The Concrete Jungle

The short story The Concrete Jungle was included in my copy of The Atrocity Archives. I enjoyed this story more than first book.

An extra cow is discovered at local concrete art exhibit and the Laundry sends Bob over to investigate.

While there were info dumps, I found they blended into the story much better as they took the form of case files on the phenomenon that Bob reads through on his way to the investigation. This fit the story nicely as prep work any investigator would do before they entered a situation. And quite a situation it is! Once Bob lands at the site, the story turns into a fast paced thriller. Bob ends up working with local law enforcement who handles the high weirdness very well. Laundry should recruit her. I liked show more idea of weaponizing the Medusa's gaze (gorgonism) with technology a lot! Talk about potential. I'm really glad nothing exists like that in the real world... right? show less

I liked this even better than The Atrocity Archives.

The idea of SCORPION STARE (Medusa, weaponized) is neat and there's some interesting commentary on the potential problems of a surveillance state that fit well with the overall Britishness of the piece.

One advantage this has over the Atrocity Archives is that Stross toned down the technobabble a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I think that uninhibited geekery is one of the better parts of these books, but it got intense at times. In this one it's more manageable--probably since it's only about half the length. Of course, to some extent, the technobabble is replaced by spybabble. But those I don't know nearly as well, which amusingly makes it less distracting.

One semi-issue this had show more was the the same oddities with timing that the first did: in that I didn't quite expect it to end as quickly as it did. I don't have any particular problem with how they were wrapped it, it was just sudden. I think I've been reading too many long books recently. show less

Part of the Laundry stories and included with the sample for the Hugos with a sample of The Atrocity Archives.
A UK government department who investigate the occult discover that someone is trying to weaponise for their own purposes a weapon they hid in CCTV cameras, as if you needed new nightmares about the surveillance state. Bob investigates a cow that burns and discovers some very dangerous politics.

I read the english version of this novella, and I found myself rooting for the outright destruction of every single video camera installed on the streets of everywhere. Alas, that it was just a dream of a newer, fresher, nicer 1984. Fun Story, great mix of medusa meets office politics meets palace revolt.

Exploding cows, nefarious CCTV cameras, bureaucracy run amok, with bumbling yet capable special agent and aggrieved lady cop sidekick, it's like a good Get Smart episode.

I love Detective Inspector Josephine Sullivan. And Basilisks. And everything cstross thinks about firmware, public sector management and Angleton.

Plot: The Very Horrible Bridget wanted to take control of more than just her share of Laundry power, so she staged a Software Audit, getting the wrong sort of person (McLuhan) involved. The plan was to grill a cow with SCORPION STARE (multi-heades Basilisk over CCTV) do show up Angleton. That escalated (because they got afraid of the investigation) to kill 11 of the 12 devs of SCORPION STARE firmware bystanders. Blackmail threat to upload the firmware to all CCTVs in part of London. Then, erm, Angleton takes care fo Bridget and Harriet.

As the back quarter of [b:The Atrocity Archives|101869|The Atrocity Archives (Laundry Files, #1)|Charles Stross|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1440461724s/101869.jpg|322252], this story was a lot better than the first part of the book, as it required less exposition and was able to get right into the meat. I think I'll continue with the series if this is how it'll continue to be.