[Andorion]

Holy fuck

I just finished this book.

I could not put it down. I think this is easily the best book of the series.

Amph, nice point with the Violin probably taking Mo to another dimension, I did not catch that.

The sheer scope of the events in this books - the decisions, the changes.... its one of the more hardhitting dark books Stross has written and IMO he elevated the series with this

Agree to everything Abyss said, I loved Bob being back in the central role and it was so creepy seeing him holding himself back from eating random minds.

[Aptorian]

Moving my thoughts on The Delirium Brief over here from the Reading at the Moment thread. Don't want to give to much info away to the curious.

I'm still reading so I haven't looked at the other pages, don't spoil me, por favor.

This was the conversation in the other thread:

Alternative Goose, on 07 January 2018 - 06:18 AM, said:

I'm about 32% in to The Delirium Brief by Charless Stross and I have trouble forcing myself to continue.

I absolutely hate the plot. I knew I would when I read the blurb years ago but it's so stupid. The whole premise of the book is that this super powerful, magic secret government - now not secret - organization is being undermined and targetted for privatization by the baddies. But it doesn't work with me because the whole plot is based on the idea that there is nobody in government who understands the role and power of the Laundry and nobody in the Laundry is apparently able to lobby for more, not less, power (Read: Scare the shit out of the politicians).

I keep forcing myself to read another 10-20 pages at a time, because I love the universe, but maaaaan do I not like this. This book better have a serious pay off, IE Raymond Schiller dying in a very gratifying fashion.

Alternative Goose, on 07 January 2018 - 09:34 AM, said:

Andorion, on 07 January 2018 - 07:09 AM, said:

Alternative Goose, on 07 January 2018 - 06:18 AM, said:

I'm about 32% in to The Delirium Brief by Charless Stross and I have trouble forcing myself to continue.

I absolutely hate the plot. I knew I would when I read the blurb years ago but it's so stupid. The whole premise of the book is that this super powerful, magic secret government - now not secret - organization is being undermined and targetted for privatization by the baddies. But it doesn't work with me because the whole plot is based on the idea that there is nobody in government who understands the role and power of the Laundry and nobody in the Laundry is apparently able to lobby for more, not less, power (Read: Scare the shit out of the politicians).

I keep forcing myself to read another 10-20 pages at a time, because I love the universe, but maaaaan do I not like this. This book better have a serious pay off, IE Raymond Schiller dying in a very gratifying fashion.

Consider that the Laundry has been weakened and is under a lot of strain and scrutiny at this point. Their leverage is at an all time low.

Doesn't matter. The fuck up that caused 9000+ people to die and billions of pounds of damage should have been used to get MUCH more funding and authority, not less.

All it would realistically had took to secure their power was a complete debrief for select members of the parliament showing them 3 things: 1. The Chithonian undersea people whom the laundry keeps a very, very sensitive diplomatic relationship with so that they don't kill the human race. 2. Open a portal to the realms where the Frost Giant exists or The Sleeper in the Pyramid. Explain to them that these are just 2 of X number of known world ending threats that the Laundry monitors and discourages. 3. demonstrate just how much destruction/influence just one mathemagical practitioner has at his disposal. Explain to them that any one of the laundry's senior staff is at the least as dangerous as a Cyber attack and an Abrams Tank in one or at worst a full scale Nuclear apocalypse. EDIT: 4. Not to mention the fucking SCORPION STARE program that is basically a nation wide death ray system... you want that to be handled by an outsourced call centre in India?

This isn't like privatizing public transport or prisons. This is the equivalent of outsourcing the Britains military, it's intelligence network and it's nuclear arsenal at once. To call this implausible and irresponsible is an incredible understatement.

And all of this is predicated upon the politicians being short sighted, publicity driven, political animals. Which fails to take into account that in any government, there are people within the system, who make sure that politicians don't fuck up this seriously. The reason why this is happening in the book, is that everything is written from this quaint rigid British bureaucratic perspective, where the Laundry is entirely bound by rules and regulations. Which was fine while they were trying to stay secret. What with magic becoming public there should immediately had been closed door meetings where all the real threats that Britain faces would have been outlined and the meeting ending with the Laundry demanding complete autonomy and a trillion pounds in funding.

Hell, they should be doing unsanctioned assassinations of politicians if it was needed. This is "end of the world" stuff we're talking about here.

EDIT: Actually, the more I think about it... I am wondering if there is some kind of treachery from within? How is the Laundry this bad at guarding its political support? Hmmm... That Senior Auditor has been acting pretty fishy. I will consider this a reason for the Laundry's ineptitude for now.

amphibian, on 07 January 2018 - 05:09 PM, said:

There are a number of things preventing that, Apt: the oath, the actual desire to stay mostly out of the bureaucracy for most of them (can't win the game if you don't play), and in the real world, the US and the UK have outsourcing for intelligence and military (Palantir, Blackwater, Triple Canopy etc). All of this is very believable.

