Charles Stross's Dead Lies Dreaming: The New Laundry Files Novel

U.S. Tor edition

I actually completed work on this manuscript for Tor Books at the end of January -- yes, January 2020! But knowing that nine months remained before the book would be published I decided to hold off writing about said book on this blog until we got a lot closer to the publication date.

That date is approximately four weeks away: the U.S. edition from Tor will be released on October 27; the U.K. edition from Orbit Books will be released on October 29. 

And though Dead Lies Dreaming will be the tenth Laundry Files novel from Charles Stross, this book is not -- I repeat, not -- part of the current/ongoing series involving our favorite cast of characters from Q-Division: Bob Howard, Dominique "Mo" O'Brien, Alex Schwartz, Mhari Murphy, and Pinky and Brains.

This new volume is actually the first in a new trilogy involving... well,  the only character from the prior books who even tangentially appears in this new series is Fabian Everyman, aka the Mandate, aka New Management (aka the Prime Minister). In fact, Stross's working title for this new series is "Tales of the New Management."

In his "Charlie's Diary" blog post of September 27, the author writes:

"....I gave myself license to doodle therapeutically. The therapeutic doodles somehow colonized the abandoned first third of a magical realist novel I pitched in 2014, and turned into an unexpected attack novel titled Lost Boys. (It was retitled Dead Lies Dreaming because a cult comedy movie from 1987 got remade for TV in 2020—unless you're a major bestseller you do not want your book title to clash with an unrelated movie—but it's still Lost Boys in my headcanon.)

Lost Boys—that is, Dead Lies Dreaming—riffs heavily off Peter and Wendy, the original taproot of Peter Pan, a stage play and novel by J. M. Barrie that predates the more familiar, twee, animated Disney version of Peter Pan from 1953 by some decades....Peter and Wendy can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg here. And if you only know Pan from Disney, you're in for a shock."

Orbit U.K. edition

In that blog post, the author shares a lot more detail on the genesis of this new Laundry Files series than I have included here, so be sure to click on that "Diary" link above to read the full content.

For those familiar with the previous Laundry Files novels, in The Annihilation Score, regular humans began developing superpowers. In Dead Lies Dreaming, those everyday people have formed groups, or clans (i.e. the Lost Boys of the original title), and now work in unison to, shall we say, pull the wool over the eyes of authority. And in this world, where there are thieves, there will be a thief-taker.

But as in any Laundry Files novel, there is always a much bigger (very much bigger!) outcome (the world!) at stake.

Dead Lies Dreaming is now available for preorder at Amazon and Amazon UK, or your bookseller of choice.

Book Received: The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross

I have received my comp copy of The Labyrinth Index, courtesy of Lauren Hougen, Associate Managing Editor at St. Martin’s Press. It's always a joy to receive an actual physical copy of a book I have worked on, especially this series, which is so near and dear to my heart, going back to WorldCon 60 in 2002, when I first met Charles Stross....

You can read about my work on The Labyrinth Index in my blog post on April 8, 2018.

And if you are new to Stross's Laundry Files series, or haven't picked up a title in a bit, you can catch up with a recap of the series to which I have provided a link in my blog post on November 17, 2018.

"Imagine a world where gnarly Lovecraftian demons are all too real yet are routinely neutralized with high-tech wizardry by a supersecret British spy agency, and you'll get an inkling of the genre-bending territory Stross explores in the Laundry Files novels."  –Booklist

A Recap of Charles Stross's Laundry Files Series

For those who have been with me on More Red Ink over the long haul, you know that I have been involved in all nine volumes of the Laundry Files series by Charles Stross: acquiring the first two volumes for Golden Gryphon Press, then working on volumes three through seven for Ace Books, volume eight for Macmillan UK, and the current volume, The Labyrinth Index, for Tor/St. Martin's Press. [1]

In preparation for the release of this latest volume, author Charles Stross presented, on Tor.com, a "five-minute orientation briefing before Human Resources take over for your induction paperwork. Please try to pay attention: there won’t be an exam, but your life may depend on it."

So if you are getting ready to read The Labyrinth Index and looking for a recap of what's gone on previously in the series, then look no further than Tor.com.

Speaking of which, when you read the "five-minute orientation" and you come upon the name " X-Division of the Special Operations Executive," just pretend it actually reads "Q-Division. (We won't remind Charlie that it's always been a "Q"....)

Q-Division (formerly Q Department in earlier volumes) – the Laundry’s official name; originally part of SOE during WWII.

The Labyrinth Index was officially released on October 30 and is available from Amazon, or your bookseller of choice.

