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Stephen Weinberg
5.0 out of 5 stars Bob is back, and so is Stross's usual wit (albeit much darker)
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2017
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I am hard-pressed to imagine any fan of the series who isn't anxiously awaiting the fallout of the last book! That fallout is here, and it threatens to be far worse than I had imagined.

The Laundry has finally come to the attention of the British political establishment. They start the book amidst great uncertainty, with The Powers That Be horrified to discover a completely overlooked security agency engaged in international special ops with no oversight, and so careless that they can't stop a surprise alfar invasion without five plane crashes. The politicians become much more concerned with managing optics than with managing OPERA CAPE. So far so good. We see Bob, of all people, drafted into emergency damage control. We see Mahogany Row scrambling to implement their burn-before-reading emergency legal contingency plan. But on page thirty-nine we see the ominous return of a figure I was not expecting, who promises to make the political struggle for control of the Laundry a desperate affair indeed.

In the face of an existential threat not just to the Laundry but to all of Britain, how far are they prepared to go? In many ways, this book reminds me of Jim Butcher's Changes, in which the protagonist is placed in a desperate situation that requires more and more compromises that would have once been unthinkable.

We knew that the Laundry was determined to not go gentle into that good Case Nightmare Green, but here we see how ungentle things are becoming.

This isn't just a fun (if horrifying) story; it is also fun to read. Stross retains his full brilliance not just at plot, but also at the sentence and paragraph mechanics of writing, choosing terms and witticisms that fit the tone perfectly. I rarely need kindle's "look up the meaning of this word" feature, but I did here, and it was always a spot-on choice. I knew my brother will be reading my copy right behind me, so I suppressed the urge to read him the occasional extra-gripping paragraph. I couldn't stop myself from leaving the occasional note, usually "Eep!"

He also does a wonderful job of cutting away at key moments to show the broader consequences of what's going on, or to present an apparent non sequitur that turns out to be crucial to the plot.

When does the next one come out?
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Dormouse23
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Yet
Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2017
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I discovered the Laundry Files series less than a year ago and have become more enamored of it with each successive book. Mr. Stross has always been clear that the series won't have a happy ending, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to read. "Delirium Brief" mixes criticism of the British political system with a twisty, tense plot, sardonic humor and wonderful characters.

In "Delirium Brief" the Laundry finds itself in dire straits. CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is worsening. The agency has lost many of its longtime agents to death or arrest (see "The Nightmare Stacks" for why), and a villain from a prior book has resurfaced and is suborning the British government in a very bad way. An intrepid group of agents remains and has gone dark to try to carry on the fight. What to do?

The book is tightly written and the plot twists are nonstop. Some of the prior books in the series have been criticized for slower, more introspective parts disrupting the action, but that is not the case here. It's very difficult to put this book down. Another strong point: Bob Howard is back as the narrator. Most of the book is written from his point of view, and we get to see just what he is capable of now that he's free of Angleton's restraint. (It's never been explicitly stated that Angleton had Bob under a geas after the events of "The Fuller Memorandum," but I rather think that had to be the case.) We also get to see more of the Senior Auditor, Dr. Armstrong, aka King of the Badass Bureaucrats.

My one criticism: two characters who reappear in the series do so with significant changes which (in my opinion) are inadequately explained. The best way to put it is that we learn through dialogue what has happened, but it's very incomplete. My hope is that this will be covered further in the next book. The hard part is waiting for the next book! Well done, Mr. Stross. This one is a winner.
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P J
5.0 out of 5 stars The Howard Continuity
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 17, 2017
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I hugely enjoyed the "The Nightmare Stacks" but by the end of it I did think that with all the devastation caused and the Elves from Hell riding in ,that there were going to be some pretty major ramifications and changes in store for the next in the series.
But really Mr Stross-Wow. Game changer and a half.
I'll admit to being a little sad as I read through the first third of it, very dark and unpredictable times indeed,and what occurs feels like a proper loss to the series. After a slowish reintroduction of many older characters and threads from virtually all the previous novels you do worry and wonder where its all actually heading , but as Bob says "When the day suddenly turned all to sh...." it really picked up rapidly to make for a very riveting and unexpectedly diverting story, so much so I never would have ever anticipated it would end up going where it did (unlike the Senior Auditor).And against an old enemy that by the very prick ,prick, pricking of my thumbs, something evil (and nasty) this way comes!!
I'd also like to give absolutely full marks to Charles for probably putting off a fair percentage of his female readership (and the blokes!!!! ) from having sex for at least a month ,with a few brief but horribly well described scenes. I really could have done without THAT before I tried to get to sleep (just joking ,I did laugh, in a fairly uncomfortable fashion).
For the rest of it I'd say Mr Stross has done an excellent piece of work by making it very relevant to the times , by showing just how a media ruled government often reacts to a crisis by making dreadfull knee jerk reactions and taking decisions based almost solely on self serving interests and poorly informed public outrage .But by combining this with many of the older storylines he continues to upgrade and refresh the series , making this one a more modern kind of spy thriller, with a strong "Mission Impossible" theme to it.
Really really enjoyed it and now I can kind of see where its all going ,though it does leave a few strong possiblities open (I did note the "equipment failure" with some trepidation) and I do suspect it will all end( with some tears) in the not to distant future.
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Susan Stepney
4.0 out of 5 stars Stross is clearly very angry
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 1, 2020
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The Laundry is reeling from the recent elven invasion of Leeds, and its existence is now publicly known. Bob Howard has become the public face of the organisation: apparently junior enough he can plausibly deny knowledge, and demonstrably innocent of any involvement in the recent disaster. Unfortunately, the Laundry is also now visible to the government, and that poses a much worse threat. And worse still, an old enemy seemingly put down in "The Apocalypse Codex" has reappeared, in the UK, threatening everything. And then the government shuts down the Laundry…

