The Laundry Files

The Atrocity Archives

The Atrocity Archives is a novel by British author Charles Stross, published in 2004. It includes the short novel The Atrocity Archive (originally serialised in Spectrum SF in Spectrum SF, #7 November 2001) and The Concrete Jungle, which won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

The protagonist of both stories is computer expert Bob Howard, who re-discovers certain mathematical equations that contact other worlds. The Laundry detects the disturbance and swoops in to give him a mandatory job offer. ("I thought I was just generating weird new fractals; they knew I was dangerously close to landscaping Wolverhampton with alien nightmares.") From his position in the Laundry, a secret British occult intelligence organisation, Howard is allowed to learn something of the secret history of the world, as well as the various modern counter-measures the Laundry has adopted to deal with these threats. Despite the nature of the work, the Laundry is an efficient and low-key modern organization; more cubicle-jockeying than stately mansion towers and hidden volcano lairs, in other words. A tag-line used for the books by publisher Ace Books was "Saving the world is Bob Howard's job. There are a surprising number of meetings involved."

In The Atrocity Archive, Howard is given work as a field agent in finding and protecting American logic professor Dominique "Mo" O'Brien, as her work - dangerously close to the point of bending reality - has triggered the Laundry's person-of-interest checks. There, Howard must contend with the Black Chamber, which in this setting was never actually disbanded, but merely went underground as the US government's equivalent of the Laundry. Howard and Mo eventually head to Amsterdam and deal with Middle Eastern terrorists also on the hunt for Mo's work. They also research the Atrocity Archive, a classified record of German efforts in World War II. In this universe, the Thule Society, a pagan & occult group formed during the defeat of Germany in World War I, actually achieved results; they were absorbed by the Ahnenerbe, which became the occult branch of the SS, and who used German mathematician David Hilbert's research (unwillingly) to attempt to gain an edge for the Nazis. The Wannsee Conference was thus an attempt to harness the occult via mass human sacrifice in the Holocaust, but it ultimately failed after Allied interference. Mo is captured by the terrorists and sent via wormhole to an alternate universe where the Nazis did succeed - although not in a manner they'd have preferred. In this alternate universe, the Nazis summoned a frost giant out of Germanic/Norse legend, which was actually an elder being that fed on heat and who proceeded to destroy Earth. Bob and a team of SAS agents open their own gate, infiltrate the frozen universe, rescue Mo, and leave a nuclear bomb to 'sanitise' the scene. Bob belatedly realizes that the nuclear bomb is a counterproductive trap; the frost giant intends to use its power to propel it into their reality, which has far more heat to eat. Bob manages to stop the device from exploding before escaping back to his original universe.

In The Concrete Jungle, Bob Howard is called in for an emergency: there are too many Concrete Cows in Milton Keynes. Howard reads classified files on the presumed cause: gorgonism, which has been banned by treaty for military use, and has been researched by various scientists over time - Lavosier, Geiger, and Rutherford. Alarmingly, the government has built a network to artificially emulate gorgons in FPGAs, then planned a network of cameras that could be hooked into this emulation - the CCTV network of anti-crime cameras deployed across Britain in the late 90s and early 2000s. This network was intended as a defense if the Old Ones were to rise and attack; however, someone has subverted a CCTV camera to stone a cow, then deposited it with the other concrete cows. As unauthorized use of the CCTV-basilisk network could hold the entire nation at hostage, this is an incredible risk. In an unrelated event, Howard is informed that he is being negligent about preparing for a meeting about a Business Software Alliance audit for the Laundry's software; Howard strongly opposes the audit, as the BSA invariably installs "spyware" to snoop for unauthorized installations.

Howard, with the assistance of Detective Inspector Josephine Sullivan of Milton Keynes, investigates the incident, which soon expands to the murder of humans as well as cows. They attempt to track who could possibly have had access to the gorgon-emulation software and installed it. Meanwhile, a ransom note is received demanding the software be uninstalled. Their investigation eventually leads them to the developers of the software, who are mostly dead from their own cameras, and an agent named "McLuhan" ("the medium is the message"). Howard discovers that the whole incident was inter-department wrangling gone wrong; a rival manager had been seeking to show that Angleton (Howard's manager) was incompetent and letting his own secret programs leak, and her minions had covered their tracks more bloodily than necessary. The "BSA audit" had been an excuse to install the gorgon-software into the Laundry's own internal cameras while Angleton was distracted. Howard & Sullivan infiltrate the Laundry to pull its Internet connection, while Angleton attends the meeting where he might be deposed. Howard comes upstairs to find Angleton victorious; it seems that his rival did not understand who Angleton truly reported to in the matrix management of the Laundry before launching her attempt to have him dismissed. His position as head of Counter-Possession Unit was actually secondary to his position as Private Secretary, and that position's manager went all the way to the top.

