I would like to thank the publisher (Tor Books) and author (Charles Stross) for kindly providing an electronic review copy of this book.

If you like reading Charles Stross's stories from the Laundry Files about Bob Howard, then stop reading this review, and immediately start reading "Escape from Puroland". In your case, all you need to know is that this short story takes place between "The Nightmare Stacks" and "The Delirium Brief." In other words, it is from the golden age of the Laundry Files. Now, stop reading this, and go read "Escape from Puroland."

If you like books by Charles Stross, but do not know who Bob Howard is and are not familiar with the Laundry Files, then please give yourself a wonderful present and first read "The Atrocity Archives." Not only will it give give you the background to truly appreciate "Escape from Puroland", but you will be further entertained with Stross's wit and story telling. So, you too, stop reading this review and go read "The Atrocity Archives."

What? Are you still reading this review? Hmmm, if you dislike reading Charles Stross, then you probably will not appreciate "Escape from Puroland", but I don't think a Stross anti-fan would bother to read this review. So I will assume that my remaining gentle readers either are unfamiliar with Stross, or really want to know more. Especially for you, I would like to explain why I am the right person to review this story for you. (1) I am a fan of the series this story comes from. I want you to appreciate it also. (2) I have actually visited many of the locations in this story. I have personally survived a visit to Puroland. I have navigated the constantly changing maze of twisty little passages (or is that "twisty little maze of passages"?) that is also known as Shinjuku Station. And I have even met someone in the lobby of the esteemed Keio Plaza Hotel.

"Escape from Puroland" is an entertaining intersection of international spy (and bureaucracy thereof), Lovecraft horror (just the right amount), Japanese yookai (but no actual kaiju), techno-geekery, and more importantly British humor. Since this short story takes place within an existing series, there is some background that is not covered. But I think it is still a very entertaining story on its own. It might help if you if you imagine a slightly grumpy British techno-mage on a troubleshooting business trip to Japan who must exorcise a deadly daemon that takes the form of Hello Kitty. Wow!

I loved every minute of reading this story, and will promptly reread it right after sending in this review. Charles Stross, please keep up the good work and give us more Bob Howard!

I enjoyed this short story entry to The Laundry Files. Following up on Bob's expanded professional role as Eater Of Souls, this takes place shortly before the Delirium Brief and tells us something we already know: sometimes pop culture figures generate their own fandoms which generate adulation and, as we all know, a little worship can go a long way.

Escape From Puroland by Charles Stross- This is a Laundry Files novella that first appeared in TOR.com, Tor Books online blog. Bob Howard is back, and now the new "Soul Eater" for the Laundry. Sent to Japan to stop an outbreak of pesky Kaiju in Tokyo at the Hello Kitty Park(Puroland) of all places. His escort is a cat-adapt with finicky feline attitude. At first, it seems to Bob to be a little ridicules, but he's soon running for his life, casting spells as he stumbles. All in all a fun time for everyone. I love the droll asides and quirky narration. It's been a while since I read a Laundry File story. Great to recommend this one.

Bob is back!

Novellas are an opportunity for Charlie Stross to perform an intense riff on a new facet of his James-Bond-meets-Cthulhu-meets-British-bureaucracy Laundry Files universe, and <i>Escape from Puroland</i> doesn't disappoint. In this installation, Bob is called to Japan on a side mission, which gives Stross the opportunity to immerse Bob (and the reader) in kawaii (cute) culture with a dash of kaiju (giant monsters, a la Godzilla). Within the short word count of a novella, Stross is able to ramp up the pop culture and geek references to ludicrous density levels while fully sustaining the action, so for fans of the series, this installation is a savory confection that satisfies without coming anywhere near overstaying its welcome.

This novella is noted by Goodreads as number 7.5 in the Laundry Files series - it fills in a gap, basically, about one of the chief characters. For reference, I have read a few Laundry Files stories: I enjoy them a lot, but not quite enough to obsessively chase every single book down. I did enjoy this one a lot, which means that you could probably come to this with maybe even no knowledge of the rest of the books - as long as you're happy enough not knowing some of the background (like who Mo is). I think there's enough explanation about things like computers creating magical energy, and therefore background magical radiation increasing as computational power increases, that a reader who's prepared to roll with it can do just that.

So, the story: Bob Howard is sent to Japan to help them deal with incursions of entities from other dimensions. These can take the shape of various things depending on mythology and so on in the surrounding area... and when Howard is given a hotel room that's Hello, Kitty themed, alarm bells should have started ringing...