---------------

Footnote:

[1] You can read about my work on The Labyrinth Index in my blog post on April 8, 2018.

Read Chapter 1 of The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross

In my blog post on April 8 I wrote about my work on the newest Laundry Files novel, The Labyrinth Index -- volume 9 -- by author Charles Stross.

You can now read the entire Chapter 1, courtesy of the author and Tor.com. I'm going to post the first few paragraphs here, and -- assuming you are intrigued by the story line as much as I am -- simply click on the link following this excerpt to be whisked away to the full chapter on Tor.com.

By the way, the POV speaker is Mhari Murphy. You may want to read my blog post first, the one mentioned above, before reading the excerpt.

Chapter 1

As I cross the courtyard to the execution shed I pass a tangle of bloody feathers. They appear to be the remains of one of the resident corvids, which surprises me because I thought they were already dead. Ravens are powerful and frighteningly astute birds, but they’re no match for the tentacled dragonspawn that the New Management has brought to the Tower of London.

These are strange days and I can’t say I’m happy about all the regime’s decisions—but one does what one must to survive. And rule number one of life under the new regime is, don’t piss Him off.

So I do my best to ignore the pavement pizza, and steel myself for what’s coming next as I enter the shed, where the client is waiting with the witnesses, a couple of prison officers, and the superintendent.

Executions are formal occasions. I’m here as a participant, acting on behalf of my department. So I’m dressed in my funerals-and-court-appearances suit, special briefcase in hand. As I approach the police checkpoint, a constable makes a point of examining my warrant card. Then she matches me against the list of participants and peeks under my veil before letting me inside. Her partner watches the courtyard, helmet visor down and assault rifle at the ready.

Continue reading....

The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross (The Laundry Files Volume 9)

Indeed, much time has passed since I last posted about an editing project. Not because I haven't wanted to, but because the majority of the work I've been doing these past few months has been with individual authors. And since these authors' manuscripts have not been accepted for publication as yet, I feel it's not my place to comment publicly on said work.

Which brings me to my most recent project, which I can, in fact, write about: Just this past Friday I turned in the edited manuscript for Charles Stross's latest Laundry Files novel -- The Labyrinth Index -- to Tor Books/St. Martin's Press. The book will be published in October.

Book number 9... I have been working on the Laundry Files series since 2003, when I first acquired The Atrocity Archives -- which contained the 2005 Hugo Award-winning novella "The Concrete Jungle" -- for Golden Gryphon Press. A span of fifteen years, nine volumes, and four different publishers: as acquiring editor with Golden Gryphon Press (books 1 and 2), and then as a freelancer for the next seven volumes: Ace Books (books 3 through 7), Oribt UK (book 8), and this latest volume with Tor Books. Whew....

Orbit UK Edition

I'll share some of The Labyrinth Index story line with you, but not too much as I don't want to give away too many spoilers. I will say, however, that the blurb provided to Amazon and Barnes and Noble (and undoubtedly other booksellers as well) was based on an early draft of the novel, and a number of points within those blurbs are no longer correct or accurate. So I'm going to post the book blurb here, with the appropriate corrections/'changes:

The Lovecraftian Singularity has descended on the world, beginning an exciting new story arc in the Laundry Files series!

The arrival of vast, alien, inhuman intelligences reshaped the landscape for human affairs across the world, and the United Kingdom is no exception. Things have changed in Britain since the dread elder god N'yar Lat-Hotep [aka Fabian Everyman, aka the Mandate, ref: The Delirium Brief, book 8] ascended to the rank of Prime Minister. Mhari Murphy, recently elevated to the House of Lords and head of the Lords Select Committee on Sanguinary Affairs (think vampires), finds herself in direct consultation with the Creeping Chaos, who directs her to lead a team of unknown [at least to the Black Chamber] Laundry personnel into the dark heart of America to search for the President of the United States, and kidnap him if necessary for his own protection.

A thousand-mile-wild storm system has blanketed the Midwest, [there is no storm!] and the President is nowhere to be found. In fact, for reasons unknown [as yet], the people of America are forgetting that the Executive Branch ever existed. The government has been infiltrated by the shadowy Black Chamber [aka the Nazgûl, aka the Operational Phenomenology Agency, or OPA], and the Pentagon and NASA have been refocused on the problem of summoning Cthulhu.

Somewhere [in hiding], the Secret Service Presidential Protection Detail battle to stay awake in order to remember who the President is, and to stay one step ahead of the vampiric OPA dragnet that's searching for him.

