by Kommercial Kringle and his obnoxious gang. Also, "the ghost of Christmases rendered-fictional-by-temporal-paradox" seems to have been overlooked by Dickens.

The idea of "Mahogany Row and the sleeping ghosts of management to come" is a truly creepy one, especially if you work around anything like an emptied-by-the-holidays office setting.

>8 semdetenebre: I certainly wouldn't recommend it an an introduction to the series

I guess that's heartening, because after the rave reviews of The Laundry I've heard in various places this felt like a letdown.

The best bits were the office humour.

Yeah, if you want to read a Laundry short story that actually carries the horror element, I'd say Equoid is the one. It also actually tackles the issue of Lovecraft and his writings in the context of a "logical fantasy" narrative where they reflect a "true" state of affairs.

The best Laundry stuff is in the novels, though.

The more I think about it, the more I am glad to have read this in "the season." It reminds me of the vogue that A Night in the Lonesome October enjoyed among us a couple of months ago. It's a holiday greeting as much as it is a work of fiction.

>8 semdetenebre: Also, "the ghost of Christmases rendered-fictional-by-temporal-paradox" seems to have been overlooked by Dickens.

Yes, the nod to A Christmas Carol must have been deliberate, but the main reference for Stross's story is surely The Night before Christmas by Clement C. Moore.

’Twas the night before Christmas, the office was closed,
The transom was shut, the staff home in repose;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
But St. Nicholas won’t be coming because this is a Designated National Security Site within the meaning of Para 4.12 of Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act (Amended) and unauthorised intrusion on such a site is an arrestable offense …

Imagine if the Stuffer of Stockings had been a "right jolly old elf" in the sense elaborated by The Nightmare Stacks! I suppose humans would collapse in maniacal horrified laughter, when confronted with him. Have to swap out reindeer for unicorns, too. Oh, now we see the hidden meaning of Rudolph. *shudder*

(My favorite weird rejoinder to Xmas Dickens is "The Confessions of Ebenezer Scrooge" by James Morrow, in his collection Bible Stories for Adults.)

>11 paradoxosalpha: It reminds me of the vogue that A Night in the Lonesome October enjoyed among us a couple of months ago. It's a holiday greeting as much as it is a work of fiction.

Amen to that, and to all a good night! This was, in fact, my introduction to the Laundry but as with Zelazny, I was in a fitting mood for just this sort of introduction. I also presumably will forget all the spoiler-y bits for the novels, when I get round to them.

In addition to the well-observed office bureaucracy satire, the central joke of "Sandy Claws" (pace Tim Burton) as menace, and the penultimate joke "The future is here" (just as the Christmas incursion manifests in the furnace), I also liked the jokey names: Dr Kringle, Robert Howard, J. Random Horror.

And the jest of invoking the weak anthropic principle to avoid Chthulhoid mastication is inspired.

Two questions:

1 - If the idea is that the time paradox causes the amnesia for party guests like Andy, why isn't Bob affected: lucky? The ward he wields? Something peculiar to Bob which accounts for his Laundry aptitude? It appears to have been working even at the time of Kringle's lecture, given how difficult it was for Bob to pay attention even though he thought it was important.

2 - Clearly the clubhouse conversation is beneficial for Bob, not to mention the reader, but what's Andy's motivation? He calls the meeting, but in the end seems to leave with some exasperation as though the entire thing were a waste of time. At first I thought he wanted a specific question answered, but he didn't appear to ask it, let alone get an answer. Perhaps he merely wanted to share his emotion (as we often do following workplace announcements of the sort they just heard), which makes sense in context but I was getting a textual clue there was something more.

I read this a few years back (just before Christmas), and it was indeed my introduction to the Laundry universe. I've only picked up a few shorter entries since then (including Equoid), because I've already got too many series going on, but I wouldn't say it put me off the universe.

Dr. Kringle sez,

—Claus, or Santé Klaas in the mediaeval Dutch usage, a friendly figure in a red suit who brings presents in the depths of winter, may have a more sinister meaning. Think not only of the traditions of the Norse Odin, with which the figure of Santa Claus is associated, but with the shamanic rituals of Lap antiquity, performed by a holy man who drank the urine of reindeer that had eaten the sacred toadstool, Amanita Muscaria —wearing the bloody, flayed skin of the poisoned animals to gain his insight into the next year—

These remarks are the first time I've seen a suggestion that Saint Nick's red suit was "the bloody, flayed skin of ... poisoned animals." I always thought his red-and-white attire was supposed to be an allusion to the toadstool itself:

9> My introduction to the Laundry series too, and my reactions were along the lines of yours. I particularly liked "Residual Human Resources".

And here was I thinking that Santa's red suit was the product of a Coca-Cola advertising campaign. However, after extensive research in such august sources of information as Wikipedia and the Beeb, it seems that Santa's suit predates Coke and is based on a bishop's clobber. Mind you, I suppose that could originally have been the bloody, flayed skins etc. etc.......

>16 Zambaco:

Party pooper.

Stross's best tone is supernatural/existential/nuclear dread, I think. It's amazing that he can make that work both straight, as in "A Colder War", and in a lighter key, as here. The novels are also good. I've read up through number 3, at about even intervals since the Golden Gryffin Press 2004 edition of "The Atrocity Archive", and haven't felt the need to reread to follow the plot. I think that may change for the later novels though, with the story becoming more continuous.

Also, despite having been gone from office work for a couple decades now, Stross nails the office holiday-party atmosphere.