The Atrocity Archives

Pratchett states that if the world contains things that even the dark is afraid of, then you can bet that there'll be a secret government agency covering them up for our own good. Such is the premise behind "The Atrocity Archives." The Laundry is the British organization tasked with keeping their country safe from paranormal phenomenon and extra terrestrial uglies.

The Laundry is a rogue intelligence agency battling to prevent infestations of extradimensional horrors. Bob Howard is our hero, a computer geek working in the IT department who is drafted into field duty. However, while Bob is out saving the world from who knows what horrors, his boss in the IT department is constantly on his case for everything from missing meetings to not show more filling out his time sheet. This struck me as humorous and all to real when considering a government institution. The Laundry brings to mind the spy world of "Get Smart" as the facility itself is accessed through a toilet stall.

"The Atrocity Archives" is the most unusual spy novel I believe I have ever read, and the Laundry the most unusual organization. Guardians of the dark secrets that threaten to drown us in nightmare, the lips of the Laundry employees are sealed as tight as their archives. To get even the vaguest outline of their activities takes a privileged hacker like Bob, nosy enough to worm his way in where he isn't supposed to and smart enough to explain his way out of trouble.

Bob Howard is about as far away from the James Bond stereotype as he can get. He is, at heart, a geek. He is not suave, debonair, or particularly charismatic. He is not a ladies man, and in fact is trying to get rid of his psycho ex-girlfriend. But Bob does have his strengths, most notably his intellect, and is able to handle himself ably enough in the field. If the ultimate grade of a spy is results, then Bob Howard represents his craft well. show less

A surprisingly fun mix of computer science, spy craft, bureaucracy and the occult. I liked the book's conceit that advanced algorithms are the key to eldritch magic, and feel targeted by the scene where two characters fangirl over an imaginary Knuth vol 4.

A lot of folks have difficulty with the technobabble and complicated rabbit holes that the main character tends to go on. For me, that's one of the things I like best about Charles Stross. He doesn't tend to just hand wave away the real or pseudoscience in his novels, opting instead to inform the reader (yes, at length) how things work in his world. The story itself seemed to want to go in different directions at several points, but in the very end it all tied back together tightly enough for me to see the big picture and appreciate the purposes of all of the players. (For a while, I didn't understand why several factions were involved).

I could very well be my 18 years in IT has engendered a patience for technical jargon, but over all show more I thought it was a fun, modern take on the universe of HP Lovecraft with a unique view on the hows and whys the mechanics of magic work. Lastly, I found the characters likable, which is another complaint I've seen many readers note. The main character is a necromancer, but certainly not a hero. The cast of characters around him were all unique, and when you spend enough time with them you get a sense of their personalities.

Charles Stross certainly isn't for everyone, but he's defiantly for me and anyone else who doesn't mind learning why a monster who wants to eat our universe using math is actually a bad thing. show less

A very strange and beautifully done story. The (British) government agency in charge of weird things (and preventing said weird things from taking over/destroying the world); the computer geek within that agency who finds that he has an affinity for field work; and his almost accidental falling into one of those saving-the-world scenarios. I loved the scene where he lays out why detonation is a Really Bad Idea, discovers that it's almost unstoppable - and immediately begins MacGyvering his (everyone's) way out of this impossible situation. Not horror, despite the shadowy beings from beyond the borders of the universe, entirely because no one ever really feels helpless. Disaster means they need to think even faster... There's actually show more two stories in the book; Atrocity Archives, and then The Concrete Jungle. Where bureaucratic decisions (for what they claim are good and sufficient reasons and no you don't have need to know) are about to unleash utter destruction on Milton Keynes and London. And then it turns out to be bureaucracy all the way down - which wouldn't have limited the destruction in any way, if Our Hero hadn't MacGyvered his (everyone's) way out of it. Next, please! show less

Stross’ take on the urban fantasy is engaging but clunky in parts. The Atrocity Archives is first in currently seven book series–for those of you looking to sink your reading chops into an established series–that feature Robert Howard, computer programmer and now employee of Her Majesty’s Secret Supernatural Service. Bob found his way into the top-secret government organization when he did something precocious with a computer, and now he’s facing the unusual dilemma of being a stipend collecting desk-warmer or stepping into the dangerous supernatural spy business.

Well, we all know which he chooses, right?

His first international mission is to go to America and make contact with a British expatriate who is having trouble leaving show more the country. His decision-making sets a chain of events in motion, including landing him back in spy basic training. Without being too spoiler-ific, chasing down the perpetrators will require a stay in Amsterdam as well as a trip into another dimension.

It’s an entertaining premise that I haven’t really run into before in the urban fantasy/sci-fi genre. The blurb and reviews make much of it being “Lovecraftian.” I don’t know that I agree; there’s certainly the sense of evil/malevolence, and there’s an interdimensionality thing going on, but for the first part BIG GIANT SPOILERS AHEAD the ‘bad guys’ appear to be an Islamist extreme group and Nazis. Sigh. Yes, Nazis. I mean, there’s another antagonist as well, but I find that more of the actual ‘horror’ of the book was devoted to the Nazis. Which were horrible, so there’s that. But that does mean that the “Lovecraftian” or supernatural element was a bit of an anti-climax, with significantly less authorial time devoted to developing the ambiance of its awful and destructive potential.

