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SFF Author: Charles Stross

(1964- )
Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England. He studied in London and Bradford, earning degrees in pharmacy and computer science, and has worked in a variety of jobs, including pharmacist, technical author, software engineer, and freelance journalist. Stross wrote six Hugo-nominated novels and won the 2005 and 2010 Hugo awards for best novella. He now lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. You can read his writings about computer languages and learn more about his work at Charles Stross’ website.

The Atrocity Archives: A sysadmin saves the world

The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

The Atrocity Archives contains the first two novellas in Charles Stross’ THE LAUNDRY FILES: The Atrocity Archive and The Concrete Jungle. The series is based on the premise that, before he died, Alan Turing solved a theorem that proved that mathematics could be used to gain access to other space-time dimensions. Unfortunately, what’s out there is exactly what H.P. Lovecraft said there was — sleeping tentacled horrors that might be inclined to enter our universe if gateways were opened.

The Jennifer Morgue: Ian Fleming meets H.P. Lovecraft

The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross

The Jennifer Morgue (2006), the second novel in Charles Stross’ LAUNDRY FILES, is a science fiction spy thriller that’s an obvious homage to Ian Fleming and H.P. Lovecraft. Bob has been sent to the Caribbean to try to find out why Ellis Billington, an evil megalomaniac billionaire, is interested in The Jennifer Morgue, a place deep in the ocean which may be an access point into our universe by tentacled eldritch horrors. For this assignment, Bob is paired up with someone from the American agency that deals with this kind of supernatural stuff — a gorgeous woman possessed by a succubus.

The Fuller Memorandum: I can’t get enough of THE LAUNDRY FILES

The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross

I just can’t get enough of THE LAUNDRY FILES. This series has almost everything I want in an urban SFF adventure — an intelligent hero with a wry sense of humor and a great voice; an eclectic supporting cast; a fast pace with lots of action and plot twists; a cool mix of fantasy and science fiction; occasionally odd (and interesting) structural choices; a reverence for geek culture; and a smattering of computer science, mathematics, quantum physics and neuroscience. And Lovecraft.

The Apocalypse Codex: Bob takes on an American televangelist

The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross

Charles Stross continues to entertain with The Apocalypse Codex, the fourth novel in his LAUNDRY FILES series. I suppose you could read this without reading the first three books, but it’d be better to start with book one, The Atrocity Archives. For this review, I’ll assume you’re familiar with the story so far.

Bob has been unintentionally working his way up in the Laundry, the secret British agency where computer scientists, mathematicians,

The Rhesus Chart: Bob takes on a clan of vampire bankers

The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross

The Rhesus Chart is the fifth and most recent novel in Charles Stross’ LAUNDRY FILES. Bob Howard has been moving up the ranks in the Laundry — not due to any particular motivation or ambition on his part, but just because he has managed, so far, to stay alive as he and his fellow agents battle the eldritch horrors who are trying to find their way into our universe so they can eat us.

While doing some data mining in his office one day,

The Annihilation Score: I like the different point-of-view character

The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross

The Annihilation Score (2016), by Charles Stross, is the sixth book in his LAUNDRY FILES series. Stross has hit on an interesting way to keep a series from flagging. He created a super-secret agency that fights extra-normal entities and events, and by doing this, he has a stable of characters who can take the lead in given books. Most of the LAUNDRY FILES books I’ve read featured Bob Howard as the main character,

Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Charles Stross | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Nightmare Stacks: This one just missed for me

The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross

In my review of the LAUNDRY FILES book before this one, The Annihilation Score, I noted that there was a lot I liked and a few things I disliked. Unfortunately for me, my experience with The Nightmare Stacks (2016) was the reverse. There were a number of things I enjoyed, but overall I didn’t like this book very much. Charles Stross is a smart, funny, inventive writer, and it distresses me to give this book two and half stars,

Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5 | Charles Stross | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

The Delirium Brief: The Laundry’s in big trouble

The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross

The Delirium Brief, which is a finalist for the 2018 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, is the eighth novel in Charles Stross’ LAUNDRY FILES. Don’t even bother with it if you haven’t read most of the previous novels — you’ll be totally lost. (And, of course, my review of this installment will contain some spoilers for the previous books.)

