I’ve been meaning to read this for a while and was pleased to find it delivered what I expected: an entertaining mix of technology, bureaucracy and eldritch horrors (you can decide if the last by definition encompasses the other two…)

The narrative is in Bob’s first person, present tense point of view. I wasn’t especially taken with him as a character, though I wasn’t so put off as to bail out. He always managed to have the skills or items needed to meet the challenges before him, or some associate intervening at the right moment.

The office politics were boldly drawn. I wouldn’t have minded more subtlety, a bit more behind the scenes manipulation and gaslighting rather than the (office equivalent of) straight-up moustache-twirliness that came across. We were never really left in doubt of the outcome.

Overall, a fun series starter.

Slow AF -didn't get rolling for me till about page 150. We finally get there and it's kind of like Ghost Busters, or Men in Black, or Hellboy mashed up with John LeCarre spy stuff, but with more infodumpage. Maybe some "It Crowd" thrown in there? Not as funny, though. Or I'm not up on deep dive hacker humor.
I loved Accelerando, and Singularity Sky was cool, but this wasn't enough fun for me. Creaky, cliched characters. Trivializingly gib about things that are truly evil and horrifying in the real world.
*EDIT* I wasn't going to bother reading it, but the second story "Concrete Island" I liked better. Still, seems like an awful lot of infodump to get to a paranormal death ray and ZOMBIES. I shouldn't complain -there was talk about Nazi werewolves in the first novel, and they turned out to be freeze dried.
In an afterword, Stross talks about being into Len Deighton as opposed to LeCarre, and I feel that vibe more in the second story. ( )

I've actually attempted to read(listen to) this book a couple of different times, and this time it stuck. Finally. I've heard such great things about this series, and Gideon Emery does a fantastic job of narrating.

This started off really dry -- which it's kind of intended to, given the bureaucratic subject matter at hand. It made the fence to get into it kind of a high jump, but I got there.

I went on to read the next couple in the series, and eventually quit in the middle of book 3 or 4. Good series either way -- and I've passed it on to my husband. :) ( )

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2004-10.html#atrocity ( )

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