The Atrocity Archive

[sawyl]

Ok, so, since I've already established that I haven't really done any serious studying for the last couple of weeks, it might be time to reveal what I have been doing, besides flying round the world and partying myself to death. Well, I've been reading the deeply funny, wonderfully scary Atrocity Archives by Charlie Stross.

The Atrocity Archive has two basic premises: that Lovecraft was right about the nameless horrors waiting in the dark; and that the universe is run on maths, making it possible to use computing, via the Turing-Lovecraft Theorem, to harness eldrich energies and commit dark deeds. These two factors virtually demand that an under resourced, over managed, hyper secret division of the MoD be set up to deal with the problem, hence the Laundry.

Bob Howard is a minor level functionary in the Laundry, working on in IT, doing pointless make-work admin tasks, while fighting low level depression and despondency — he spends five minutes each morning staring at the wall trying to psyche himself up to read his mail, only to discover that the messages are all about misuse of government toothpaste — and dreaming of a way out. Bob Howard, gentle reader, has my job.

In typical civil service fashion Bob is packed off on a Computational Demonology 101 course, a course he could have been teaching, where something goes wrong. Following his rapid and heroic response, he finds himself bumped to the active list. There then follow a series of adventures which take him by way of Santa Cruz and Amsterdam, into a relationship with an interesting Doctor of Philosophy and outer darkness.

My copy of the book also contains the short story, The Concrete Jungle, which draws on things already set up in Atrocity whilst at the same time making some clever points about the prevalence of surveillance cameras in the UK. Yes, this has got it all: Ancient legends, helicopters, spies, cameos from some of the gods of 20th century science, politics, you name it...

Maybe it's because I can identify with Bob Howard to a truly scary degree — on at latest two occasions, I had to check the name tag on my pants to confirm my name, so confused had I become — or maybe it's because I loved the blend of Lovecraftian horror with hard core spy geekery, or maybe it's just because it's a damn fine book, but I really enjoyed The Atrocity Archive. I thought the way the humourous tone early on in the book blended with the much darker, more disturbing historical references later on was very good and, by the time it reached the denouement, I don't mind admitting I was genuinely creeped out.

I suspect that anyone who likes Lovecraft, Neal Stephenson and/or Hellboy will love this. Being a hardcore geek is probably helpful too and if you're a low level government functionary, toiling away in obscurity, unappreciated, oppressed by the bureaucratic juggernaut, then, well, you know what you've got, and you don't need me to tell you how much that's worth...

Comments

[drspleen.livejournal.com]

You have nametags on your pants? Is the met-office rife with pant theft?

[sawyl.livejournal.com]

It's useful. It provides a concrete way to verify my identity...