The Atrocity Archives

A Laundry Files Novel

By: Charles Stross

Narrated by: Gideon Emery

Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Bob Howard is a computer-hacker desk jockey, who has more than enough trouble keeping up with the endless paperwork he has to do on a daily basis. He should never be called on to do anything remotely heroic. But for some reason, he is.

©2004 Charles Stross (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"In Atrocity, Bob, a low-level computer fix-it guy for the Laundry, a supersecret British agency that defends the world from occult happenings, finds himself promoted to fieldwork after he bravely saves the day during a routine demonstration gone awry. With his Palm, aka his Hand of Glory (a severed hand that, when ignited, renders the holder invisible), and his smarts, he saves the world from a powerful external force seeking to enter our universe to suck it dry....With often hilarious results, the author mixes the occult and the mundane, the truly weird and the petty." ( Publishers Weekly)

I want to love this book

I want to love this book because the story is exactly what I’ve been searching for. And it is well written and fun at times. I absolutely adore the idea behind it, but I just couldn’t get into the storytelling. I didn’t connect with the characters, I felt like it was kind of cheesy at times, and even though the scientific language was quite sophisticated, it came off as just silly to me. A friend of mine tells me I have to keep reading, and that they get better, but I’m not sure I have the fortitude.

Dual geekdom needed

This book, and indeed this series, deeply explores the depths of two different neighborhoods of geekdom. You're going to need passing familiarity with one of them and fluency in the other to really enjoy the series. (It doesn't matter which one you're fluent in.) The first neighborhood is technology, especially programming. The second neighborhood is bureaucracy, especially business bureaucracy. If you work in an organization or industry has been bushwhacked by six Sigma or lean whatever-your-process-happens-to-be and other trendy efficiency systems that really should only apply manufacturing, you're going to think this is pretty funny. if you can also tell the difference between the different tech specs on a basic computer spec sheet without the row headers, and can distinguish between what the parts are (e.g. that's a graphic card that's the hard drive etc) based on the description, then you know enough to find this completely hilarious. Bonus laughs will be granted at various points for: Edward Tufte geeks, literature analysis geeks & Anglophiles.

Gideon Emery's performance is so perfect that you hardly notice that it's there because you're so immersed in the story. In fact, I enjoyed the first three books in this series so much that after I finished listening to the three of them back-to-back the first time, I immediately started the series over again. I knew I had missed some of the brilliant details on the first go around and it held up really well to relistening.

Great Listen for IT People

Gideon Emery narration is absolutely perfect in this entire series. Right from the first chapter of this book, Bob Howard is brought to life by Emery's subtle inflections and understanding of this character.
The story itself is about as clever as anything I've listened to so far. Having spent over 20 years in the IT industry, I found myself chuckling at the anecdotes that were spot-on in the IT world. Aside from this pleasant diversion, the actual story and characters are outstanding. However, if you're not overly familiar with the IT universe, several of the "inside jokes" might be lost on you. My wife found a lot of the technical references in the book to be annoying, but still enjoyed the book.

I don't know!

I think I liked this book? I was confused a lot of the time; there were a lot of parts that I found funny, but plenty of techy stuff that made little to no sense to me. I think if I had a better understanding of some of that tech stuff, I would have enjoyed this book way more. I would probably have to give it a second listen to catch what I missed the first time around.

Wildly creative and great, great fun.

Have you listened to any of Gideon Emery’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Gideon Emery was one of the best narrators I've listened to. This audio book had a range of characters and he made each one distinct and memorable. I was very impressed, thoroughly enjoyed listening to him, and will seek out other books he's narrated.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

James Bond meets Cthulhu in a laugh-a-minute apocalypse of fun!

Any additional comments?

Wonderful! Suppose your department's IT nerd were actually a secret agent with a doctorate in computational demonology. Such a mashup of Urban Fantasy, Sci-Fi, spy fiction, Lovecraft, and geekdom might seem too much, but it works, in no small part due to the author's creative and fascinating world-building combined with a wry and often hilarious sense of humor. If you might enjoy Harry Dresden as a spy, then I think you'll enjoy this book. Besides, I'm very sympathetic with the notion that "a pact with the Devil is all well and good, but I still need a phone number for solid IT support."

LeCarre meets Lovecraft on 'The Office'

Do you like spies and clandestine meetings in the night, false flags, and dead drops? Do you like Lovecraftian horror? Gibbering, soul-eating entities whose existence dances at edge of our perception? How about 'The Office', compete with wacky hi jinx, inter office politics, and paper clip audits? Do you mind bending, genre-shattering fantasy, complete with spy craft, romance, Nazis, IT help-desk tales, and battling the undead? Charles Stross' The Atrocity Archives is all this and more, a whip-lash adventure which crosses time, space, and matrix-management Iso 9000 audits!

lots of fun

a great time! good fun for fans of the mythos! we'll narrated, and well paced. like a more light hearted, tongue in cheek british x-files.

Fun, but clearly thoughtful fun.

The author mixes the real with the fantastic so delightfully in a fast moving take where the familiar becomes the surreal, that you'll never look at mathematics, your computers or the internet the same way again. The self deprecating main character and the through the looking glass perspective effectively mix Dilbert with The Matrix and HP Lovecraft.

Predicted SCP

This book is simply phenomenal. The fact that it came out in 2004 and so closely mirrors modern day SCP is unfathomable. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the dry, British humor and I especially enjoyed the esoteric technobabble/science (which actually makes a degree of sense, which is also crazy). Emery’s narration also added immensely to the experience; his voice is the perfect balance between flexible enough to convey emotion and dry/sardonic enough to perfectly carry out the aforementioned sarcasm/British humor.

Confusing, Disappointing, and Misleading

What did you like best about The Atrocity Archives? What did you like least?

The long, incredibly technical explanations for the phenomena and science utilized in the book. The author sometimes goes on for what seems like two to three paragraphs about things that make no sense and little or no effort is made to explain or include the reader in to the physics of this universe. Late in a series I could forgive this, but as the opener, it's a poor choice. Also, the book is written in present tense, which I find an unusual narrative choice. I got used to it, but it was a little jarring at first.

Would you recommend The Atrocity Archives to your friends? Why or why not?

Probably not, for reasons mentioned above. The "magic" in this book is incredibly hard to make sense of and the author either designed it that way or assumed readers would already know what he was talking about.

Have you listened to any of Gideon Emery’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I did enjoy the narrator. Especially when handling the love interest's Scottish accents.

Any additional comments?

I normally don't use a credit on a book less than 10 hours and I thought I was in the clear on this one. However, the book wrapped up at just over 8 hours and what follows is a nearly 2 hour preview of the next book. I felt a little bit cheated.