2022/21: Dead Lies Dreaming -- Charles Stross

[tamaranth]

2022/21: Dead Lies Dreaming -- Charles Stross

“Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." [p. 97]

Volume One of Stross's Laundry-adjacent 'New Management' series: I am that rare reader with no experience of the Laundryverse, and can report that Dead Lies Dreaming works perfectly well as a standalone.

The background: it's December 2015, and Santa Claus is being crucified by elven warriors outside Hamley's; the UK's new Prime Minister is a Lovecraftian Elder God, who has reinstated the 18th-century Bloody Code (in which the majority of crimes are punishable by death); magic has become a force in the world again, and various individuals have developed abilities which they code as superpowers. Our protagonists: in the mostly-evil corner, Rupert de Montfort Bigge, cultist plutocrat with more ambition than intelligence, and his PA Eve Starkey, to whom he entrusts the task of acquiring a very dangerous book; in the mostly-good corner, a found family of queer millennials with unregistered superpowers, committing a series of crimes that'll fund their leader Imp's film about Peter Pan; in the middle ground, thief-taker Wendy Deere, on the trail of Imp's gang but distracted by her attraction to their getaway driver, Del. (Del, incidentally, is short for 'the Deliverator -- ironic nod to a fictional hero, the protagonist of a cyberpunk epic about ninjutsu, linguistics, and extreme pizza delivery': a nice nod to Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and a reminder that this is not not our world.) Imp and his crew are squatting in what used to be the family mansion, where there is a hidden portal to a dream version of Victorian London (guess the year!) wherein the Bad Book can be found. It remains only to note that Imp is Eve's brother, and the plot tightens neatly and twistily into shape.

This was often very funny, and sometimes very uncomfortable. There are recognisable aspects to this London -- gentrification, austerity, workplace sexism, transphobia and homophobia, the hell that is the M25 -- and a cleverly constructed heist playing out on several levels. It's also ... not mundane, not by a long shot, but unexpectedly devoid of eldritch horrors. They're in the background, but most of the evils herein are human.

I liked the ways in which Stross riffs off and borrows from Peter Pan (Wendy's surname is misremembered, several times, as 'Darling') and I appreciated Eve's professional excellence: the wording of contracts is always worth attention. Interesting and diverse characters, though appearances are seldom described; nicely layered London ambience; tragic backstories only slowly revealed; tantalising hints of the larger world. (The Chelsea Flower Show? okaaaay, that actually does make sense.)

Now, of course, I'm tempted to dive into the Laundry-verse ...

Comments

[autopope]

Waves

The sequel to Dead Lies Dreaming is Quantum of Nightmares; it came out last month. Book 3, Season of Skulls, comes out next May.

There are multiple entrypoints into the main Laundry Files series: book 1, The Atrocity Archives, obviously, but also book 5, The Rhesus Chart, and book 7, The Nightmare Stacks. (Book 7 is where it becomes glaringly obvious how this universe is diverging increasingly rapidly from our own.)

Final note, in case you start at the beginning: (a) that first book was written circa 1999-2002, and (b) Bob is an unreliable narrator.

Hope you enjoy whatever you read next!

[tamaranth]

*waves back*
My Kindle is very keen for me to read Quantum of Nightmares: it keeps suggesting I buy it!
I could tell that the universe had diverged from our own: the government was efficient and effective. And somewhat more wholesome.

[autopope]

Yeah, I just can't keep up with the cruelty of the current government. It's insane.

(Drop me an email -- charlie.stross@gmail.com -- or a Dreamwidth message?)

[ivorygoddess]

Having recently started - and almost finished - the Laundry files on umpteen people's recommendation, give them a go! Like Lovecraft re-wrote the Civil Service handbook.