The Jennifer Morgue

Charlie Stross’s The Jennifer Morgue is the second entry in the The Laundry Files, a series which went on for far too long and somehow managed to jump the shark despite already being about computational demonology, Lovecraftian horrors and undead civil servants. On first reading I loved this book. Returning to it years later, I am rather less convinced.

The premise remains excellent. Bob Howard, weary IT specialist turned occult field agent crippled by the rules and regulations of the civil service, is dispatched to the Caribbean on a mission for the Laundry, hopelessly underprepared and only partially briefed, in order to prevent the end of human civilisation. The novel openly riffs on Ian Fleming’s Bond books, with Bob cast as the show more antithesis of Bond: anxious, bureaucratic, physically unimpressive, equipped with the worst car in the world. and constantly aware that he is out of his depth against a villain more deadly than anything imagined by Fleming.

The first time I read the novel, the Bond pastiche carried me along completely. On a second reading, though, it feels less clever and less substantial than I remembered. Much of the humour depends on callbacks to the first book, while long stretches of exposition bury the reader under layers of occult-technological gobbledegook which are amusing in small doses but exhausting in large ones. Stross is clearly having tremendous fun with the jargon, but the book tends to mistake density for wit.

What still works extremely well is the emotional core. The real strength of the early Laundry novels is the relationship between Bob and Mo, which gives the absurdity some grounding humanity. Here that relationship is placed under strain by Bob’s involvement with Ramona, a seductive agent tied to the creatures beneath the sea and carrying more than a hint of Bond-girl parody. The tension between Bob’s love for Mo and his enforced and possibly lethal relationship with Ramona gives the novel stakes beyond its genre homage.

I did still enjoy the book. Stross writes action well, some of the jokes still land, and the central conceit of bureaucratic Lovecraftian espionage remains inspired. But rereading The Jennifer Morgue after the novelty has faded exposes some weaknesses that I either missed or ignored the first time around. It is a clever book more than a deep one, and perhaps one whose greatest strength lies in the freshness of its initial impact. Whereas before I devoured it in chunks, this time the read was more laboured. show less

Really well done, where his first book had a great concept and world building the narrative fell a little flat, especially at the end. This one is head and shoulders above the first one and can only be described as Stross channeling Terry Pratchett doing a riff on James Bond. Everything is really well done, and even the cheesy cliches add to it since the idea of the destiny engine makes every cliche a brilliant tounge-in-cheek joke. I did think that Ramona chewed up the scenery a little bit, but I guess that’s pretty standard for a Bond book.

Perhaps the best adjective for this book is 'twee'. James Bond is inherently absurd, and this is a slantwise parody of the gin-soaked, misogynistic, psychopathic genre. Bob Howard has been dispatched to the Caribbean to take down a mad arms dealer auctioning off a DEEP SEVEN weapon (what is dead may never die...) that might destabilize relationships with the Deep Ones, who could wipe up humanity without even noticing. Making matters worse is that the mad CEO has set up a geas such that only one man can foil his plans-one man who doesn't exist, and Bob barely fills his tuxedo and shoulder holster. Not to mention the soul-eating monster he's been partnered with.

But as I mentioned, twee, because despite the whole cosmic horror thing, the show more best part of this book is the Bondified Smart Car, a tiny two-seater runabout packed full of gadgets, gizmos, and an ejection system. Pretty good as a novel, great as a take-down of the espionage genre, this book is a love letter to a certain kind of silly Britishness. show less

In The Jennifer Morgue, the second Laundry novel, Stross has once again perfectly blended Lovecraftian horror with a spy thriller. This time out, he mines the James Bond pantheon; complete with special gadgets, megalomaniac billionaire villain, tropical island, the "hot Bond girls", high society casino and a tricked out car. But our hero, Bob Howard, is really an anti-Bond. He's more at home wearing a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt and drinking a beer than donning a tux and quaffing vodka martinis.

