Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

'Escape from Yokai Land' by Charles Stross is a novella in the Laundry Files series that explains main character Bob Howard's absence from book 7.

Bob finds himself assigned to work with the Miyamoto Group in Tokyo to check wards to keep evil out. His hosts put him through a series of lower level tests fighting yokai. Bob puts up with this, then realizes there are bigger things afoot. Bob takes a trip to an amusement park and finds a gigantic yokai there, and now the fight is on.

I like this series and this side story was pretty fun. Bob is competent but always finds himself in situations that seem well out of his pay grade.

I've read many of Charles Stross's THE LAUNDRY FILES Series, finding each suffused with wry British (perhaps Scottish) humor, combined delightfully with Urban Fantasy in an overpopulated modern London metropolis, set into the Lovecraft Mythos . Possibly the Master himself might even approve. As good fiction often does, THE LAUNDRY FILES enables the author to examine contemporary Society and its many themes and foils. In ESCAPE FROM YOKAI LAND, author Stross takes on the hefty topics of Japanese Folklore and mythology, current Japanese society, the Japanese workplace culture, sexism, corporate profiteering at the expense of Innocence [and innocents], and the friction of Japanese-British political relations since 1931.

One needs look closely though, to discover these themes, as agent Bob Howard of the British government's Capital Laundry Service is immensely occupied with battling severe jet lag, cultural dissonance, and an intense incursion of entities previously encountered only in Japanese Folklore.

Escape from Yokai Land is a novella in the Laundry Files by Charles Stross. Released 1st March 2022 by Macmillan on their tordotcom imprint, it's 96 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

I love the sense of gonzo out-of-control wall-to-wall hysterical madness for which the Laundry Files are well known. This is more of the same, and featuring Bob (!!! YAY!). For readers who adore paranormal bureaucratic fantasy, this is the top shelf good stuff. For fans of Aaronovitch, Doctorow, Simon Green, and the other boys in the band - this is not derivative at all, but ticks the same boxes for me as the aforementioned. It's funny, full on chaos, darkly humorous, and absolutely full of malicious compliance and government incompetence. I also love the fact that there's deep nerdiness in the form of a math/physics/programming component to magic and that the agents are really smart (and very nerdy).

For readers who are not already invested in the series, it's convoluted, and this one won't work particularly well as a standalone. The series is up to 9 books plus tie ins in the form of the New Management series, so it's a great candidate for a very long weekend's binge read.

Four and a half stars. I recommend it to humorous SF fans unreservedly.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Laundry Files main narrator, Bob Howard, is suspiciously absent during the events of The Nightmare Stacks (book 7 in the series) and in this novella we get to follow the side mission he was undertaking in Japan.

Yokai are apparently traditional magical beings, and one of Angleton’s (Bob’s predecessor) jobs was maintaining the wards that kept them under control. Now they’re growing more lively – and more annoying, in a dangerous kind of a way. Can Bob step up to the role – and will he survive the ultimate yokai: it’s huge, very pink, and likes to say “Hello”…!

I’ve been a huge fan of the Laundry Files since it kicked off with The Atrocity Archives, introducing us to a world of secret government agencies for weird sh…tuff, and magic in the form of computational demonology. Nerds of the world unite! 🙂

Bob is easily the best character, the series suffering a little when he’s absent, so it’s great to get his sardonic voice back at the helm. I’m less sure about the plot, with a westerner called in to solve another country’s problems feeling a bit ‘hmm’ – but then, Bob is now the Eater of Souls, I guess. And the cultural dislocation adds a certain element.

The novella format doesn’t allow for too much straying from the single plot path, which leads to a punchy, focused story. It does mean there’s little preamble or world building (shame!), so this really isn’t the place to start the story. However, for fans of the series it’s a nice dip back in, and it has left me wanting to go read the whole series again – slotting this one into the correct order would work very well!

Charles Stross is a genius and this is an excellent novella: gripping and well written. Loved the plot and world building.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Published by Tordotcom on March 1, 2022

Escape from Yokai Land (originally titled Escape from Puroland) is a novella set in Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series. The events in the story take place just before the novel The Delerium Brief. Bob Howard is the featured character. Readers who are unfamiliar with the series will probably want to start elsewhere, as the story might otherwise be unendurably puzzling.