For decades the Laundry, a heretofore unknown British government agency, has been protecting its citizens (and others around the world) from the eldritch horrors that exist outside our universe.

The Labyrinth Index: The American president is missing and that’s a bad thing

The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross

The Labyrinth Index (2018) is the ninth novel in Charles’ Stross’ LAUNDRY FILES epic. This installment features Mhari, Bob Howard’s psycho ex-girlfriend who we met back in The Rhesus Chart when she and her colleagues at a bank accidentally developed some software that turned them all into vampires.

Now she’s Dame Mhari Murphy – she’s been elevated to Baroness and she works for the new government in England.

Equoid: You’ll want to laugh and vomit

Equoid by Charles Stross

Equoid is a novella set in Charles Stross’ LAUNDRY FILES world. It isn’t necessary to have read any of the LAUNDRY FILES novels, but you’d probably get a little more out of Equoid if you first read at least the first two novels, The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. This story takes place after the events of the fourth novel, The Apocalypse Codex,

A Conventional Boy: A fun welcome-back to the LAUNDRY FILES

A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross

I haven’t read a LAUNDRY FILES story in at least a couple of years. Charles Stross’s latest, 2025’s A Conventional Boy, is a fun novella and a nice welcome back to the series. The book is filled out by two short stories, “Overtime” and “Down on the Farm,” featuring Bob Howard. It was great to spend time with Bob again, but Derek Reilly, the protagonist of A Conventional Boy, was the real star.

The charge of Britain’s “Laundry,” a part of their intelligence and security services,

Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Charles Stross | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Family Trade: Meet superwoman

The Family Trade by Charles Stross

In The Family Trade, Charles Stross brings together an interesting blend of several different fantasy subgenres. Most of the characters are enjoyable and make sense in their roles, but the main character, Miriam, seems to have left her blue and red superwoman suit in her luggage. She acquires an unending stream of skills and abilities when she gets in a tight spot. Sometimes, in order to be realistic, an author needs to let the hero flounder and fail a bit.

But I look forward to the next Merchant Princes book because The Family Trade has set a stage where multiple factions appear to be competing to eradicate Miriam,

John Hulet and Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Charles Stross | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Hidden Family: Entertaining but average read

The Hidden Family by Charles Stross

The Hidden Family picks up at the end of The Family Trade and continues that story’s basic premise, in both good and bad fashion. In the good, the story remains fast-paced, a quick and entertaining if not too deep read.

Stross introduces us to another world here, one that lies somewhere between our own and the Clan’s both technically and socially, opening new and more interesting settings. Miriam remains an active, strong character, joined by others equally strong.

Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Charles Stross | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Glasshouse: SF to the extreme but with a social agenda

Glasshouse by Charles Stross

So chock full of the social consequences of nano-science and memory editing is Charles Stross’s Glasshouse, I’m still trying to pick myself up from the floor. In a whirl, I can’t decide whether the ideas were expressed in cohesive enough fashion to produce a book I can praise or if I’ve simply been blinded by an imaginative eruption that is worthy enough in itself of admiration. Beyond a dumb-faced sense of wonder, I’m also wondering if anyone else could have a more defined view after riding Stross’s tilt-a-whirl of futuristic possibilities…

Set at an unknown time in the far future,

Saturn’s Children: Fun and adventure in a post-human galaxy

Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross

In the future of Charles Stross’ Saturn’s Children, humans have somehow managed to kill themselves off. But, before they did, they developed an array of artificial intelligence machines to serve them. Some were sent out to explore and settle the galaxy. The universe now contains all sorts of robots and cyborgs. They’ve set up a class-structured society with “aristo” robots owning those that humans had fitted with loyalty-inducing slave-chips. This strange new feudal society carries on with normal business,

Palimpsest: Needs to be a novel

Palimpsest by Charles Stross

Agent Pierce murdered his own grandfather to join Stasis, the covert organization which works outside of time to reseed the Earth with humans every time they’re about to make themselves extinct. Pierce considers himself a loyal agent, and he didn’t even realize that there is a group that works in Opposition to Stasis — he’s only in training. So, why is someone trying to assassinate him?

