Stross: The Fuller Memorandum review

The Fuller Memorandum is the third installment in Charles Stross' brilliant dark-comedy, high-tech, Cthulhu-mythos-inspired espionage novels that make up the Laundry Files series.

Bob Howard works for the Laundry, a super-top-secret agency within the British government tasked with dealing with "magic". "Magic" is not exactly what you think. It's a branch of mathematics. Using mathematics, and advanced computational algorithms, one can do many things. Bob's job is described as "applied computational demonologist". He first got involved with the Laundry when he was working on a new computer algorithm for displaying graphics and almost unleashed a city-devouring entity from another universe on England. So, the Laundry gave him the choice of working for them or being killed. Bob, of course, chose to live.

In The Fuller Memorandum, Bob gets sent by his boss James Angleton to check out something in an RAF hanger. Bob doesn't know the details, as Angleton expects him to figure things out for himself. He also gets deputized by Angleton to act for him on the BLOODY BARON committee. At the same time, his wife and fellow Laundry agent Mo (who carries an Erich Zahn original violin with a sticker that says "This machine kills demons") gets sent to Amsterdam to deal with a group of cultists in an operation classified as CLUB ZERO.

Bob's trip to the hangar goes horribly wrong, and Mo's work in Amsterdam was horrific. Before long, it's clear that both operations, as well as the BLOODY BARON committee are tied to CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN - the end of the world. It seems that the Cultists from the CLUB ZERO operation are attempting to get their hands on the Fuller Memorandum and invite a world-destroying entity from out of space-time. To make things worse, Angleton disappears and Russian agents begin to get involved in the action, but whose side are they on?

This book is dark, action-packed, hilarious, and filled with awesome Cthulhumythosness (new word, that). I highly recommend it, is well as the first two books: The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. Really, the whole series is a blend of classic spy novels, the best of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and a bit of the Bastard Operator from Hell. I really, really hope Stross writes another book in this series soon.
/ [Viking]

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