The Laundry Files series is set in an alternate universe in which magic is a function of mathematical equations. Between the two world wars, Great Britain (and eventually other countries) developed clandestine departments to protect their countries from incursions of various demons and monsters that are entering the universe through portals or bridges created by computational pollution. Great Britain’s organization is called the Laundry.

Different characters are featured in different novels, but Bob Howard is the first series protagonist and still my favorite. At this point in the series, Howard has risen through the bureaucracy and inherited the powers and duties of his deceased boss James Angleton, including Angleton’s status as the Eater of Souls. Howard is dispatched to Japan, where the counterpart to Howard’s agency viewed Angleton as less than woke in his interaction with the Japanese. Howard tries to do better.

The story is basic. An unusual number of threats have been entering Japan. Howard deals with them while maintaining diplomatic relations with the Japanese. As is often the case, the story’s primary interest lies in the observations that Stross makes as the story unfolds. I particularly liked the notion that Howard doesn’t go to church because he knows that gods are real, far from benign, and gain their power from worship. An amusement park in Japan has become the epicenter of extradimensional intrusions because children worship Hello Kitty, allowing the evil intruders to feed on their quasi-prayer.

The novella isn’t essential to series readers — nothing happens that advances the overall story — but it’s fun. I would recommend it to Stross fans for that reason. Readers who are intrigued by the concept of magic as computational fallout might want to start with the first novel and work their way forward.

RECOMMENDED

From the wildly inventive world of The Laundry Files...

Poor Bob. Not only has he become saddled the The Eater of Souls after the departure of his old boss, but now he's dispatched to Japan. His counterparts aren't thrilled with the substitution, either. But the fun really starts when his hotel reservations are upgraded to everything-pink, bow-bedecked The Princess Kitty suite.

Hello Kitty has become the latest incarnation of The Elder Gods.

So I was HOOKED the second I picked this one up. But after feeling like I was in a whirlwind of information, I googled and discovered this is the 12th book in the series. I did it again 🤦🏼‍♀️

The actual storyline is a little ridiculous, but his vocabulary and writing style are GENIUS. I think because this isn’t my genre, I just couldn’t picture what he was trying to say.. but it would be a good movie. I recommend this for those who love Godzilla and King Kong, as the Kaiju is a major thing in this book. There’s also a lot of yokai and Hello Kitty… idk 😆

3.9 stars

Bob Howard is sent to Japan to deal with some ongoing incursions from outside dimensions. For some reason, tentacle-headed monsters are showing up in a Hello Kitty theme park and the Japanese officials are a little annoyed. They ask for Bob's former supervisor who has departed this dimension and Bob (as apprentice Eater of Souls) must substitute. The notes on previous visits to this area are scant. Come to find out, the small incursions are just setting the stage for the one guy, who is on his way. If you like British humor, you need to read this series. Ghastly things happen that make you laugh. It is not to everyone's taste.

Charles Stross has a bleak view of horror in this novella Escape from Puroland. Our hero is seconded to Japanese authorities fighting horrible monsters and cleans up this situation.

This novella is fantastic. Coming it at under 150 pages it's a fast read, with just enough filling in of background & setting that an unsuspecting reader can dive in and follow without getting bogged down. Bob is, after all, generally conscientious in journaling his missions. Also, like a new reader, he is always being thrown into situations without a thorough briefing, so beyond establishing details such as his marriage, the organization he works for, and his role as the Eater of Souls, Jr, and the concept of Computational Demonology (all of which are integrated seamlessly), we are all discovering things together.
Most of the series takes place in England, with a few visits to the US and International Waters. Escape from Puroland brings us somewhere new both in location for the series and the mythology it has delved into. For this little jaunt takes us to Japan and into the realm of yokai, kaiju, and Hello Kitty.

If you're familiar with The Laundry Files, especially Stross' take on such fantastical creatures as elves and unicorns, you can probably guess the general direction this is going. It does so with unabandoned glee.

