Mo Speaks (This Machine Kills Demons!)

The Annihilation Score - Charles Stross

It used to be that your local library (for you millennials, that's a building filled with books patrons can borrow for a couple of weeks) had a shelf or two of “science fiction.” In olden days, the books were about adventures in space and on alien planets. Some bright (not!) librarian decided to combine science fiction with fantasy: soon the shelves were overrun with sword-and-sorcery tales, many of them strangely similar to Tolkein adventures – you know, fellowships, talismans, epic struggles of good and evil; that rot. Now, even worse, the shelves are chock full of vampire and werewolf tales, far too many of them in the sub-sub-subgenre of VampRom.

But there is hope, albeit with a Lovecraftian bent (you kids who don’t know who H. P. Lovecraft was, head for Wikipedia…): Charlie Stross and the Laundry Files. File number six, The Annihilation Score, is now available.

When last we saw Dominique “Mo” O’Brien and Bob Howard, they had decided on a trial separation. It’s not that the two aren’t in love, it’s that their jobs – in the strange world of The Laundry – make them want to kill each other. Luckily (?) for Mo, she has a new assignment, one that (in theory) means she doesn’t need to unlimber her demon-killing bone violin, "Lecter." I told you it was Lovecraftian…

England – the world, in fact – has seen a spike in superheroes, people who woke up one morning with hitherto unrealized superpowers. Some aren’t a big deal – the ability to unerringly choose the fastest checkout line at the grocery, for instance. Others are close to godlike – and those can be scary, since the new powers are bestowed randomly: what happens if an evil person ends up a Superman? Mo’s job is to head up a task force to help the ordinary cops deal with these “transhumans.” Her job is made more difficult, psychologically speaking, when she’s assigned not one but two of Bob’s exes as her top assistants. Meowwww: cat fights!

Unfortunately, it appears that the transhuman spike includes a superpowered villain, one who calls him- or herself “Dr. Freudstein.” Freudstein’s antics include such hijinks as breaking into Britain’s plutonium storage and leaving extra plutonium behind (because he can!), stealing a tube station, and making off with the means to counterfeit something like a billion pounds sterling of untraceable banknotes. But his worst is breaking into the British Library to steal The Annihilation Score.

Mo’s job – as well as her marriage, not to mention her very life – are on the line as her tiny team seeks out the elusive Freudstein even while wading through a bureaucratic quagmire. As her dreams become ever more nightmarish, the erstwhile agent CANDID is about to learn that some music is more ominous than even Darth Vader’s “Imperial Death March”…

The sixth novel in the Laundry Files, The Annihilation Score is the first to be told from Mo’s viewpoint – previous installments have all been narrated by her husband, Bob Howard, as a form of after-action report. Like the rest of Charlie Stross’ series, the action’s set in contemporary London with a protagonist who works for the government agency (the Laundry) that the Crown charges with protecting the country from demons. Stross’ fantasy universe has no sword wielders, but there are plenty of sorcerers; herein called “computational demonologists,” who perform most of their magic with computer programs. That’s how Howard got hired in the first place.  Oh, sure, there are spells, wards and geases and the other trappings of sorcery familiar to fans of Harry Dresden.  There are vampires (aka Photogolic Hemophagic Anagathic Neurotropic Guys or PHANGs), too, though (so far) no zombies – though given Stross’ quirky sense of humor, they can’t be far behind. In short, Stross gives his fans an odd sort of F-and-SF that puts a steampunky twist on William Gibson’s spec-fic. In other words, you need to read it to get it.

The Laundry Files are typically fun romps filled with sneaky snark and more than a few inside jokes (FYI, “jokes” was word #666), and The Annihilation Score is par for the course. That being said, fans of the series will very likely be disappointed in Mo's tale. Although the transition between narrators is handled well and there's still plenty of snark and jokes, something's missing. It might well be that Mo - not a demonologist herself, but simply a conduit for her decidedly scary instrument - isn't cut out to narrate a Laundry Files story. It might also be that Mo’s reaction to being a “sudden single” is a bit disconcerting.  Diehard Stross fans won't want to miss this installment, but for anyone else the read can be (frankly speaking) rather a slog. 

If you have a tech-savvy friend who’s addicted to sword-and-sorcery fantasy (especially one who hits every RenFaire that comes along) why not introduce him or her to The Laundry Files? Who knows – they might like a little computational demonology to go along with all those swordfights and armored knights. I wouldn't suggest starting with The Annihilation Score, however - not just because it's the sixth in the series, but because all the others are better.