Publishers Weekly was somewhat mixed in their review saying "though the characters all tend to sound the same, and Stross resorts to lengthy summary explanations to dispel confusion, the world he creates is wonderful fun." The Washington Post called it "a bizarre yet effective yoking of the spy and horror genres."

Stross states that his inspiration for the spy in these novels is closer to the out-of-place bureaucrats of Len Deighton than to the James Bond model. He also mentions that when he began writing the series in 1999, he chose as villains "an obscure but fanatical and unpleasant gang who might, conceivably, be planning an atrocity on American soil"; but that by the time the novel was to be published in late 2001, Al-Qaeda was no longer obscure, so he chose a different group to use in the novella.

The characters in the books all use pseudonyms ("craft names"), as a person's real name can be used against him — a common feature to both magic as well as covert espionage. While "Bob Oliver Francis Howard" matches the author of the original Conan the Barbarian stories, it is more likely to be a reference to the "Bastard Operator From Hell" which matches the protagonist's nominal systems administration job and his attitude towards field work. Bob's boss in the Laundry uses the pseudonym "James Jesus Angleton", possibly out of a desire to irritate American intelligence agents.

In the afterword to the Science Fiction Book Club 2-in-1 edition of The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue, Stross notes that friends warned him against reading the novel Declare while he was working on The Atrocity Archives due to the strong parallels between the two works. Stross also mentioned the similarities between the novel and the Delta Green role-playing game, similarities referenced in the short story "Pimpf" included with The Jennifer Morgue; Delta Green is also about elite government conspiracies working against villains who attempt to wield power derived from the Mythos, as well as rival conspiracies.

The Jennifer Morgue

The Jennifer Morgue is the second collection of Laundry stories by British author Charles Stross, published in 2006. It contains the title novel The Jennifer Morgue, the short story "Pimpf", and an essay titled "The Golden Age of Spying". The collection is a sequel to the stories published in The Atrocity Archives, continuing the trials of protagonist Bob Howard.

Where 2004's The Atrocity Archives is written in the idiom of Len Deighton, The Jennifer Morgue is a pastiche of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and refers to the real-life Project Azorian (incorrectly named by the press as Project Jennifer); Stross also uses footnotes and narrative causality, two literary devices common in the novels of Terry Pratchett.

The Jennifer Morgue was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2007.

The Fuller Memorandum

The Fuller Memorandum is the third novel in the "Laundry" series of novels, published in 2010. As in the previous novels, the protagonist is Bob Howard, an agent for the intelligence agency known as the Laundry.

Where The Atrocity Archives was written in the idiom of Len Deighton and The Jennifer Morgue was a pastiche of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, The Fuller Memorandum is a homage of sorts to Anthony Price's Dr David Audley/Colonel Jack Butler series of spy thrillers, and features two minor characters named Roskill and Panin, names which appeared as recurring characters in Price's series. The title is derived from General J. F. C. Fuller, military theorist, right-wing intellectual occultist, and an associate of Aleister Crowley.

The plot of the book revolves around an eponymous document which describes a supernatural entity, the Eater of Souls. When the document and Bob's boss go missing, Bob must locate them before they are used to bring about the return of the Great Old Ones. A large part of the book revolves around the supernatural properties of the London Necropolis Railway.

The Apocalypse Codex

The Apocalypse Codex is the fourth novel the "Laundry" series, published in 2012. The novels follow the protagonist Bob Howard, an agent for the intelligence agency known as the Laundry. According to Stross, while the first three books in the series were written in the style of Len Deighton, Ian Fleming and Anthony Price, respectively, the fourth installment is written in the style of a Peter O'Donnell (Modesty Blaise) novel. For future installments, Stross feels that, "the series has acquired an identity and feel of its own," and does not intend to continue the pastiche motif.

The Rhesus Chart

The Rhesus Chart is the fifth novel in the "Laundry" series, published in 2014. The novels follow the protagonist Bob Howard, an agent for the intelligence agency known as the Laundry.

The Rhesus Chart plot describes an investigation into what appears to be vampire activity, despite the fact that everyone had known previously that there was no such thing as vampires and they were a ridiculous superstition unrelated to actual occult threats. In fact, people are almost suspiciously resistant to the idea that vampires could exist or be involved, which complicates the investigation. Howard's personal and professional lives cross and cross again.

The Rhesus Chart received a Kirkus Reviews starred review.

