On the HahaFiction shelf
The Atrocity Archives
by Charles Stross
The Laundry Files · Book 1 · 2004
Bob Howard fixes computers for the Laundry, a branch of British intelligence that deals with the occult. Then he gets a field assignment of his own. He’ll have to put his technical skills to work against threats that can cross over from another universe.
From the publisher’s blurb
“Only one thing is certain: it will take more than a full system reboot to sort this mess out”Read the full description at Ace
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What makes it funny?
Bob has a Palm that can make him invisible. It’s a Hand of Glory, an actual severed hand. Getting it to work involves setting it alight.
The comedy at work
Bob still has to do his time sheets after he gets into fieldwork. The Laundry treats office procedure as seriously as the occult. In the follow-up novella, calling for backup in an emergency gets Bob reprimanded for skipping clearance and the paperwork.
Try this if…
There’s room here for readers of old British spy thrillers who would happily follow an operation into Lovecraft territory. This is a world where changing a variable in an equation can summon a monster, which makes a computer technician a sensible person to send into the field.
Good to know
The Ace paperback pairs the opening novel, The Atrocity Archive, with the follow-up novella The Concrete Jungle. The plural on the cover is the title of the whole volume.
A few distinguishing details
- A secret occult agency with time sheets
- A severed hand among the field equipment
More funny cosmic horror
Sources & further reading
- Evanston Public Library first-edition record
Library catalog
- Orbit book page
Publisher
- Penguin Random House book page
Publisher
- The Little Red Reviewer
Review
- Publishers Weekly review
Review
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