The Delirium Brief

By: Charles Stross

Narrated by: Gideon Emery

Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

The eighth case in Charles Stross' Laundry Files, the Hugo Award-winning series described by Kirkus Reviews as "a weirdly alluring blend of super-spy thriller, deadpan comic fantasy, and Lovecraftian horror".

Bob Howard's career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond spacetime, has entailed high combat, brilliant hacking, ancient magic, and combat with indescribably repellent creatures of pure evil. It has also involved a wearying amount of paperwork and office politics, and his expense reports are still a mess.

Now, 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.

There's a lot of potential shareholder value in the Laundry's "knowledge assets". Inch by inch, Bob Howard and his managers are forced to consider the truly unthinkable: a coup against the British government itself.

©2017 Charles Stross (P)2017 Recorded Books

Best yet

I like the laundry, but I loved this book. Couldn't put it down. Lots of action and suspense.
It makes me want to re-listen to the whole series.

Solid, enjoyable, a little cluttered

Another good entry in the Laundry files series, and it's nice to see Bob again. It feels a little cluttered, and a lot of the book seems to be Bob reacting instead of acting or just doing what he is told. Even still, I enjoyed it, and the reader is on point as usual.

laundry?

read the older laundry books. other than sex and language this was kinda like twilight.

more political maneuvering than preferred

In general, this entry was more political than the previous entries in the series which was a bit of a turn-off for me as I simply don't enjoy that kind of fiction. as usual, Gideon Emery was a joy to listen to. without spoilers a few of the returning characters had significant changes that felt a bit forced and weren't hinted at in previous installments.

Classic Laundry story

You will laugh. You will cry. You will be on the edge of your chair.

A rollercoaster ride from beginning to end!

Every book in the laundry files outdoes the books that came before. This one takes a quantum leap forward, leaving me aching for more.

Excellent story

This is a return to form for the series. This is a standard spy story wrapped in the horror tropes. Good story and good reading.

Fantastic, frustrating, squamous, and rugose

First, the tl;dr and spoilerless version: Any fan of this series will find this book to be as well-written and consistently-toned as the rest of the books in it. The performance by Gideon Emery is, as usual, great and easy to listen to. Overall, except for the book ending in an appropriate yet frustrating place, leaving the reader champing at the bit for the next, it's definitely worth your time.

The longer, slightly more spoilery version: This latest outing for our humble narrator Bob Howard is fantastic, but somewhat bittersweet. The tone of the storyline and the characters themselves have definitely matured naturally over time. Still, in this book, you can sense things drawing to an asymptote, an ending or new beginning, as there is a cavalcade of older characters and conflicts trotted out to neatly tie their stories into the main overlying thread of "humans at ground zero for fights between beasties beyond our comprehension." I won't sit here and give you a recount of the storyline -- I'm certain others will do that, and who wants the story ruined for them like that before they read it anyway? -- but suffice to say that there are a lot of twisty surprises, old faces, and new powers to keep you hanging on the next words.

Overall, this book sets a bit more brutal of a plot than most before it, but it's appropriate as the stakes get higher and higher. Shippers of Bob and Mo will definitely feel a bit better if the events of The Annihilation Score left them feeling blue (as they did me). The book still gets out its geeky humour, but probably more appropriately as Bob (and presumably the author) drift away from being current with tech, the jargon has lessened over the years, the merciless nerd-splanation that some people have found off-putting has receded. Cheers to the author for coming neatly to rest in this respect, not bothering to re-explain every last detail at every turn, knowing that people reading this book are not likely to have picked up the tale this deep into the series.

I very much enjoyed this book, even though with an hour left I could tell I was going to be angry that the book was ending so soon, with so much left to happen. People who have enjoyed this series would be well-advised to snap this up and listen.

The only thing left to say is something I keep saying to myself over and over: Poor Bob.

Return to what makes the Laundry great.

Really great! Much more of what made me love the Laundry, bureaucracy and spies with a backdrop of Lovecraft.

A Jolly Romp

This series comes alive with Gideon’s skillful interpretation of so many characters. He is a genius at making a great story understandable. And let me tell you, you need to understand before the brain eaters eat your brains 🧠

🤩👌🏼👍🏼