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 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....)

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

Reviewing the Apocalypse

I've thoroughly enjoyed reading Stross' 'Laundry' series for years now and seeing how Britain's brave secret agents fight creatures from extra-dimensional space whilst dealing with the latest round of meetings and Civil Service budget cuts. Having worked in government I find this really funny because it's true (the bureaucracy I mean, not the extra-dimensional creatures...)

—Graeme Flory, Graeme's Fantasy Book Review

Earlier this year, on January 27, I posted a blog update entitled "Doing Charles Stross's Laundry with Style," in which I wrote about working on the author's newest Laundry Files novel, The Apocalypse Codex, for Ace Books. And, specifically, that the publisher required that I provide a Style Sheet along with the edited manuscript.

The Apocalypse Codex will be published this month and the reviews are starting to appear. All very positive, so far....

I opened this blog post above with a quote from Graeme Flory's review on his Fantasy Book Review blog. Here is another snippet from his review:

...Stross appears to be of the mind that he is done explaining all the technical stuff that underpins this setting....We've had a few books for it all to sink in and now it's time for the plot itself to have some room to breathe. It's a great move on Stross' part; his plots are normally brimming over with cool stuff anyway but the extra room allows things to ramp up to another level.

And Graeme concludes his review with:

...there are still some nasty surprises in store to trap unwary characters and make The Apocalypse Codex a book that you simply have to finish. My only regret is that I finished the book too quickly and now I have to wait for ages until the next installment.

I suspect every author would like to read a review of their work end like that!

The second review is from Elias F. Combarro (@odo), whose name you may recognize on this blog. In a blog post on May 9, I linked to Odo's review of my Alien Contact anthology on his Spanish-language blog Sense of Wonder. If Spanish isn't your thing, Odo also now posts all his reviews in English as well. As a follow-up to his review, Odo also interviewed me about a week later. I've included a link to the interview in that previous blog post as well.

But back to The Apocalypse Codex -- Odo writes in his review on Sense of Wonder:

I found The Apocalypse Codex a bit closer to urban fantasy than the previous books in the series, and some parts even reminded me of The Magician King by Lev Grossman and Kraken by China Miéville. The plot is tighter, more interesting and easier to follow than some of the other novels of The Laundry Files.

And the last paragraph of his review ends with a dire warning:

All in all, The Apocalypse Codex is possibly the best novel of The Laundry Files (and my favorite book of 2012 so far, together with Existence by David Brin) and that is a lot to say. Buy it. Read it. You don't know when CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN will happen and you'd better be prepared.

Orbit Books, the U.K. publisher of TAC, has kindly made the book's Prologue available online for your reading pleasure. So, if you're not already familiar with The Laundry and Bob Howard, here's your chance for a sneak peak at the new novel.