The nightmare stacks
"The Laundry Files' 'fast-paced blend of espionage thrills, mundane office comedy and Lovecraftian horror' (SFX) continues as Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross assigns a day trader to a permanent position on the night shift... After stumbling upon the algorithm that turned him and his fellow merchant bankers into vampires, Alex Schwartz was drafted by The Laundry, Britain's secret counter-occult agency that's humanity's first line of defense against the forces of darkness. Dependent on his new employers for his continued existence--as Alex has no stomach for predatory bloodsucking--he has little choice but to accept his new role as an operative-in-training. Dispatched to Leeds, Alex's first assignment is to help assess the costs of renovating a 1950s Cold War bunker into The Laundry's new headquarters. Unfortunately, Leeds is Alex's hometown, and the thought of breaking the news to his parents that he's left banking for civil service, while hiding his undead condition, is causing more anxiety than learning how to live as a vampire secret agent preparing to confront multiple apocalypses. Alex's only saving grace is Cassie Brewer, a drama student appearing in the local Goth Festival who is inexplicably attracted to him despite his awkward personality and massive amounts of sunblock. But Cassie has secrets of her own--secrets that make Alex's night life behaviors seem positively normal..."
Stats for nerds
2recommend
6mentions
5people
2016–2024years
33% recommend33% neutral33% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- You’d might like the Elves in The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross [0]. Which includes (mild spoiler) an assault on the city of Leeds in the UK by a combined-arms Elven battlegroup (think Waffen-SS with pointy ears). They have battle-tested air-land integration doctrine where their dragons operate in a close air support role. Some of their innate magical powers include foretelling and mind control over enslaved humans.
- Same, as one badly constructed book (or season of a TV series) can ruin the whole lot if they're all sequential.
It's become so much of a trope that it's become a pet hate. I actively avoid buying any that is "first of..." now, no matter how famous you are. The few times I break this rule, I generally regret it. Most trilogies are just a book, heavily padded. So I simply won't buy unless all are written, and well reviewed. Then, do I buy all or none.
There are just a tiny few that deserve it. Archer's Clifton Chronicles, Follett's Century Trilogy, Stross' own Merchant Princes (1-6 anyway, skip the new ones) were all marvellous and fully deserved a series. Yet most are unworthy. Song of Ice and Fire - great idea, so much padding and so little direction. Good book, awful series. I forget where I gave up. Cornwell's The Saxon Stories was mostly great, but I preferred the battle by battle progression of Sharpe without having to achieve perfect continuity or care much what order I read them.
Much prefer the random peeks into a universe approach of Sharpe, Discworld, or Follett with the Kingsbridge series where there's hundreds of years between the books. Or Adam's HHGTTG leaping all over the galaxy with continuity that can leave Marvin in a car park for a millennium. Even Charles Stross reads far better if simply ignoring Laundry Files as series. Lots of unconnected episodes and forget the underlying destination or continuity. It's the only way I can carry on when there's been two books that really didn't work. Well, more one book and one ending that failed hard.
Atrocity Archives and the other Bob books were some of the most entertaining, delightfully observed comedy fiction I've read. Nightmare Stacks didn't really join up, but was a rollicking good tale, and some interesting new characters.
Labyrinth Index on the other hand, was disjointed and unfinishable (The only book from Charles, one of my favourite authors, I can't finish). It should have been a book of Alex, Bob or Cassie. Anyone but Mhari, who might have worked here if given a red shirt to die spectacularly in chapter 2. She's not even anything like the Mhari as created in previous books.
The only way I can react to that is simply ignore as series, tuning out continuity, or stop buying.
- >To me, it made <cool scifi thing> about as fun to read about as... tedious government bureaucracy.
This is also the problem with Charles Stross' Nightmare Stacks. The concept was kinda funny in 2004, but by book number 10 it just gets tedious. The reader cries out, What is the point of all this, and Stross answers with a shrug.
- The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross includes (spoiler) an assault on the city of Leeds in the UK by a combined arms Elven battle group. The elves have Battle-tested air-land integration doctrine that sees them using their dragons in a close air support role. The elves use other magical means for ISR of the deep battle. Stross’ elves are somewhat more waffen-SS than Tolkien’s
- The Hidden Keys by André Alexis
The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross
The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
The Prince by Machiavelli
William S Borroughs: A Life by Barry Miles
Programming in the 1990s by Edward Cohen
On Numbers and Games (again) by John H. Conway
- Hah, I must admit that after being disappointed with the previous two or three I didn't bother with The Nightmare Stacks (and hadn't in fact realised it was out yet). If it's a return to form (and to be fair Stross has always been pretty variable) them I'll check it out.
