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LOVED this book, but it's incredibly specialized. As a professional computer geek who loves eldrich horrors, spy novels, and all things British (even their bureaucracy); this was a real treat. If you can't fit yourself into those categories, I'm not sure this would be the book for you. Told as a sort of first person tumble down a particularly frightening rabbit hole, there is a particular kind of humor that permeates the whole thing. If you can laugh at UNIX jokes, life as a cubicle slave in a government office, and the banalities of using the worst of the things that go bump in the night as technology tools...then this is the book for you. If jokes about computers from the early 90's and MEMEX machines from before the dawn of the internet aren't your thing...then this is going to fall flat for you time after time. It also reads like a new-wave episode of Doctor Who. Things from beyond space and time threatening our very existence and defeated not by bombs, guns, and soldiers; but by everyday nerds doing smart things bravely instead of loud things with a bang. The book is actually a novel and a Hugo winning Novelette sold together under the name of the novel included. I would honestly say I found the Novel significantly more engaging than the Novelette and I'm surprised it won an award. It's not a bad effort by ANY stretch, but the characterizations were not a strong, though this is more an artifact of length than quality. It may just be that I didn't care for the female that accompanied the protagonist...even though she's less of a wet blanket than the "tethered goat" from the novel. Personality clash maybe? Or maybe I just didn't get how it was that she went from "woman of action" to "shell-shocked and angry" even though she allegedly already KNEW about the things that were so shocking. Might just be that I'm not down with angry Detective Inspector with a gun. I don't know. It wasn't bad but it just didn't work as well for me. That said, the Novelette was still better than about 90% of the science fiction / horror / technospy stories in the history of publishing; so when I say it didn't work as well, please remember that the bar was incredibly high. If you're a computer geek, love Doctor Who, enjoy H.P. Lovecraft, OR just like spy novels then The Laundry Series might be your cup of tea. If you laugh at old Monty Python sketches and are ALL of those other things...then this might well be your new "favoritest book of ever!!!" and I encourage you to head over to Amazon and Kindle it this instant.

2022-10-21 05:45