So there you have it. The boldface (and the one strike-through) are my corrections to the original publisher's blurb, while the bracketed text provide a bit more detail than what was given. Any questions?

If you've been keeping up on the series, then you know that supersecret agent extraordinaire Bob Howard (the new Eater of Souls) has made few appearances in the past few volumes. And The Labyrinth Index is no exception. The primary narrator is Mhari Murphy, or should I now say Baroness Karnstein! And Mhari's main partner-in-crime, so to speak, on this mission into the dark heart of America is Detective Chief Superintendent James Grey (aka Officer Friendly), whom we last saw in The Annihilation Score.

Recall that the Prime Minister wanted a team of "blank-face" operatives.... Brains (of Pinky and Brains) joins the mission this time around, as does Reverend Pete Russell. And if you are a hardcore fan of the Laundry Files series, you may even remember sysadmin Janice Hill, one of the Scrum from The Rhesus Chart; well, she's part of the team, too, as is Derek the DM from The Nightmare Stacks. Last, but certainly not least, an alfär mage, one of the Host of Air and Darkness, plays a major role as well.

That's probably more detail than I should be providing at this point, but I couldn't help myself. This story is a real page-turner: it moves faster than RAF Concorde 302 Heavy with the President onboard! (Shush...don't tell anyone I said that!)

Book Received: The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross

Just the other day I received in the mail a complimentary copy of Charles Stross's The Delirium Brief from UK publisher Orbit. That's the Orbit cover pictured to the left.

The Delirium Brief is volume 8 in the Laundry Files -- and I have had the extreme pleasure (actually, an honor) of working on all eight volumes. The book will be published this month in both the U.K. and in the U.S. (Tor.com; cover pictured below). I sometimes find it difficult to believe that I began work on the first Laundry Files book in late 2001, and now, eight volumes later, I'm halfway through the year 2017....

If you are unfamiliar with the Laundry Files series -- or you haven't read all seven previous volumes -- and you'd like to jump right in on this new volume, then you'll need to do a bit of catch-up reading first. Begin by reading my blog post of January 9, 2017, in which I write about my work on The Delirium Brief, and provide some background on the volume, a few mini (very mini) spoilers (necessary), and let you know what you will need to read specifically to catch up.

But back to the book at hand. What was even more special than just receiving a copy of the book was the included note (following) from Joanna Kramer, Managing Editor at Orbit. I know I do a damn good job on all the books I work on, but I'll always -- always -- appreciate receiving kudos from those responsible for hiring me in the first place. So, once again, thank you, Ms. Kramer, for your kind words.

Figuring that possibly my own writing isn't sufficient to whet your appetite for a new reading experience, I try to include an appropriate book review in some of my blog posts. So, here is the May 2, 2017, Kirkus review:

THE DELIRIUM BRIEF

From the "Laundry Files" series, volume 8

by Charles Stross

Stross' Laundry Files series, of which this is No. 8 (The Nightmare Stacks, 2016, etc.), is a weird but effective mashup of Lovecraft-ian horror, espionage thriller, science fiction, and satire, centering around a top-secret British government agency devoted to fighting "the sort of thing you expect to meet in an episode of The X-Files."

In resolving the previous book's crisis, unfortunately, the Laundry's existence becomes public knowledge, so this time out combat sorcerer Bob Howard, the Eater of Souls, must appear on TV to offer the usual blandishments. Poor Bob and his equally scary wife, the newly minted auditor, Mo O'Brien, can't live together—her demonic White Violin tried to eat him, while Bob worries that he might absentmindedly eat Mo's soul while sleepwalking. As a senior member of staff, though, Bob no longer has to worry about his expense sheets. But an evil god from another dimension is moving to take over the American government, whose about-to-be-unemployed good guys warn the Laundry that the Rev. Raymond Schiller, whose followers are deliberately parasitized and enslaved by a godlike extradimensional horror known as the Sleeper in the Pyramid, is plotting a takeover of the U.K. government. Abruptly, the Laundry's staffers learn that their agency has been privatized and they're all out of a job. To combat Schiller, Bob will need his most powerful allies, freelance witch Persephone "Seph" Hazard, otherworld elf-queen Cassie Brewer, and Senior Auditor Armstrong. Series regulars will find the usual humor here much reduced, with a narrative cluttered with infodumps on civil service bureaucracy, while the tone has turned bleaker and far darker. There's little need to point out the obvious political aspects to all this. Some readers may not relish the new direction the series is taking, while others will ponder the underlying currents and conclude that it all makes perfect sense.

Stross still spins a heck of a yarn.

The Delirium Brief will be published next week, and is available from Amazon or your bookseller of choice.