The Annihilation Score

The Annihilation Score is the sixth novel in the "Laundry" series, published in 2015. The protagonist is Dr. Dominique "Mo" O'Brien, the wife of Bob Howard, the protagonist of previous books in the series and also an agent for the intelligence agency known as the Laundry.

The Nightmare Stacks

The Nightmare Stacks is the seventh novel in the "Laundry" series, published in 2016. The protagonist is Alex Schwartz, a vampire (or PHANG in Laundry terminology) working for the Laundry, who were introduced in The Rhesus Chart.

Like the previous story Equoid explored unicorns, and The Rhesus Chart explored vampires, The Nightmare Stacks explores Elves with a basis in folklore. Like the unicorns from Equoid, elves turn out to be a good deal less friendly and cuddly that some myths may lead you to expect.

In an Earth in a parallel universe, evolution has diverged from our Earth, such that a different human subspecies has been created, in between Neanderthals and Denisovans in genetic closeness to Homo Sapiens. These Elves have evolved to be expert magic users, and have visited Earth in the past, from which come the folklore. They are also almost all psychopaths, in that they have almost no empathy, and live in a magically enforced hierarchy with little freedom.

Because magic has made the Elves' home world uninhabitable in a world war, by cracking the moon and summoning ancient horrors, the last remnant of the Elves plan to magically travel to the Earth to take it over and make it their new home. To scout ahead, they send Agent First of Spies and Liars, the first daughter of the Elven king. Agent First has a dangerous defect, in that she is not a psychopath and can feel empathy, which also makes her an excellent spy.

On Earth, Agent First of Spies and Liars magically copies the look and memories of drama student Cassiopeia Brewer, in order to infiltrate society. This causes some problems, as Earth's liberal society is at first incomprehensible, and then later enticing, to the Elf. As magicians hold power among the Elves, "Cassie" tries to befriend Laundry employee Alex Schwartz whom she meets by chance, since his PHANG syndrome makes him a powerful magician. Alex's power being apparent also makes the otherwise hopelessly socially incompetent 24 year old virgin Alex very attractive to Cassie.

The Elves invade Leeds, and while they suffer some setbacks because modern technology is unknown and unexpected to them (their military technology being based on magic), they do threaten the Laundry. As an attempt at defense, the Laundry activates the lethal autonomous weapon SCORPION STARE, which is an AI using cameras to project a lethal basilisk effect. SCORPION STARE ends up hitting cosplayers at an Animation Festival parade, while not hitting any Elves who have wisely detected and destroyed all cameras.

While the Elven invasion is in progress, Cassie takes Alex to meet her father, the Elf king; Cassie was magically bound to take a magician to her father. Alex was supposed to be magically bound to Cassie's will, but because of Cassie's experience living Cassie's life, she has been turned against her superiors, and no longer want to exterminate or enslave the entire human race.

After killing Cassie's evil stepmother, Cassie and Alex escape, and by incident the Elf king is killed by a hellfire missile fired by a predator drone. This magically makes Cassie Queen of the elves, with magic enforcing obedience. As planned with Alex, she immediately surrenders to the UK army, and requests asylum under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006.

The Delirium Brief

The Delirium Brief will be the eighth book in the Laundry Files series, and is expected to be published in summer 2017. The Delirium Brief is set about a month after The Nightmare Stacks and deals with the consequences of the Laundry coming to light in the middle of a political and military crisis. Unlike Books 6 and 7, the narrative viewpoint shifts back to Bob Howard.

The Delirium Brief will be published in partnership with Tor in summer 2017. According to Stross, the book was somewhat delayed due to the Brexit referendum, as the book involves the politics of the British government after the Laundry's existence was leaked to the public. The pro-Brexit result required a large rewrite to square up with the shift.

Novellas, spin-offs, and related works

Stross's 2000 short story "A Colder War" also mixes elements of Lovecraft and espionage, and is perhaps a precursor to the Laundry stories; however, the fictional background and assumptions are different, and it is its own distinct setting (as the world is destroyed at the end of it, the Laundry series is clearly not a sequel).

Stross' short stories Down on the Farm, Overtime, and Equoid are within the same Laundry continuity. Down on the Farm and Equoid both take place between the second and third novels; Overtime takes place between the third and fourth novel. Equoid won the 2014 Hugo Award for best novella, and Overtime was a shortlist nominee for the 2010 Hugo Award for best novelette.

Cubicle 7 published The Laundry, a role-playing game based on the Laundry stories in July 2010.

Stross published a short non-canonical work set in the Laundry files universe on a fanfiction website, "The Howard/O'Brien Relate Counseling Session Transcripts - Part 1".

Audiobook Versions

Audiobook versions of the novels in the Laundry Files series have been narrated by Jack Hawkins and Caroline Guthrie.