This is Charles Stross' first novel. And is actually two short stories and a bit of blurb to bring up the word count.
But being Charles Stross it is very good.
It is a story of a secret government organisation that tackles magical threats. But is much more Harry Palmer or Temps than Torchwood or Hellboy. And the clash of ancient evil and office politics is very funny.
Perhaps slightly rough around the edges but it is a first novel and he does improve with every book so I certainly will not hold that against him. ( )

Enjoyable, wanted more ( )

A fun story about civil servant and secret agent Bob Howard who battles bureaucrats and demons from alternate universes arriving through portals opened through advanced computer science, human sacrifice, and runic symbols. Computer scientists and old-style hackers will particularly enjoy the in jokes and references to real computer scientists, such as Alan Turing and Donald Knuth. I enjoyed this much more than Stross's later and more acclaimed work, such as Accelerando. ( )

Secret agent Bob is on the case, but it's not your normal spy mission. No, the secret service Bob works for is called the Laundry and they deal with your atypical bad guys, the one that suck your brains out and make you a zombie.
The two stories contained in this book are a great read especially for us tech heads who like to know there are people out in the real world (or not so) who deal with the same problems you do. As said before this is a fantastic book and well worth the time it take to inhale it. ( )

When reading this book, my face kept breaking out into a big grin. launching from the Church-Turing Theory to summoning Lovecraftian horrors in the space of a single page is a perfect prompt for a geekgasm 8-). Going to have to seek out The Jennifer Morgue now ( )