The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross: Laundry Files Book 8

Tor.com cover

Okay, okay...so I haven't been the world's best blogger these past few months (though I did try to keep you entertained on occasion with quotes, vids, etc.).... Blame it on the run-up to the presidential election (and of course the aftermath, sigh....), but then again that excuse is only good through the beginning of December.

For the past nearly four weeks I have been working on the latest installment of Charles Stross's Laundry Files series: volume 8, entitled The Delirium Brief. This new novel will be published in July 2017 in the U.S. by Tor.com and by Orbit Books in the UK. [*]

So while I slaved away working on The Delirium Brief, the publishers were, naturally, shut down for the holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Orbit UK cover

But I'm not really complaining, honest: one of the best Christmas-Chanukah-Kwanzaa presents I could ever ask for is the opportunity to work on a new Laundry Files novel. (Also, I'm always pleased to have work in front of me -- any work, at any time!)

According to the content blurb provided by the publisher (available for your reading pleasure on Amazon.com) -- and I quote, though not in its entirety:

"... following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness, the Laundry’s existence has become public, and Bob is being trotted out on TV to answer pointed questions about elven asylum seekers. What neither Bob nor his managers have foreseen is that their organization has earned the attention of a horror far more terrifying than any demon: a British government looking for public services to privatize. Inch by inch, Bob Howard and his managers are forced to consider the truly unthinkable: a coup against the British government itself."

So, what we know here is that the British government is outsourcing a number of its services, which obviously includes the Laundry... But the real question is: Why?

I will warn you right now that to answer that question without giving away the entire punchline I will still have to yield to a few "mini" spoilers. So if the idea of knowing any spoilers whatsoever for The Delirium Brief, regardless of how small, offends your better judgment, then you had best close this blog post window now!

On the other hand, if you are still reading, let me provide a caveat: If you are fairly new to the Laundry Files series and haven't read all the prior volumes, then you just may want to stick around to learn which volumes you will need to catch up on before The Delirium Brief is published six months from now. (Or maybe you have read all the volumes but it's been years for some of them and, well, the memory ain't what it used to be....)

Editing in Process: The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross

American Edition Cover

In my November 11, 2015, blog post I was reading Charles Stross's The Nightmare Stacks, the next volume (#7) in the Laundry Files series, in preparation for actually working on the manuscript. That time has (had) come.

If you are new (seriously?) to the Laundry Files: Officially known as "Q-Division" (at least for now), the Laundry was part of the Strategic Operations Executive (SOE), a World War II British organization responsible for espionage and sabotage in occupied Europe. The Q-Division was a supersecret black group formed to counter Hitler's research and experiments in the occult. At the end of WWII, the SOE was disbanded, but the Q-Division secretly remained intact. The new headquarters was then located above a Chinese Laundry, and thus the nickname. These days, the Laundry's primary objective is to protect the citizens of Her Majesty's Government from incursions from beyond spacetime. But the Laundry must also defend against one who attempts to take over the world (The Jennifer Morgue), the cultlike church who tries to force the Second Coming (The Apocalypse Codex), individuals with V syndrome (The Rhesus Chart), and individuals with superpowers (The Annihilation Score).

Now, as revealed in The Atrocity Archives, the first volume in the series, shortly before the end of the war in Europe, members of the Ahnenerbe-SS used occult measures to open a gateway to a nitrogen-based planet, to which they escaped, to bide their time until they were ready to return to Earth -- and the termination of that return fell upon the Laundry.

In fact, if you look at the graphic above of the American edition of The Nightmare Stacks you'll see a Kettenkrad on the cover -- a German motorized half-track, small enough to be steered like a motorcycle. The Kettenkrad was salvaged from the Ahnenerbe-SS by the Laundry, and rebuilt by Pinky and Brains (readers of the series will recognize this pair of R&D tech geeks from previous volumes), and both Pinky and Brains, and the Kettenkrad, are integral parts of the story in this forthcoming novel, scheduled to be published in June. (And yes, the driver of the Kettenkrad is wearing seventeenth-century cavalry plate, and that is a dragon flying above the building on the cover. But you'll just have to wait for the novel....)

