The Atrocity Archive, by Charles Stross
Now this is simply fabulous…though it might not be your cup of tea. Here’s a check:
“He’s derived the Turing-Lovecraft Theorem from first principles. Not many people can do that.”
If the very idea of a Turing-Lovecraft Theorem makes you giggle, you’re squarely in this book’s target demographic, and should immediately go buy a copy. Don’t bother reading further, just go get it. The rest of you, read on.
The walls of our universe are more tenuous than most people realize. Just outside, in the universes next door, lurk things of cosmic evil, eager to slide through and eat your brain. Within the walls of a dingy London office building work a cadre of people whose job it is to prevent this happening. Within those walls, they confront evil on a daily basis, evil of all sorts. Unspeakable, nameless horrors. Foolish mathematicians whose dabblings might open a path for the Great Old Ones. And worse things. Bureaucrats. Auditors. Pointy-haired bosses!
Stross has put together a delightful tale of cosmic horror, secret agents, and organizational chaos, like an unholy mixture of Lovecraft, Dilbert, and Len Deighton, with vast dollops of computer geekery and secret history stirred in for flavor. It’s all good, really, even the scary parts–and there are some very scary parts.
I’m going to be keeping an eye on Charles Stross; he’s good. He’s clearly read all the right books. And I bet he’d be a grand fellow to share a pint of beer or two with. Here’s to more like him!
Books | Will Duquette September 18, 2006
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By TJIC, September 18, 2006 @ 7:11 pm
Atrocity Archives is one excellent book, and Stross is a good writer. …but some of his stuff is crap. Accelerando, for example, should be avoided.
His Merchant Princes homage to Zelazny’s Amber is quite good, too.
By Will Duquette, September 18, 2006 @ 7:19 pm
Any other stinkers to avoid?
By TJIC, September 19, 2006 @ 4:32 am
Not really.
Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise are both pretty good SF.
By karrde, September 22, 2006 @ 11:32 am
So, does the Turing-Lovecraft theorem involve whether a poet will always be able to stop writing a particular poem he’s working on?
By Will Duquette, September 22, 2006 @ 5:33 pm
Stross doesn’t specify, but that’s a good guess. But it’s even more likely, I’d say, that it involves whether a person who starts reading a old book of dubious provenance and blasphemous contents found it in a deserted house will ever be able to finish reading it or not.