Unlike the Bond films, our "hot Bond girls" (maybe I should call them "Bob girls") are given depth of character. The drop dead gorgeous Ramona Random isn't the cold seductress she's made out to be and Dominique "Mo" O'Brien is far from being naive show more and innocent, though she is sweet, unless you piss her off.

Stross really plays the humor card well as our nerdy hero stumbles through his role. It's not that he's clueless; he's just more at home dispelling demonic intruders using glyphs and wards generated by apps on his Treo or hacking someone's network than embarking on car chases or gambling away the equivalent of his annual salary in less than an hour. Bond never had to deal with the paperwork. But when you're faced with Stygian horrors than have the ability to liquefy your brain in under a minute, if you can't laugh you're forced to run away screaming until a reservation can be made for you in a room decked out in comfy white padding.

The book also contains the short story, "Pimpf", wherein Bob gets an intern, not something Bob is geared to having. The poor kid becomes a pawn in another battle of office politics and in the Laundry stories that can have fatal consequences.

There's also an essay entitled "The Golden Age of Spying" in which Stross illuminates his reader about Ian Fleming, psychoanalyzes Bond, provides us with a villain's side of the story, and contrasts the shenanigans of malefactors then to what we have now.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to continuing this series. show less

After surviving his first couple of adventures as a Laundry Files field agent, Bob Howard has been promoted to SSO and has been tasked with attending a joint-liaison meeting in Germany with other EU agencies which perform similar tasks to his own organisation. Things quickly head sideways though when after arriving at his hotel he meets Ramona, an American assassin who also happens to be a succubus who works for the Black Chamber, and they’re supposed to be working together. Firstly to disrupt what’s about to go down and then to stop an evil genius who is about to raise something from the sea floor which shouldn’t be seeing the light of day. If this was the mission all along then why wasn’t he briefed?

James Bond meets H. P. show more Lovecraft with a dollop of geekdom thrown in for good measure make this an enjoyable continuation of this urban fantasy series. Bob & Ramona are great characters who play off each other really well and when you add Mo to the mix it really ramps up the ante. The villain is suitably Bondian through necessity as it’s all plot-driven and the author really exploits all the foibles you usually find in that franchise.

As with the first book there is also a short story with Bob back in the office with HR on his back. This time around he gets lumbered with an intern who does exactly what Bob tells him not to do and ends up trapped in an MMORPG. Unfortunately for Bob this particular intern got the position through nepotism and if he wants to avoid some nasty repercussions then he’s going to have to rescue him.

The way the series has started it could be a rival to the Dresden books for my favourite of the genre. show less

Slowly working my way through the Laundry series, I found this book had a bit more comedy to it. This is not a bad thing - I found myself laughing out loud at several points! The smart car on the autobahn was hilarious and really hooked me in.

This book in particular is a meta-commentary on James Bond and even the characters in the story are self-aware of this. It made for a particularly interesting read as I was looking to see which archetypes would be played straight and which would be subverted.

There is an additional short story which was also a lot of fun and now serves as a bit of a time capsule of 2000s gaming culture, as well as an essay about the history of James Bond. I particularly liked the fake interview with Blofeld where he show more positions himself as a legitimate tech billionaire.

Looking forward to the rest of the series! show less

Maths is magic and the Elder Gods are real. Bob Howard works for the Laundry, the UK's secret intelligence agency that protects you from these facts and their consequences, which include such delights as insanity, possession and having one's soul eaten.

I'm reading this series in random order, having gone 3-1-2-4. This is book 2, in which our reluctant hero has to stop the megalomaniac business man turned would-be Ruler of the World by circumventing a fiendish geas that will only allow a highly unrealistic type of super-agent to get close to the villain. Yes, some-one has to become James Bond in order to save the world! Cue stereo-type and cliche subverting jokes such as a glamourous hottie that's really a succubus and minions that are show more literally zombies.

Great fun. show less