British Edition Cover

Through the first five volumes of the Laundry Files, we've been following agent Bob Howard: officemate, IT geek, and occult mathematician -- and now Eater of Souls. (Volume five, The Apocalypse Codex, being the exception, in which we were also treated to the POVs of external assets Persephone Hazard, aka agent Bashful Incendiary, and Jonathan McTavish, aka agent Johnny Prince.) Volume six was completely from the viewpoint of Dr. Dominique "Mo" O’Brien (aka agent Candid), a professor and combat epistemologist, who just happens to be married to Bob Howard. But this new volume, The Nightmare Stacks, is neither a Bob novel, nor a Mo novel, but rather "a Laundry novel," as the author Charles Stross states in his November 4, 2015, blog post. Rather, the new novel features operative-in-training Alex Schwartz, who was "drafted" by the Laundry "after stumbling upon the algorithm that turned him and his fellow merchant bankers into vampires." (see The Rhesus Chart)

I spent the majority of December working on the manuscript -- and with the start of the new year, my editing was complete, and the marked-up manuscript is now in the hands of the author. I just checked my email, and counted 108 emails (though there could be a few more that I may have simply overlooked) between the two of us as I worked on this project, far fewer than is typical, based on prevous volumes. However, this time, I didn't confer with Charlie on every major content change -- with seven volumes now, I have to hope that I know what I'm doing (!) and will leave the final decisions to the author when he reviews my edits.

You'll want to read the Stross interview on The Nightmare Stacks, courtesy of io9 -- but I suggest you read the version posted on the author's blog: the interview is the same, but it's Charlie's comments and notes, plus the 79 comments at the end (including the author's responses) that are the most revealing about the book.

As I mentioned in my blog post on editing The Annihilation Score, which was published last July, the most difficult task is maintaining consistency from one volume to the next, and with seven volumes of the Laundry Files now, the task certainly isn't getting any easier. In fact, you would be surprised were I to tell you the email discussion Charlie and I had over the Laundry's official name -- Q-Division -- and what that entailed and what it will lead to, most likely in the next novel (volume eight, 2017's The Delirium Brief).

But for the sake of consistency and understanding, let me share a set of words with readers: a geas (plural: geases) is a magical compulsion to obedience. Readers of the Laundry files series will have come upon this word in nearly every volume. However, in The Nightmare Stacks, we encounter a new race, the alfär, or the unseelie, and in their Low Tongue, the word for a magical compulsion to obedience is also geas, but the plural form is geasa. Something to keep in mind when you read the novel...You never know when this kind of trivia may prove useful!

The Nightmare Stacks is forthcoming from Ace in the U.S. and Orbit in the U.K. and is currently available for preorder.

Now Reading: The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross

I'm currently reading The Nightmare Stacks, book #7 in the continuing Laundry Files series by Charles Stross. This in preparation for my working on the novel when the actual physical manuscript arrives within the week from Ace Books. 

I'm reading a MOBI edition using the Kindle for Android app on my Nexus 7 tablet (which just got updated to Android Marshmallow 6.0, for those who care). The author sent me the manuscript as a DOCX file, I then saved it as an RTF file; using Calibre Ebook Management software, I then converted the RTF file to a MOBI file -- and then saved the file in the Kindle folder on my tablet. Works for me!

You can read about my work on the previous Laundry Files novel, The Annihilation Score, in my March 26, 2015, blog post. But as to The Nightmare Stacks, you'll probably have to wait until after the New Year, as the project is due back to Ace Books the beginning of January. (Yes, another set of holidays I must work through, sigh....)

The Nightmare Stacks is due to be published by Ace Books, and Orbit Books in the U.K., in early summer, 2016.

But, ahem, I get to read the novel now.

Excerpt Link: The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross

The Annihilation Score is the sixth book in Charles Stross's Laundry Files series, which will be released this coming week. In my "Editing in Process" blog post of March 26, I detailed some of my work on The Annihilation Score as well as the previous five books in the series.

The Laundry is a supersecret British intelligence agency that protects and defends Her Majesty's Government, and the people of England, from occult incursions from beyond space-time. In the books, we follow two agents: Bob Howard and Dr. Dominique "Mo" O'Brien. Up to this point, the Laundry Files stories have all been from Bob's point of view, but The Annihilation Score turns the storytelling on its head, and we now get to experience Mo's pov; her story begins at the end of the events in The Rhesus Chart. Here's a bit of an introduction, courtesy of the author and Tor.com.

Dominique O'Brien—her friends call her Mo—lives a curious double life with her husband, Bob Howard. To the average civilian, they're boring middle-aged civil servants. But within the labyrinthian secret circles of Her Majesty's government, they're operatives working for the nation's occult security service known as the Laundry, charged with defending Britain against dark supernatural forces threatening humanity.