Then there’s the plot flow. You know when you first read the Anita Blake series and you were enjoying the mystery, the zombie raising to discover who the killer was, and all of a sudden its about her having sex with jaguars so your eyes drift past that part of the book until you get to the next murder scene? Well, it’s not about sex, but Stross has whole paragraphs that did that to me:

“The theorem is a hack on discrete number theory that simultaneously disproves the Church-Turing hypothesis (wave if you understand that) and worse, permits NP-complete problems to be converted into P-complete ones. This has several consequences, starting with screwing over most cryptography algorithms–translation: all your bank account are belong to us–and ending with the ability to computationally generate a Dho-Nha geometry curve in real time.”

Yeah, you’ll notice I’m not waving. And this little gem was from page 17. Thus my second problem with the book: there’s a whole lot of computer jargon that isn’t explained well, and moreover, isn’t actually necessary except as a device to prove how smart Bob/Stross is (for instance, the NP/P and Dho-Nha are terms which are not used outside of that paragraph). While I struggled through college physics, I’m a sci-fi reader, can use a computer perfectly well, thank you very much, and I still found sections largely incomprehensible. To make it worse, I couldn’t tell if Stross was being factual (I’m aware of Alan Turing and computers in general) and where the funky was stepping in (as opposed to the InCryptid series with its faux-bio-ecological descriptions)

So I skipped them. I tend towards skimming at times, so it didn’t bother me unduly, and didn’t much hamper the overall gestalt of the plot, but I imagine it would prevent a number of readers–particularly those with a predilection to digest every word–from enjoying it.

Oh yeah: he does the technobabble with organizational structure as well (something about when a department in the British government was was disbanded, remade and/or “disappeared” in 1945). He explains more of it in the Afterward, which rather convinced me he was just info-dumping his research instead of telling a cracking good story.

This rather sounds like I didn’t like it, doesn’t it? On the contrary–I did, but I’m aware that I put blinders on in order to enjoy it. I thought there was more depth to Bob’s characterization than one usually gets in this type of book, and better emphasis on action as part of a team. There’s moments of ordinariness, such as Bob negotiating with flatmates–and moments of escalating action that are appropriate for Bob’s lack of expertise. Setting is generally well done, giving atmosphere without diverting focus from the action. This book also had a short story at the end, “The Concrete Jungle” which I enjoyed even more, It includes a female Detective Inspector who redeems the general treatment of women in Atrocity.

I’ve already ordered the third book from the library–I’m skipping the second for now, as it’s billed as a “James Bond-esque” island sort of thing with sultry evil woman-creature, and that’s just too much for me to deal with, given an author I’m ambivalent about. This is one book that it’s better to choose with foreknowledge, as it is such a specialized read. show less

So, while I fall just short of having an unspeakable-horrors-from-beyond-space-and-time fetish, I have to say that my previous experiences with "hard" sci-fi have left me only semi-flaccid - but notice I said my "previous experiences". You may have also noticed the 5 star rating, and this should be a clue that the Atrocity Archives, which could definitely be labeled hard sci-fi, has me standing at full attention.

Maybe it's the insertion of humor into the story that made it work for me, along with the aforementioned unspeakable horrors? These two elements joined together somehow made the lists of TCIP protocols, mathematical/metaphysical axioms, and descriptions of chemical processes much more sexy than those types of descriptions in a show more book like Larry Niven's Ringworld, for example. So while I do find that reading hard sci-fi almost always leaves me in awe of the mental capacity of the author, I find myself much more inclined to snuggle up with Mr. Stross than Mr. Niven for a bedtime story - and it has nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Stross is much younger, and presumably more virile, than Mr. Niven.

In short, if the idea of using mathematical formulas to summon demons or using occult blood rituals to provide internet security gives you a nerd chub, you NEED to read this book. show less

In The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross perfectly blends Lovecraftian horror into a spy thriller. But don't think James Bond, though they have their own special gadgets, think bureaucrats mired in office politics and meetings who must battle bean counters as often as monsters.

Stross' protagonist, Bob Howard, is a Gen X hacker who gets drafted into the Laundry, the code name for the UK government agency which protects England from nasty beasties from beyond. It turns out all that complex math that fried my brain in college (like second order, linear, non-homogeneous differential equations) can be used to open portals to other dimensions where cerebellum sucking slugs are just itching for an invitation to our world. Bob starts out in show more tech support but his skills earn him his first field assignment. While it's clear he's not suited for dealing either with the harpies from accounting or the things that should not be, Stross has fun playing the anti-hero card with Bob, letting his wit and resourcefulness survive the cards he's dealt.

The book contains the short novel, The Atrocity Archives, and the Hugo Award winning novella, The Concrete Jungle. The former serves as an introduction to this twisted universe Stross has hatched. Bob is forced to deal with rival spies, terrorists and the twisted remnants of the Nazi occult fetish. In the latter, office politics come to a head while someone figures out how to weaponize a gorgon's stare. You remember gorgons, right? Medusa is the most well known of this crowd. The Concrete Jungle may have won the Hugo, but I liked The Atrocity Archives a lot more. I felt that it flowed better and the drama was more intense.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the others in this series. show less