Palimpsest follows Agent Pierce from initiation, through his twenty years of training, to his gruesome graduation ceremony,

The Rapture of the Nerds: Facilitates deep thought and plenty of laughter

The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross

The Rapture of the Nerds (2012) is an odd duck, and that’s probably the reason I’m struggling so much to write this review. On the one hand, there are some deeper themes that are absolutely fascinating. On the other, the book feels like a mashup of as many clever curses as the authors can possibly think of, with some odd situations thrown in. Is this good or bad? I can’t even seem to decide. There is a place for fun and funny books,

Neptune’s Brood: Financepunk

Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross

Krina Alizond-114, a metahuman, is worried because Ana, one of her sibs, has gone missing. It’s not that Krina cares much about her sisters — they’re all just the spawn (and, anagrammatically, the pawns) of their scary overbearing mother and, besides, metahumans don’t have all that mushy emotional stuff that so frequently hijacked the thought processes of the “Fragile” race of homo sapiens that created them. The problem is that together Ana and Krina hold the key to a vast fortune and, if Ana disappears,

Sympathy for the Devil: A collection of bedtime stories

Sympathy for the Devil edited by Tim Pratt

Please allow me to introduce Sympathy for the Devil, a fine new anthology filled entirely with short stories about the devil… who is, as we all know, a man of style and taste. However, you won’t just find the smooth-talking stealer of souls here. In addition to that famous version of His Grand Infernal Majesty, you’ll also find funny devils, monstrous devils, abstract devils and strangely realistic ones. Devils scary and not-so-scary, devils who are after children’s souls and others going after old men.

Stefan Raets´s rating: 3.5 | Charles De_Lint, Charles Stross, China Mieville, Elizabeth Bear, Holly Black, Jay Lake, Kage Baker, Kelly Link, Neil Gaiman, Scott Westerfeld, Stephen King, Tim (T.A.) Pratt | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction: Packed full of excellent SF stories

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction is packed full of excellent science fiction stories. I’ve been reading anthologies lately, partly to improve my own short story writing, and this is the best I’ve found so far. It contains stories by authors such as Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, Catherynne M. Valente, John Scalzi, Jo Walton, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Mary Robinette Kowal,

Mike Reeves-McMillan´s rating: 5 | Brenda Cooper, Catherynne M. Valente, Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, Daryl Gregory, David D. Levine, Elizabeth Bear, Genevieve Valentine, James L. Cambias, Jo Walton, John Scalzi, Kage Baker, Karl Schroeder, Liz Williams, Madeline Ashby, Mary Robinette Kowal, Paolo Bacigalupi, Rachel Swirsky, Tobias Buckell, Yoon Ha Lee | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Jonathan Stroud

Previous SFF Author: Brad Strickland

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SFF Author: Charles Stross

The Atrocity Archives: A sysadmin saves the world

The Jennifer Morgue: Ian Fleming meets H.P. Lovecraft

The Fuller Memorandum: I can’t get enough of THE LAUNDRY FILES

The Apocalypse Codex: Bob takes on an American televangelist

The Rhesus Chart: Bob takes on a clan of vampire bankers

The Annihilation Score: I like the different point-of-view character

The Nightmare Stacks: This one just missed for me

The Delirium Brief: The Laundry’s in big trouble

The Labyrinth Index: The American president is missing and that’s a bad thing

Equoid: You’ll want to laugh and vomit

A Conventional Boy: A fun welcome-back to the LAUNDRY FILES

The Family Trade: Meet superwoman

The Hidden Family: Entertaining but average read

Glasshouse: SF to the extreme but with a social agenda

Saturn’s Children: Fun and adventure in a post-human galaxy

Palimpsest: Needs to be a novel

The Rapture of the Nerds: Facilitates deep thought and plenty of laughter

Neptune’s Brood: Financepunk

Sympathy for the Devil: A collection of bedtime stories

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction: Packed full of excellent SF stories

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