The Annihilation Score
"Mo's latest assignment is to assist the police in containing an unusual outbreak: ordinary citizens suddenly imbued with extraordinary abilities of the superpowered kind. Unfortunately these people prefer playing super-pranks instead of performing super-heroics"
Stats for nerds
3recommend
7mentions
7people
2015–2023years
43% recommend43% neutral14% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I know Charlie Stross reads HN, so I'm going to say that I really enjoyed his book The Annihilation Score, which uses Peel as a plot device.
It's book six or seven in a series, but all the books really stand alone.
- The Annihilation Score is a pretty good skewering of modern bureaucracy; we've borrowed a lot of terminology from the Americans and imported a lot of their corporate thinking, so it makes sense that the tone shifts. And again, that book is a Mo book, and she's American.
- Suggested reading: "The Annihilation Score", by Charles Stross. This is the latest in the Laundry series, about a unit of the British government which deals with paranormal problems. They have to deal with someone who calls himself "The Mandate". He has the power to make anyone around him believe what he says, and he has political ambitions. (He can make people believe him. But the CCTV/face recognition system isn't fooled, and he's caught.)
- > I only need to read about the "chair" once.
In that case you probably won't like the "violin" in Charles Stross's 'The Annihilation Score' [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files#The_Annihila...
- The early ones certainly aren't, they're just about pitch perfect. Somewhere mid way, probably around The Annihilation Score, they become so and it starts to feel off, in part because the perfect pitch has become off key. That's entirely ignoring Labyrinth Index centred on Mhari, as it's the weakest book of the series, for its own reasons.
Merchant Princes, set somewhat in the US, gets the pitch of place and character, and keeps it, much more consistently.
- Fifteen Dogs: an apologue of rare insight. Apollo and Hermes make a wager that if dogs were given human intelligence they would die miserable, not happy. This was my favorite this year.
The End of Vandalism: a tale of a love triangle in a small mid-western town. Funny, dark, and a vivid portrait of that kind of town. A huge cast of characters, some only on stage for a moment or two and yet each integral and colorful.
The Annihilation Score: I love the series but this wasn't my favorite despite starring one of my favorite characters for the first time.
The Rhesus Chart: Another of the Laundry Files series. A sanguinary disease nearly brings down the Laundry. This one was snarky, good fun. One of my favorites from the series.
Where Did You Sleep Last Night?: A creepy masterpiece of haute fan-fiction.
Without Their Permission: The tale of a privileged, mediocre man extolling the Libertarian virtues of the Internet. Anyone can open a laptop and get super rich! Without anyone's permission! Because that's why we're not all rich yet.
The Internet Is Not The Answer: A counter-point from Andrew Keene to Alexis Ohanian's unbridled optimism. Decent but not strong enough.
21st Century C: Amazing! Finally a practical book about C. The modern tool-set available, the notable language features of C99 and C11, and a few in-depth projects to pull it all together. Great book.
On Numbers And Games: A fabulous book by one of my mathematical heroes. Well worth getting through it.
Frankenstein: Mary Shelley's classic. I started collecting the new Penguin Classics line and the introductions are really insightful. These are well-researched and produced editions.
The Nature of Things: The epic from Lucretius. It was really eye-opening to finally read this book. Atomism, psychology, and poetic metaphors... from thousands of years ago.
... probably more I'm forgetting.