Mo's latest assignment is assisting the police in containing an unusual outbreak: ordinary citizens suddenly imbued with extraordinary abilities of the super-powered kind. Unfortunately these people prefer playing super-pranks instead of super-heroics. The Mayor of London being levitated by a dumpy man in Trafalgar Square would normally be a source of shared amusement for Mo and Bob, but they're currently separated because something's come between them—something evil.

An antique violin, an Erich [Zahn] original, made of human white bone, was designed to produce music capable of slaughtering demons. Mo is the custodian of this unholy instrument. It invades her dreams and yearns for the blood of her colleagues—and her husband. And despite Mo's proficiency as a world class violinist, it cannot be controlled...

In anticipation of the release of The Annihilation Score on July 7, Charles Stross and Tor.com have posted the first two chapters of the novel for your advanced reading pleasure. Chapter One is entitled "Prologue: the Incorrigibles" and Chapter Two is "Morning After." Read the excerpt from The Annihilation Score on Tor.com

Editing in Process: The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross

Ace Books US

You still have an opportunity to purchase the ebook edition of The Atrocity Archives for $1.99, though I don't know how long this reduced price will be available. And if you haven't read this first book yet in the Laundry Files series by noted UK author Charles Stross, then you have a lot of reading to catch up on....

Because this July will see the publication of book six in the Laundry Files series: The Annihilation Score, from Ace Books, and also from publisher Orbit in the UK.

I actually began work on this project during the Christmas holiday season and continued working a few weeks into January.[1] But I held off on this blog post until Ace finally released the cover art, as I hoped to feature it as well. Unfortunately, the cover release occurred while I was in the middle of a hard deadline (a new short story collection from Bradley P. Beaulieu, for a future blog post) and thus another few weeks passed, and, well, here we are.

Orbit Books UK

The Annihilation Score (TAS going forward) is, as I have said, the sixth volume in the continuing Laundry Files series. I have been extremely fortunate to have worked now on all six volumes. If you click on this link, you'll be transported to a More Red Ink "Laundry Files" search, which will allow you to scan through the ten or so blog posts I've done with a "Laundry Files" tag. I haven't written about all the volumes but enough to pique your interest, especially if you are new to the world of the supersecret intelligence organization known as the Laundry (the original HQ shared a building with a Chinese Laundry, thus the name), and necromancers Bob Howard and his wife Dominique "Mo" O'Brien.

I would like to especially draw your attention to the first blog post, "Charles Stross: On Her Majesty's Occult Service," posted on December 10, 2009, in which I write about acquiring and editing the first two volumes in the series (The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue) for indie publisher Golden Gryphon Press, all of which began in 2002. Beginning with The Fuller Memorandum, Ace picked up the series, as well as reprinting the first two titles as trade paperbacks. Ace then hired me because Charlie and I promised his editor at the time that I would ensure consistency across all three volumes. And, so far, Ace has brought me in for all the titles since. (Keeping fingers crossed his new editor at Ace is sufficiently satisfied to have me work on volume seven, which Charlie is currently in the throes of writing.)

As to keeping the world of the Laundry consistent across all the volumes...trust me, it's getting more difficult as the number of titles increases -- like a juggling act, with all six plates up in the air simultaneously, while my hands quickly turn physical pages or click a mouse to scan through files. While working on TAS I found myself looking up names, organizations, even specific uses of words in previous volumes, going as far back as The Atrocity Archives. When I began work on The Apocalypse Codex (book four), Ace required that I provide a comprehensive style sheet (see blog post "Doing Charles Stross's Laundry with Style"), which I have continued to do for each consecutive book; previous to that, I have my own editing notes.

Occasionally (albeit rarely) a tweak in the consistency meter is required when reality interferes with Laundry fiction, but other than these rare instances, the Laundry Files universe has remained relatively consistent throughout. It's a task that I take very seriously with each new book. While working on a book, I will email the author with questions, asking for definitions and clarifications, and to work through and refine small details. Often dozens (and dozens) of emails cross the aether (ocean?) between us.

eBook Sale: The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

If you read ebooks, and you haven't yet read The Atrocity Archives, the first volume in the Laundry Files series by Charles Stross, then what are you waiting for?

For a buck-99 you can't go wrong, though I have to admit I'm prejudiced: I acquired and edited the original hardcover edition of The Atrocity Archives for Golden Gryphon Press back in 2003. [You can read my lengthy blog post on acquiring both The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue, volume 2 in the Laundry Files series.]

Of course, if you are already a fan of the Laundry Files, but don't yet have this first volume in an ebook edition, now is your chance to snag a copy cheap.

