An amazing and enthralling read, The Delerium Brief delivers on all levels. Combining the horrors of mythos fiction with the office politics and humour of The Office, Stross has found a winner.

Published by Macmillan/Tor.com on July 11, 2017

As a necromancer working for the government’s occult secret service, Bob “Eater of Souls” Howard is not a happy guy. His agency is no longer a secret. He’s been given a new title — Departmental Public Relations Officer — and his first assignment is an interview on Newsnight. His objective is to make his job at the Laundry sound boring. As series readers know, Bob’s job is far from boring. But much to Bob’s consternation, the Laundry is about to be disbanded in order to pave the way for an evil alien takeover, disguised a privatization.

The American Postal Service has been privatized in a conspiracy orchestrated by Nazgûl (a/k/a the Black Chamber a/k/a the Operational Phenomenology Agency) to shut down the Postal Inspector’s Occult Texts Division. The scheme calls for the Laundry to be the next victim of privatization, a plan that is embraced by the Prime Minister, who blames the Laundry for bringing ridicule upon his administration. Of course, it isn’t entirely Howard’s fault that the fight against occult horrors, once largely hidden from public view, gained public attention in The Nightmare Stacks.

After an attempted snatch-and-grab by the entity who calls himself Raymond Schiller — whose mind is now occupied by the sleeping god he awakened — Bob realizes he’s in more danger than usual. Bob’s new mission is to find out what Schiller is up to and to stop him, all without the official help of the Laundry, which on paper no longer exists.

The story turns Bob’s world upside down, forcing him to join forces with the sort of people he usually locks up, including a vampire and the Mandate. When he isn’t preoccupied by evil, he’s preoccupied by love, trying to find a way to stay married to Mo without inadvertently eating her soul. Which, I think, is pretty much a metaphor for marriage.

Eventually the story turns into a furious occult action novel, as various entities wield their various powers while trying to ward off the powers of other entities, all in an effort (depending on the entity’s perspective) to take over the British government or to prevent that from happening. The scheme involves an orgy (the evil worms that take control of Cabinet members are sexually impregnated in their victims), adding some extra chuckles to the novel’s dark humor. But darkness reigns in a world that is very different at the novel’s end, setting up a new and unpleasant reality with which Bob will need to contend in the next installment. That darkness, I suspect, can be taken as a commentary on Brexit.

Charles Stross’ tongue-in-cheek Laundry Files novels are always fun. Stross loves to mock bureaucrats, and The Delirium Brief pokes fun at politicians who supposedly oversee government agencies while doing as little as possible to provide actual oversight. There is more complexity to Laundry novels than is typical of the action-fantasy-horror genre, and Stross’ prose is well above the genre’s standard. The Delirium Brief is another strong entry in an entertaining series.

RECOMMENDED

And we are back to Bob being the main focus of this story for this one. This might also be the one you want to reread the earlier books because some things from them are coming to light in this one. The world now knows about the Laundry or as the press derisively calls them “The Ministry of Magic” because of what happened in the previous book. The book has the Laundry being shut down and privatized and is it greed or something else behind the government’s push for this to happen. I don’t’ want to get into the plot but everything moves quickly in the story and it wraps u up what they are doing but this series really doesn’t give you the happy warm fuzzy endings. This isn’t the book to start reading the series. It is the payoff of reading all the previous books and it isn’t the end of the series but definitely finishing a story arc and starting a new one.

Investing your time in a book series is a risky proposition. We only have so much time to read, so we obviously want the books we choose to warrant the time spent. Bookshelves everywhere are littered with series that started out strong only to peter out due to creative stagnation, diminishing returns or George R.R. Martin-esque gaps of time between installments. As one might imagine, a series that manages to largely avoid all of those pitfalls is something special indeed.

Charles Stross has given us just such a series.

Stross has just published the eighth book in his cleverly, creepily compelling Laundry Files series, titled “The Delirium Brief.” It continues the story of Bob Howard, employee of Britain’s supersecret occult spy agency devoted to protecting not just the country, but the very fabric of our reality.

And it hasn’t been going so great.

The last book saw much of Yorkshire destroyed by an invading extradimensional force of, well … elves. While Bob and his Laundry cohorts managed to ultimately defeat the enemy and thwart the invasion, the scope of the incursion meant that the supersecret Laundry was no longer supersecret. The revelation of the existence of an occult defense agency – not to mention the destruction caused by the onslaught of the Host of Air and Darkness – has unsurprisingly led to a lot of questions.

