It’s been a long while since I’ve had trouble putting a book down. Picked up Charles Stross first novel, The Atrocity Archives from the library and have finished the main novella, The Atrocity Archive within 48 hours!

This is the best piece of science fiction, gothic horror … Stuff! I’ve read for ages. The good news is that this only the first of Bob Howard’s missions for The Laundry. The fourth instalment being published just a few weeks from now. Think Dresden Files spliced with the X-Files with a twist of IT system administration to taste.

A goodly number of Cthulhu tropes are front and centre here as a secret organisation goes about it’s bureaucratic business protecting the world from magic, demons and paper clips! Bob is a magic-user/IT system administrator who gets pulled into a story that starts with the Third Reich and ends with a mind-universe eating entity from beyond. The action rattles along with the humour close behind. I found myself wishing there was more of this story and didn’t feel cheated by the final act which owed more to Stargate than Star Trek! As I said, Stross had just completed the fourth in this series along with a number of online short stories set in the milieu. I shall be hunting down the rest of them pdq. Looking forward to taking some of his other works for a spin..

Fun fact: We share the same birthday