But don't wait too long: I have no idea how long this ebook will remain priced at $1.99. But for now, the ebook is available from just about everywhere at $1.99. Here are the links:

Amazon Kindle edition

Nook Book edition

Google Play Books edition

Apple iTunes edition

Think of the Laundry Files as "Lovecraftian spy thrillers involving a secret history of the twentieth century, although they are not set in Lovecraft's universe,"[1] in which magic is a form of applied mathematics. Our hero in the stories[2] is Bob Howard (not his real name, because to know one's true name....), a slashdot-reading, T-shirt wearing, computer geek who nearly destroyed the city of Wolverhampton by accident while developing a new graphics algorithm. Bob was then recruited (a term used loosely, as it was either "join us, or die") into the Laundry, Her Majesty's supersecret black intelligence agency.

--------------------

Footnotes:

[1] The Atrocity Archives on Wikipedia.

[2] Bob Howard has been the main protagonist through the first five Laundry Files novels; but that role changes in book six. See my next blog post....

Laundering Reality: Charles Stross's Laundry Files

I'm about three months behind on blog posts, so....

During the latter part of October (that's 2014) I received in the mail my comp copies[1] of The Rhesus Chart, volume 5 in the continuing Laundry Files series by Charles Stross.

Interestingly enough, at about that same time, Charlie published a blog post on his public Diary entitled "The Curse of the Laundry."

In the opening paragraph, the author writes:

There's some kind of bizarre curse hanging over my Laundry Files series. Or maybe it's a deeper underlying problem with writing fiction set in the very near future (or past): I'm not sure which. All I'm sure is that that for the past decade, reality has been out to get me: and I'm fed up.

Here's the first example that Charlie provides in his post:

[in 2001] I'd just finished writing "The Atrocity Archive" and it was being edited for serial publication in issues 7-9 of the Scottish SF magazine Spectrum SF....

In Chapter 4 of "The Atrocity Archive" Bob learns from Angleton who the Middle Eastern bad guys who kidnapped Mo, intending to use her sacrifice to open a gateway to somewhere bad, really were ... and when I originally wrote the story, in 1999-2000, they were a relatively obscure bunch of anti-American zealots who'd blown up the USS Stark and an embassy in Africa. I know this may boggle the imagination of younger or more forgetful readers, but Al Quaida and Osama bin Laden had not at that time hijacked any airliners, much less etched themselves into the pages of world history....

So, on the 12th of September 2001, the score stood at Reality 1, Fiction 0. And I hastily did an edit job, replacing ObL and AQ with Yusuf Qaradawi as inspiration behind a hypothetical radical group based in groan Iraq (hey, this was before the invasion, all right?). And lo, part one of "The Atrocity Archive" was published in November 2001, and parts 2 and 3 in March and June of 2002.

I'm not sure if the Laundry Files take place in the recent past or in the very near future, or in an alternate reality -- or all three of those at once! In his "Curse" post, Charlie goes around and around on this given how current events always seem to catch up with -- and overtake -- most of the novels. The "Laundry Curse" came back to haunt Charlie with The Fuller Memorandum, written in 2008; The Apocalypse Code, written in April 2010 and March 2011; and again in the recently published The Rhesus Chart, written between September and December 2012. Of course, not to be left out, the forthcoming The Annihilation Score also gets bit by reality.

You can read all of the events to which Charlie refers -- including his declaration about the reality of the Laundry-verse -- in his post "The Curse of the Laundry." And don't forget to check out the nearly 300 comments!

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Footnotes:

[1] I have been involved as an editor in one form or another with all six volumes of the Laundry Files. I acquired and edited the original hardcover editions of The Atrocity Archives (novel The Atrocity Archive and Hugo Award-winning novella "The Concrete Jungle) and The Jennifer Morgue for Golden Gryphon Press. With volume three in the series, The Fuller Memorandum, Charlie moved to Ace Books -- and I was hired as a freelancer by Ace to line edit and copy edit the novel. Ace obviously was satisfied with my work, because I was called upon to work on the next three volumes. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to work on future Laundry Files volumes as well. And yes, I did mention volume 6, The Annihilation Score, which I just completed work on, and will be published by Ace Books this coming July. But more on this title soon (though Charlie does reveal a major plot point in this novel in the blog post).

[Addendum note 3 February 2015: Since I mentioned my initial involvement in acquiring and editing the first two Laundry Files books, I really should have included a link to my blog post on how these two books came about: "Charles Stross: On Her Majesty's Occult Service"]

Charles Stross's The Rhesus Chart: "Pounce!"

Today -- July 1 -- is the publication date for The Rhesus Chart, the fifth in the Laundry Files series by Charles Stross.