So Bob, who is still adjusting to his newfound status as the Eater of Souls (don’t ask) and dealing with some marital strife with his (newly-promoted herself) wife Mo, has become the erstwhile face of the Laundry, going on news chat shows and in front of government committees to answer those questions as best he can while still attempting to maintain the integrity of the organization.

However, there are dark forces afoot that see this turmoil as an opportunity. A sinister figure from Bob’s past – someone that he believed to be gone forever – has returned, armed with a legion of fanatically devoted followers, massive amounts of cash and weapons both conventional and magical. The fate of the Laundry hangs in the balance – as does that of the world as we know it.

Pretty typical stuff for Bob, really. All he has to do is stop the bad guy, save reality and figure out how to fix his marriage and avoid consuming too many souls. Oh, and maybe overthrow the British government. No big deal.

The Laundry Files novels have experienced as clean an evolution as any genre series you’re likely to find. The early books had Bob as a bumbler, someone who stumbled through a world that he only barely understood in a fog of confused, self-deprecating humor. But as his adventures continued, he logically became more adept and accomplished – though Stross did well in continuing to keep him out of his depth.

Some of the subsequent books spent time with other main characters, giving the reader a chance to gain new and different perspectives on the Laundry – as well as maintain the in-over-their-head vibe that made those early books so much fun.

Now, with “The Delirium Brief,” we have a Bob who, despite being endowed with unbelievable power, is still in many ways the guy we met all the way back at the beginning, a good-hearted gentle soul who still can’t believe that he’s got to deal with gibbering tentacle monstrosities from beyond the dimensional veil.

Maintaining the joyful blend of humor and horror throughout the series can’t have been easy, but Stross has managed. The interpersonal relationships have grown and the supporting characters have been thoroughly developed; long-dangling threads have been revisited, retied and – in some cases – resolved over this eight-book span.

“The Delirium Brief” is typical Stross and typical Laundry Files. It is smart and funny and weird and scary, driven by engaging, endearing characters and a vividly-detailed world that has been built with exquisite care. To maintain a level of quality this high for this long is a remarkable feat; frankly, I envy those readers out there who have the opportunity to read this series from the beginning for the first time.

This is the next Laundry novel from Charles Stross, and the first for a couple of books to be narrated by the original series hero Bob Howard. That might sound like a return to the earlier books, but if anything, this is Laundry 2.0. The events of the previous novel mean that this most secret of organisations has had its cover comprehensively blown, and it has to cope with some intense media scrutiny. Can the Eater Of Souls ever be a match for Jeremy Paxman? And of course, there is plenty of occult-y, eldritch-y, demons-from-another-dimension-bent-on-reducing-our-world-to-a blasted-charnel-pit-y action to be had. It's the usual fun mix of technobabble, spies, and ancient mystic evil. I admire the way Stross has taken a series that could have been in danger of becoming stale and shaken it up with new viewpoints and narrators (good news - the two leads from The Nightmare Stacks are back!). He has successfully set a new course for these novels, and I will be along for the ride.

So, in this book we are back with good old Bob Howard, with whom this whole mess began. Bob has leveled up since his tech support days at the Laundry and is trying to figure out how this whole Eater of Souls aspect that he now has really works. He's also trying to have a heart-to-heart with his wife Mo. These two have rival eldritch powers that they have possession of and which also can possess them, which means its not safe for them to relax around each other. Imagine waking up and discovering that your alter ego has eaten your spouse's soul... just not awesome for a marriage. How can they ever work it out?

Well, in this book too much else is going on for them to even have a chance to try. Stross is pulling a bunch of threads together in this book. Persephone Hazard and her sidekick Johnny are back, as is Bob's old enemy. the Reverend Ray Schiller. Mhari the HR vampire has a role to play, as do Alex Schwartz and Cassie, Queen of Air and Darkness. I actually wished that these last two had more to do-they are really fun characters and I was enthralled by them in the last book.