The series gets darker and darker, with here a plausible threat of demonic possession of the entire UK, with nothing to stand in its way. Stross is clearly very angry with a certain breed of politician – his descriptions of the process of privatisation and other governmental shenanigans are frighteningly recognisable (particularly when being read around the time of the BoJo/Brexit General Election) – but he also manages to inject much of the trademark (semi-)humorous bureaucratic nightmare of the rest of the series.
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JA Fairhurst
4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Near Perfect
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 28, 2018
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Although earlier books in the Laundry series that I've read have had Our Hero playing the spy in a variety of forms, he's now so senior that none of the fictional models work and Stross gives Bob Howard his chance to do it his way. Despite the great power Bob wields, he's not comfortable with some of the consequences of that power, especially when his inner Beast breaks free... And with a rocky government under attack by transdimensional Higher Beings, its probably not the best time to be having the sorts of marital problems that mean your spouse has to draw wards of power on the bedroom door to ensure she's not consumed in the middle of the night (at least she's lost her murderous violin who'd attempted to chow down on Bob!).

Most of the Laundry books up to this point have had a moderately humorous air fairy near the surface but given the serious nature of the attacks in this book, it's much darker, though the humour is still there, if more gallows humour than usual.
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James Kemp
5.0 out of 5 stars Bob is back and The Laundry Files just levelled up a couple of notches!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2017
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Bob is back, and the whole Laundry series just levelled up a couple of notches. I'm a major fan of Charlie Stross and have read his entire output. The Laundry is right up my street (being a civil servant with more than a passing interest in IT). This novel even more so, because it gets into other areas that I've got a professional interest in too.

In terms of broad storyline, the Delirium Brief brings back some old characters and uncovers secrets that were compartmented away from Bob in the earlier stories. It also shows more of the inner workings and rationale for the Laundry that Bob wouldn't have either known about or cared much about if he had known.

The Delirium Brief of the title is a file passed to the Laundry by the US Postal inspectorate. They've got an occult watching brief and have been taken out by internal rivals just as the story starts. The file is shared because the Laundry might be about to share the same fate.

In parallel Mo and Bob are trying to work on their marriage. We see more of how they are becoming powerful in their own ways, and how they try to deal with it and support each other. It's an interesting meta story laying across several of the recent novels.

There's an end of days feel to the entire book. Even the ending isn't quite a we saved the world again. It's more of a case of survival and wondering if that can work again.
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G. Coale
5.0 out of 5 stars Bob is back and facing his greatest enemy yet - Public Relations.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 16, 2017
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Another visit to the Laundry files and a return to featuring Bob Howard the original narrator, but essentially joined by an ensemble cast of virtually every major character that has been seen in the series so far.

It's another great entry to the Laundry canon that starts well with the Laundry going public after the events of the last book (The Nightmare Stacks) which left parts of the UK a smoking ruin, SOMETHING must be done and that something is to privatise the Laundry.

The comedy is sharper as Stross satirises the UK government and riffs off of the idiocy of politicians who are characatures of the current crop of U.K. Politicians. This provides some much needed humour as thinks get very dark in deed, and is traditional in all good spy thriller we begin to wonder just who are the good guys.

Fans of the Laundry will be glad to know this continues the high standards of the last book and some Lon standing questions are answered and some new ones posed. A minor quibble would be that maybe there are one too many threads left open but we shall see what the next novel brings.

As mentioned previously not a good entry point to the series but a high quality entry within it.
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