The Atrocity Archives

Book 1 in The Laundry Files

By: Charles Stross

Narrated by: Jack Hawkins

Never volunteer for active duty...

Bob Howard is a low-level techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob's under a desk restoring lost data. His world was dull and safe; but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob is up to his neck in spycraft, alternative universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than ‘control+alt+delete’ to sort this mess out...

This is the first novel in The Laundry Files. This audiobook includes the short story The Concrete Jungle.

©2004 Charles Stross. Introduction copyright 2004 by Ken Mcleod (P)2013 Hachette Children's Books

Critic reviews

"Tremendously good, geeky fun" ( Telegraph)

'A WEIRDLY ALLURING BLEND OF SUPERSPY THRILLER, DEADPAN COMIC FANTASY AND LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR.' ( Kirkus Reviews)

Mixed bag

The worldbuilding is phenomenal but I say this as someone familiar with words like Hamiltonian, NP completeness, and lattice, and even I had to jog my memory on the Church Turing hypothesis. Which isn't a bad reason to pause the book for, but could've been integrated in the writing as an explanation to someone. however my point is that the way the author uses the math to give a hard sci-fi basis to Lovecraftian abominations does indeed make the target audience feel mind boggled, and I loved it. However the plot is kind of meh, and the author has no skill or understanding in signposting the plot or giving enough information at critical moments, which can make one feel lost and having to rewind once or thrice to the description of the little round yellow things with the bumpy surface, whatever they were?! Because of the lack of plot signposting, the book also feels disjointed and episodic. Characters are intensely meh to outright annoying. I actually actively wished for the main character to not have a chance at a relationship with a woman because he wasn't good enough for her, and I was in *his* POV at the time. So bad POV work as well. I am a plot/mystery reader and this was interesting enough to keep me going. The series massively improves after the second book and I very likely finish it.

Buyer beware - this is "Hard Science Fiction"

I bought this book as the premise sounded interesting, and at first I was drawn in by the scientific deconstruction of how "magic" might be understood to work. But, and its a big but, this focus and the heavy use of associated jargon, soon detracted from the story and at times came across more like a text book than a work of fiction. Towards the end of the book, and after the main story, I realised I had literally lost the plot because of this. While this sometimes happens for me with audio books (and I usually enjoy re-listening to get the bigger picture and story arcs), I couldn't muster the enthusiasm here. I stopped listening and decided this wouldn't be a book I'd be revisiting.
Audible are usually pretty good at accepting returns and they did so for me this time.