How the first two Laundry Files books came to be published by Golden Gryphon Press I have written about at length in my blog post of December 10, 2009. But suffice to say that when Charlie and I first met, albeit briefly, at the ConJosé WorldCon in 2002, I asked for an original novella, and Charlie offered me a novel that crossed so many genres that his agent, he said, didn't know what to do with it. Fortunately, I did, and the rest, as they say, is Laundry Files history. The Atrocity Archives turned out to be an ideal book for a small press publisher. The first print run of 3,000 hardcovers sold out in about three months, so the book had a second hardcover printing. Not too shabby for a small press that was then publishing six hardcovers per year.

I've been fortunate to have worked on all five Laundry Files novels, even when book 3, The Fuller Memorandum, was acquired and published by Ace Books. I've written about all three Ace Laundry Files novels within this blog, but you may find of special interest (especially if you are a writer) my blog post of exactly two years ago, on The Apocalypse Codex, entitled "Doing Charles Stross's Laundry with Style."

But back to The Rhesus Chart... How can you go wrong with a novel that opens with the following line:

"Don't be silly, Bob," said Mo, "everybody knows vampires don't exist."

The Rhesus Chart was recently graced with a starred Kirkus review. Let me repeat that: a starred Kirkus review. A review by Kirkus is difficult enough to come by, but a starred review? Now that's a treat. The review was posted online on June 5 and appeared in the June 15 issue of Kirkus Reivews. Here's a taste:

Fast-tracked into management after recent successes, Bob grows suspicious when a whiz-kid team of investment bankers which calls itself the Scrum discovers an algorithm that promises to make its members billions in profits but whose unfortunate side effect...is to turn them into vampires. (The supreme irony of this will be lost on few readers.) An added complication for Bob is that the Scrum's ringleader, Mhari Murphy, is an ex-girlfriend. More peculiar yet, why is everybody in the Laundry convinced that vampires don't exist? Bob's superiors take prompt action—and form a committee. Laundry regulars by now will be familiar with Stross' trademark sardonic, provocative, disturbing, allusion-filled narrative. And, here, with a structure strongly reminiscent of Len Deighton's early spy novels, the tone grows markedly grimmer, with several significant casualties and tragedies, perhaps in preparation for Angleton's [Bob's superior] feared CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN.

Stross at the top of his game—which is to say, few do it better. Pounce!

Courtesy of the author Charles Stross and Ace Books, the entire first chapter of The Rhesus Chart has been posted online for your reading pleasure. If you are unfamiliar with the Laundry Files tales, The Rhesus Chart is actually a good place to start.

The Rhesus Chart Revealed

In my blog post on October 15, at which time I was working on Charles Stross's forthcoming Laundry Files novel The Rhesus Chart, I stated that I had seen the preliminary cover art but was not permitted to post it at the time.

Well, the final cover art has been released -- so, behold, The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross, to be published by Ace Books in July 2014:

You'll note that at the bottom of the front cover, below the book title, the text reads: "Bob Howard, the vampire slayer?" So I won't be spoiling anything if I present here the novel's opening sentence (which the author himself has posted online as well):

"Don't be silly, Bob," said Mo, "everybody knows vampires don't exist."

 

But in Bob Howard's world of Applied Computational Demonology, can we be so sure?...

Editing in Process...Charles Stross

I promised myself -- and readers of this blog -- that I would post updates of my current editing work in process, so....

I'm currently line editing and copy editing the fifth Charles Stross Laundry Files novel (and my fifth volume as well), The Rhesus Chart, to be published next year by Ace Books.

I have seen the preliminary cover art, but since it's not the final cover art, and I'm not permitted to post it here, you'll have to make do with the SOE Department Q coat of arms -- the World War II precursor to the Laundry.

If you're not familiar with Stross's Laundry Files stories, I have written previously on this blog about the events surrounding the acquisition and publication of the first two Laundry Files books, originally published in hardcover by Golden Gryphon Press, and currently available in trade paperback from Ace Books: The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. That blog post, entitled "Charles Stross: On Her Majesty's Occult Service," was posted on December 10, 2009, and can be found here. I also wrote extensively about my work on the previous Laundry Files novel, The Apocalypse Codex, as Ace had imposed a new requirement on me: providing a style sheet (which I must provide this time around as well). Posted on January 27, 2012, "Doing Charles Stross's Laundry with Style" can be found here.

And you can read Stross's latest Laundry Files story, "Equoid," available for your reading pleasure courtesy of Tor.com.

Now, where did I put my warrant card....

Follow-up blog post:

The Rhesus Chart Revealed