But more than that, Escape from Puroland, manages to be a wonderful escapist breath of fresh air. The novels as of late have been a bit too prescient, entire plotlines scrapped because real life events pre-empted them forcing the author to rewrite, or published only for the readers to uncomfortably shiver at how close to home it hits (The Labyrinth Index and the internal government coup starting with the attempts to privatize the Post Office stand out in particularly stark light). Yes, the series has always been a mix of satire, horror, and dark SFF, but part of enjoying horror is knowing what we're reading is not real and the ability to enjoy the terror in the safety and comfort of our own homes.

The horror here is more constrained, it fills the atmosphere intertwined with Stross' characteristic dark humor. The narrative sharp and to the point, and an excellent addition to the series, especially for those of us who have been missing Bob Howard.

Advance Reader Copy courtesy of Macmillan-Tor/Forge in exchange for an honest review; changes may exist between galley and the final edition.

Escape from Puroland (Hardcover)
by Charles Stross
Investigating the cause of monsters in Japan Bob who is in possession of the the Eater of Souls, is trying to secure the Japanese mystical door ways. A very interesting twist on Japanese mythical monsters in a magical story. I found the characters interesting in this tease for The Delirium Brief.

Finally Bob Howard returns! Well, not really as this is only a brief novella that explains what Bob was doing just prior to the The Delirium Brief. For me, the Laundry Files are not as enjoyable without Bob as the central character so it's nice to read about Bob once again, even if it is only for a short novella that takes place in the past, series wise. Here's hoping Bob returns to main character status soon.

Laundry Files novella from when Bob was still just the replacement Eater of Souls and the stars hadn’t yet come right. He’s sent to Japan to help out his counterparts there, which causes a bunch of tension especially since his predecessor was a racist ass, and he fights Hello Kitty

If you like your Lovecraftian end-of-the-world horror stories with clever one-liners, sharp social satire, and incongruous villains, this book - and all of Charles Stross's Laundry Files books - are for you. This one brings back Bob Howard, a one-time college hacker who is now a powerful demon fighter (but with basically the same old attitude), as he takes on the gibbering horror that is pre-teen Japanese kitsch.

It's a quick read, crisply written, with the requisite action scenes. But the main attraction is Bob's narration and Stross's eye for our society's silliness..

Agent Bob Howard gets sent to Japan at the request of the Miyamoto group for a classified mission. Horror, bureaucracy, and magical hijinks ensue.

Sanrio Puroland is a Japanese theme park dedicated to popular characters such as Hello Kitty. The reader should have an idea of what they are getting into just by the title. The story is sweet and to the point and delivers what one would expect. This story is short, one may say too short, but loads of fun with some cute kaiju action. Someone who has never read any Laundry Files series would most likely feel confused by this story. I’m not fully caught up on the Laundry Files so a few events that had transpired were news to me. However, it didn’t prevent me from enjoying this short tale. This tale is pure fun! The only downside is that it’s a super quick read, I would have liked it to be a little longer.

Love the Laundry Files? Do you miss Bob Howard? Here he is, sent off on yet another bureaucratic junket when he's got more important things to do, this time to Japan. I believe this novella goes back in time, slightly before the novel starring Mhari the vampire.

This is a quick ride. I've been to Japan a couple of times and the description of how a Westerner would probably feel when deposited there jet-lagged and then expected to go promptly to work banishing demons felt pretty on-point.

If you have wished that someone would see behind the cute facade of Hello Kitty to the horror beneath, this is the book for you.

I love the Laundry Files, but usually, you really would have to read all of the books in the series to understand the latest one. This novella actually would stand alone for someone who hadn't. The opening section will give you everything you need: Bob Howard investigates paranormal activity for the British government. He is going to Tokyo to help with a paranormal problem. Hello Kitty is involved. This had all the smart horror-humor I am used to expecting from this series, in a tight little package that concludes with a scene that was foreshadowed from almost the very beginning and yet, when it arrived, was still the best thing ever.

I haven't read the other Laundry titles, but I like some of Stross's other books. I enjoyed the characters and pacing and plot. I'm sure I would have gotten more out of it if I had read some of the other books in the series, so I may have to circle back.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!