While the elven host was going for an open military conquest in The Nightmare Stacks, Rev. Schiller is the catspaw of a far more subtle threat. He touches down in London to shake hands with the movers and shakers, and incidentally direct a bureaucratic coup de grace at the Laundry. Stross has always been about imagining how some dramatic or legendary action or creature could actually play out in the "real" world, and it makes a lot of sense that the best way to assault the Laundry is to turn its own bureaucratic apparatus against it. An agency can survive the odd assassination or two, but what if the funding is cut off? What if the press is hostile? What if the government perceives a profit in contracting its functions out? Well.

Because there's so much going on, the endgame of the book is split into three parts. Mo and Cassie are infiltrating a high level party, Bob is going after intel in the empty offices of the Rev. as he attends said party, and Persephone and Mhari are searching the living quarters of Schiller at the same time. Sadly, Bob's part in this ended up being the least interesting of the three ops, and he essentially ends up sidelined while the worst of the shit is going down. Persephone and Mhari's project ends up being more of a wrap-up than something that affects the big showdown, too. And poor Mo- she's still got the female middle-aged power of Invisibility. I confess that this power really irritates me, maybe because it feels like Mo is feeling sorry for herself more than this power really exists- or maybe it manifested because of her self-pity? I don't know, but something seems off about it and it doesn't fit the character of Mo, who is extremely hard-headed and practical.

Also, if you thought Stross's version of unicorns was bad (read Equoid to see what I mean) you really won't like how literally he takes the dismemberment of the power of the British government. Horror has always had a bit of an attachment to sex- maybe because sex and death both feel so visceral, like such basic physical manifestations of vulnerability- and there's no holding back here.

Stross has never shied away from the logical consequences of his imaginings, and he does not do so here. The end of the book's a cliff-hanger, and I've got no idea in what direction he's going to turn next. I do know that Bob's become a very dangerous character, and he has gazed too long into the abyss. It's gazed back at him, and it's become part of him in a way that's going to be fascinating to watch play out. I'm ready for the next book now!

The Delirium Brief opens with Bob Howard tasked with planting bugs on a TV set while being interviewed about the recent mess in Leeds that brought the Laundry out into the open. Thing just got worse when the Rev. Schiller made a reappearance in Great Britain, doing an end-run on the Laundry, managing to get it closed for incompetence and anything else the Prime Minister can think of. The Sleeper is using/guiding Schiller on a takeover of the whole of Great Britain due to infighting among the US occult services. Of course the Laundry does not roll over and play dead. Instead, they launch a counter-attack and in the end stage a "Very British Coup" with the assistance of Iris Carpenter and The Black Pharaoh (which may be a case of the frying pan or the fire.). It will be interesting to see what Charles Stross throws at Bob Howard and Company in the next book. Werewolves, maybe?

Thanks NetGalley and Tor for the opportunity to read an ARC!

What can I say? Strauss's Laundry series gets better and better with each volume.

The Laundry is the section of the British Civil Service that deals with funny business - monsters, magic and unspeakable beings from beyond the stars. The books are, if you like, techno thrillers (if your tech is necromancy and the thrills come from abstract maths).

In the latest book, we see the aftermath of the attack on Leeds by an elven host in The Nightmare Stacks. And if that was a spoiler then stop now and go and read the earlier books - you shouldn't be here. If you read any further your eyeballs will catch fire, unless you've applied the correct wards, OK?

Now, assuming you haven't been blasted into another universe which has too many corners, I'll continue.

This is the eighth volume in the series (with a few novellas and short stories besides) and what strikes me now is how the storytelling has evolved, in two ways.

First, the theming of the books. Beginning as brilliantly written pastiches of different espionage authors, the series then moved onto books each featuring a well known fantasy creature, but has now finally dropped the pastiche/ monster of the day thing - and fittingly, since the Laundry is now exposed to its enemies as never before and confronting a new level of threat. It's time to come out in the open.

Secondly, the books have thoroughly shed what was very characteristic wheels-within-wheels-within-wheels plotting, where every paragraph seemed to at a secret, to something a little more straightforward. There are still of course plot twists, and indeed deeply shocking reverses and hidden agendas, but it's a little more "what you see is what you get" - with the psychic space thus cleared allowing a greater focus on character (Mo and Bob are one of the great couples of modern fantasy: genuinely real, fleshed out people, albeit with bizarre problems).

