A Conventional Boy

I received a gratis copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

To my chagrin, I haven't read any of the previous Laundry Files books. As a testament to Stross's writing, I was able to immerse myself in the world right away and greatly enjoyed the ride. This book consists of a novella, "A Conventional Boy," which follows a forty-something autistic man who was wrongly imprisoned by the Laundry during the 1980s Satanic Panic. They thought his AD&D ways indicated the use of real magic, and by the time they realized their error, he was essentially lost in the system. But he now has a reason to escape: a nearby gaming convention. A convention that, unfortunately, hosts some nefarious folks who ARE delving into some nasty real magic.

I requested show more this book on NetGalley in part because, as a late-diagnosed autistic person, I wanted to see how Stross handled things. The representation was fantastic--not cliched at all, full of delightful nuance.

The book is rounded out by two short stories. "Overtime" is set at Christmas and is laugh out loud funny at times. The Laundry is such a brilliant lampoon of a particularly British bureaucracy. "Down on the Farm" delves into a mental institution for employees damaged by exposure to magic. The end had some fantastic twists.

Really, this book makes me want to read more in the series. show less

File under: Interstitial.

The plot overview of this novella has been highly telegraphed (long-time detainee of the Laundry goes to a gaming convention and gets caught up in occult mayhem), so the real interest comes from the afterword, where Stross lays out his rationale for creating this story. I liked it, but it's only good "Laundry," not great "Laundry." As is reflected by the inclusion of the short story "Down on the Farm," which I had not read until this point, and is a good example of why people came to love this series.

The newest book in the Laundry Files takes its title from the novella that is its principal feature. It also includes the short stories "Down on the Farm" and "Overtime" (links are to my earlier reviews of these from their prior publication). All three stories take place in a chronological window around the time of The Fuller Memorandum. Although A Conventional Boy is currently listed in the core LT series for The Laundry as 13 & 2.2 & 3.1, thus reflecting its status as the thirteenth volume of the main series, it is really 3.2 & 3.1 & 2.2 in the narrative sequence, centered around 2010. However, the protagonist Derek "DM" Reilly accidentally shows off his precognitive abilities by imagining the "New Management" conditions of the show more post-Laundry books in the series as a setting for fantasy role-playing, which is a nice piece of dramatic irony leveraging the speculative elements of the Laundryverse.

The "Conventional" of the title refers to DiceCon, a game convention "for role-playing nerds and people who like to dress up as elves" (12). The convention is Derek's objective when he escapes his chronic incarceration by the Laundry. Once Derek has reached his goal, the perspective alternates between his adventures at the Britannia Hotels Georgia Inn and his pursuers from the Laundry. There is little overarching suspense for readers who know Derek's subsequent involvement in The Nightmare Stacks, but Stross does a decent job of exploiting the satirical possibilities inherent in having a middle-aged main character whose adult socialization has taken place entirely through play-by-mail role-playing campaigns and a prison camp for the rehabilitation of cultists and sorcerers.

Perhaps the most gratifying element of the volume is Stross' return to the form of his earliest Laundry books by writing a reflective afterword regarding the real-world background and inspiration for his fiction. In this case, he supplies a thumbnail history of TTRPGs and a discussion of witch-hunts and moral panics in general, with attention to the late twentieth century's Satanic scares around D&D in particular. show less

Going back in time in the Laundry Files, even though I really want to know what’s going on under the New Management. Derek was imprisoned as a fourteen-year-old mildly autistic, somewhat magically talented boy because of a moral panic over D&D and never released. Nearing fifty, he breaks out to attend a gaming convention—that just happens to be where a cult is trying to raise a god. It’s what you’d want from a Laundry Files novel (other than timeline progression); there are also two previously released short stories to make it a bit longer.

Nice to return to the era of the Laundry, before the New Management settles in. I miss the stories before Case Nightmare Green.

The ending to "A Conventional Boy" felt a little rushed. I'm glad there are the two Bob Howard stories cushion the exit.