The Laundry Files are what I would consider very pop-literature. This is in no way a statement on quality! What I mean is that they're fast-paced (very fast-paced, in this instance); there's a lot of banter; there's a lot of pop-culture references, some of which I admit I didn't get but the general gist was obvious. This story just barges along and drags you along in its wake. And it's a whole lot of fun. In fact, it's made me start eyeing off the rest of the series...

This was a rip roaring ride through government liaison work (and ghost banishing and saving the word from Sanrio gone wrong). Bob Howard is such a great character with an engaging, introspective, yet wry narrative voice. And this novella is all cuteness, jet lag, and Lovecraftian horror, letting Bob be both annoyed at the bureaucracy and ruthlessly competent. the Laundry files is one of those series where my reading petered out and got swallowed by my too large to be read pile, but this story makes me want to dive back in and read them all.

So, while Leeds was being flattened by a bad problem of CASE NIGHTMARE RED, our favourite computational demonologist and now full-time eater-of-souls, was on the other part of the world restoring the British reputation in containing eldritch pink abominations and couples of yokai/anti-yokai appearing in a rather CERN-accelerator fashion.
It was definitely time someone admitted Hello Kitty is a monster from another dimension.
This novella has a single problem: it is too short, just a single bite of yumminess and it's gone. I hope we will explore further the Asian netherworld in a forthcoming novel

The long-teased Laundry novella in which Bob Howard, geek/spook/apprentice Eater of Souls for the UK government, visits Japan and finds that the colour out of space was pink all along – a joke which Stross has been doing since well before Richard Stanley realised it on screen. You can also expect riffs on the title of I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, because the high concept at the heart of this is Hello Kitty as demonic entity. Although she's referred to throughout as Princess Kitty, which I initially took for legal chaff, but then Sanrio and Aggretsuko appear under their own names, so who knows? It is very much a novella – not in the modern sense of 'what would once have been considered a perfectly normal length for a novel, especially in SF', but in my own 'between 50 and 100 pages' use of the term. Also in so far as it has one central idea, and works straight through that. As such, it feels closer to stuff which in the past has been bunged up on Tor.com for free, like Equoid, than than to the Laundry novels proper. But, you know, that is quite a good central idea. In some ways it might have been better had it come out in 2014, where it's set (when Bob moans about the Coalition at one point, I almost found myself calling the Eater of Souls a sweet summer child); I suspect there's now a much greater chance of pushback regarding a story in which a Western lead visits Japan and interacts with a lot of its most stereotypical features, from very formal local contacts, through kawaii critters, to hi-tech loos. Even within that, I was a little surprised at the straightforward Laundryverse take on the yokai in the preliminary encounters, as compared to the ways Stross has hitherto turned genre staples like elves, unicorns and vampires inside out. Still, set against that, it's good to get Bob's narrative voice again after a few books where his increasing power levels meant he had to be sidelined. And did I mention terrifying, eldritch Hello Kitty?

(Netgalley ARC)

This is a novella set in Charles Stross's series of novels about a fictional secret agency of the British government established to deal with the occult. The protagonist of the Laundry novels, Bob Howard, a sorcerer who uses computers, goes to Japan to deal with an infestation of spirits and minor gods (kami) in an amusement park. There is mild satire of Japanese products designed to appeal to children, Hello Kitty in particular. The threat being faced is a greedy, but not particularly evil, spirit which has set up shop in the park in order to feed off the souls of children. It is, nonetheless, a threat and Howard has to deal with it.
It is, not make too fine a point of it, a mildly amusing story, with some fun wordplay and jokes about both high tech and Japanese toys and games. A reader would have to be familiar with the novels in the series to appreciate all aspects of the story; Stross assumes this, so there are references to characters in the series who don't appear in the story, and who are, in consequence, not fully developed or explained. This is a flaw for readers not familiar with the novels. Despite this, it is an entertaining story in which the narrator's fish out of water experience of Japan moves the action along swiftly. Stross has pulled this trick several times in the series so it is not as amusing as it might have been.. A new reader, however, may be entertained by it.

The big problem with the story is the need for substantial infodumps which, while necessary, slow the action down. A reader familiar with the Laundry series will find these mildly annoying, since they go over matters established in the series already. A new reader may find them slightly tedious.

Overall, an amusing work of fantasy with a protagonist already well established with fans. A new reader should find it enjoyable.

Bob Howard, the new Eater of Souls, is on assignment in Japan. The Miyamoto Group asked for Angleton, but got Bob instead. There is an incursion event coming at a Hello Kitty theme park that needs to be put down hard. As Bob wakes up from jet lag, he slowly finds out just what is going on and works to contain it. Now he just needs to survive the event itself! A nice quick read that fills in a gap in the Laundry Files!

Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to read this title!