Finally, this book brings together for the first time most of the character ensemble which has been forming over the last few volumes - so we meet Alex and ?Moira, the blooddrinking ex-bankers, maniac pixie dream girl Cassie who is dread leader of the aforementioned elven Host, as well as Persephone Hazard (Hooray!) and her sidekick ?Sam. There are also several other figures from Bob Howard's past who I won't name (spoilers: but also, somebody may be listening).

Best of all, we see Mo again, and we're back inside Bob's nightmare-haunted mind. Darkness is gathering, and business he thought dead and buried - or at least safely thrust into a cursed dimension - comes back for revenge.

Exposed to Government displeasure and a hostile Press storm - there is a very funny passage in which Bob does media, specifically Newsnight - the Laundry has for the first time to account for itself. Having had dealings with the National Audit Office myself, I smiled to see them, for the first time, come up against little things like democratic accountability and the need for things to be seen to be done.

It's all, of course, in service of a deeply threatening move by a sinister cult, and they should have seen it coming, but the sheer speed of events puts our heroes on the back foot very quickly. Stross gets some digs in here at the outsourcing process: underfund something, make the service bad, then invite in the boys and girls with the spreadsheets to cream off the work, making a fortune in the process.

If only that were the worst threat here.

By the end of this book we've seen Bob - and Mo - and all the rest pushed to the edge, in several ways, personal as well as professional, and - again on both fronts - there is a real sense of peril which isn't tidied away neatly on the last page. This is certainly the darkest Laundry book yet - despite the vein of humour that does run through it - and in its writing, I'd say, easily the most assured.

And the timing couldn't be better. The books shows a trusted Government organisation seriously challenged by flaky and dangerous outsiders. The organisation we depended on to keep us safe is vulnerable to subversion from above, by the arrogant, the greedy, the stupid. Does that remind you of anything? And more, at a stroke, the Laundryverse becomes a grimmer place - through this series, despite the grim warnings of unspeakable horror, we have perhaps come to see the Laundry as if not a certain shield, a pretty good one. Now... well, read the book and see for yourself.

In passing, I smiled that - despite what I said above - there is a little bit of classic spy fiction resonance here, in that parts of it reminded me of George Smiley & Co running their clandestine operation against the mole-infested Circus from a grubby hotel. Stross has said that he'll never do Le Carre in this series, and yet...

I love the Laundry Files. I buy for my library as well as my personal collection.

The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'll be honest, I've been a long-time raving fan of the Laundry Files, so when I got the next pre-release from Netgalley I practically fell over.

For those of you who've never had this on your radar, let me synopsize: It's part Spy-Novel, part Gibbering Cthulhu horrorshow, and part bureaucratic nightmare. Oh, and it's wickedly funny and charming and I love all the characters in this SF-UF. Sound good?

Oh yeah, and we get a huge dose of Bob in this latest one. Lately, we've been getting great Mo and great Alex and Cassie, too, but Bob has been my main go-to guy here, from his days as computational magic-tech-support all the way through his rise in active-duty Spy to middle management and THEN to... *gasp* upper-management. His wife Mo with her ex-eldritch-murder-violin has had her own bump into Senior Auditor status, never to be left behind.

But what about now? What is the Eater of Souls doing?

Oh, nothing much. Just fielding the Elvish invasion/sanctuary application fallout on English Soil, fencing with mind-numbing horrors and other paperwork, and a full-scale liquidation of the Laundry Files. Oops. Political nightmares! But what about all the demons in the basement? What is to happen with them or our Special K or our beleaguered fanged civil servants?

Here's the best part, however... we get a huge dose of Bob AND Mo AND Alex and Cassie in this novel, yo! All the mainstays get their time in the light, and good thing, too, because things have never been this dire.

What about the (magical) Oaths of Service, man??? Oh man...

Is it the end of the world? Very likely.

I won't spoil this because it hasn't even been released yet, but the twist is absolutely horrifying. I read the entire thing with a huge smile on my face. It's just one of those kinds of novels.

Utterly enjoyable, that is.

If all of the geeky wonderful sci-fi things I love had an orgy with Oscar Wilde's delivery and wit it would be close to approximating how wonderful I find this book. I very much enjoy the writing style, but the characters are sharp and well defined, the plot labyrinthian and nuanced, it's just damned good. My only gripe is now I'm addicted and need to read the preceding 7 books in the series.