A review by thedauthi
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
3.0
This is actually the weakest Laundry Files book so far, in my opinion. Mo as the main character was good in theory, but didn't work in this book. In fact, here's some really damning praise: the best parts of this book are the parts of the previous book from Mo's perspective.
The superheros as symptom of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN feels like it's opening a big can of worms for the universe. The management-fixes-everything fits the bureaucromancy-based world of the Laundry well, but the actual feel of the story fits Robert Aspirin much more than Stross.
Mild Spoilers Follow:
One big part of that is that, well, Mo doesn't seem to LIKE Bob in her head-space most of the time, to the point that it makes her... unlikable. There are a couple of scenes where the narrative shows otherwise, but generally, she's either disparaging towards him or disregarding his feelings altogether. I -think- this was trying to show her as an individual inching towards a nervous breakdown, and her feelings towards Bob are more a symptom that she's inching in that direction, but it just doesn't work here. Maybe if this wasn't the first book with Mo being the primary protagonist, it would have, but we have no baseline to go from.
I think that's a big part of the problem. I got this, found out that Mo was the driving force, and thought, "Cool. I'll see some Agent Candid!". Before this book, I would have told you I thought Candid was possibly more interesting than Bob. Now? I take it back.
The story itself is mediocre. I just expect better of Stross. Generally, a fantastic juxtaposition of the normal and the strange is what the Laundry Files presents. While I'm not normally of the clan of "It's different and therefore wrong", this presenting of the weird-as-the-new-normal didn't work. Maybe just because it just felt so abrupt? There was only the smallest backdrop of society changing (an odd omission from Stross). I think the idea was that everything happened relatively suddenly, but it still felt like there should have been much more violent cultural shifts.
Instead, I spent 80% of the book reading about her org chart, often in such detail that even I - normally someone into this kind of thing - started getting bored.
I will say that the other 20% - and the last 10% in particular - of the book made up for a lot. We see Candid in action, a bit of world-building, and the fleshing out of characters that are interesting tools for Stross to use later.
All in all? It's a below-average Laundry Files book, which still puts it as a good book, but don't expect it to be the best thing you read this year.
The superheros as symptom of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN feels like it's opening a big can of worms for the universe. The management-fixes-everything fits the bureaucromancy-based world of the Laundry well, but the actual feel of the story fits Robert Aspirin much more than Stross.
Mild Spoilers Follow:
Spoiler
One big part of that is that, well, Mo doesn't seem to LIKE Bob in her head-space most of the time, to the point that it makes her... unlikable. There are a couple of scenes where the narrative shows otherwise, but generally, she's either disparaging towards him or disregarding his feelings altogether. I -think- this was trying to show her as an individual inching towards a nervous breakdown, and her feelings towards Bob are more a symptom that she's inching in that direction, but it just doesn't work here. Maybe if this wasn't the first book with Mo being the primary protagonist, it would have, but we have no baseline to go from.
I think that's a big part of the problem. I got this, found out that Mo was the driving force, and thought, "Cool. I'll see some Agent Candid!". Before this book, I would have told you I thought Candid was possibly more interesting than Bob. Now? I take it back.
The story itself is mediocre. I just expect better of Stross. Generally, a fantastic juxtaposition of the normal and the strange is what the Laundry Files presents. While I'm not normally of the clan of "It's different and therefore wrong", this presenting of the weird-as-the-new-normal didn't work. Maybe just because it just felt so abrupt? There was only the smallest backdrop of society changing (an odd omission from Stross). I think the idea was that everything happened relatively suddenly, but it still felt like there should have been much more violent cultural shifts.
Instead, I spent 80% of the book reading about her org chart, often in such detail that even I - normally someone into this kind of thing - started getting bored.
I will say that the other 20% - and the last 10% in particular - of the book made up for a lot. We see Candid in action, a bit of world-building, and the fleshing out of characters that are interesting tools for Stross to use later.
All in all? It's a below-average Laundry Files book, which still puts it as a good book, but don't expect it to be the best thing you read this year.