Alternative Goose, on 07 January 2018 - 05:42 PM, said:

Yes, there is the oath. I'm another 20% or so into the book and Stross is emphasizing the oath. In the wake of the events in the books the various agents scramble to re-assert the oath. It seems to revert back to the... crown now? Or something. Certainly explains why there are limitations to the Laundry's move-set. But doesn't explain their political squeamishness, beyond old habits.

And there is a difference between outsourcing some tasks and throwing the whole system out whole sale. You can be damn certain the CIA and who ever else has things in place that ensure they don't get fucked over this easily.

I'm also curious about this mention of "The Board". I don't remember them. What the hell have they been doing. Are they even scarier than Mahogany Row? Or are they just various members of Mahogany Row we don't hear about? So many questions. It's dangerous to go years between books in a somewhat complicated series.

Abyss, on 08 January 2018 - 04:32 AM, said:

Alternative Goose, on 07 January 2018 - 05:42 PM, said:

Yes, there is the oath. I'm another 20% or so into the book and Stross is emphasizing the oath. In the wake of the events in the books the various agents scramble to re-assert the oath. It seems to revert back to the... crown now? Or something. Certainly explains why there are limitations to the Laundry's move-set. But doesn't explain their political squeamishness, beyond old habits.

And there is a difference between outsourcing some tasks and throwing the whole system out whole sale. You can be damn certain the CIA and who ever else has things in place that ensure they don't get fucked over this easily.

I'm also curious about this mention of "The Board". I don't remember them. What the hell have they been doing. Are they even scarier than Mahogany Row? Or are they just various members of Mahogany Row we don't hear about? So many questions. It's dangerous to go years between books in a somewhat complicated series.

Won’t spoil, come to the dedthread when you’re done. Some of what bugs you is explained, some remains irritating.

--------------


I've read a bit further now and finally Stross touches upon the Board of Directors in a short scene where an old representative goes to meet with the Prime Minister. It immediatly answered a bunch of my quarrels above. The nature of the board explains why they have been slow to act on the behalf of the laundry (all though that suggests some changes should be made) and the Prime Ministers "condition" explains why things are going down hill this fast.

I cannot wait to see what the implications of this will be for the ending of the book.

Spoiler

Assuming the good guys win and the baddies get what's coming for them, the prime minister has to die. Imagine the shockwaves this will have? How many other politicians have already been taken? This is some must read material for me now.

All though, it furthers my problems with the premise. The Laundry has time and again been presented as this layered secretive organization that has plans within plans and eyes and ears and contingencies you couldn't dream up. Why then were they this vulnerable to a public take over? Why didn't they have ten different plans ready in case they had to take the organization public? But more importantly, as the disastrous as the incursion around Leeds was, the fact that they didn't prevent Schiller and co from taking over the Prime Minister and potentially corrupting other important people is a much more damning failure to uphold their responsibility to the country. Never mind that the politicians don't believe in Magic, why wasn't Downing Street warded and guarded to high hell? As soon as Schiller arrived on British soil, knowing full well his nature, why didn't they put an official magic body guard on key figures? This I think is actually shameful. Stress or pressure be damned.

[Abyss]

Alternative Goose, on 09 January 2018 - 08:00 PM, said:

Moving my thoughts on The Delirium Brief over here from the Reading at the Moment thread. Don't want to give to much info away to the curious.

I'm still reading so I haven't looked at the other pages, don't spoil me, por favor.
...


I've read a bit further now and finally Stross touches upon the Board of Directors in a short scene where an old representative goes to meet with the Prime Minister. It immediatly answered a bunch of my quarrels above. The nature of the board explains why they have been slow to act on the behalf of the laundry (all though that suggests some changes should be made) and the Prime Ministers "condition" explains why things are going down hill this fast.

I cannot wait to see what the implications of this will be for the ending of the book.

Spoiler

Assuming the good guys win and the baddies get what's coming for them, the prime minister has to die. Imagine the shockwaves this will have? How many other politicians have already been taken? This is some must read material for me now.

All though, it furthers my problems with the premise. The Laundry has time and again been presented as this layered secretive organization that has plans within plans and eyes and ears and contingencies you couldn't dream up. Why then were they this vulnerable to a public take over? Why didn't they have ten different plans ready in case they had to take the organization public? But more importantly, as the disastrous as the incursion around Leeds was, the fact that they didn't prevent Schiller and co from taking over the Prime Minister and potentially corrupting other important people is a much more damning failure to uphold their responsibility to the country. Never mind that the politicians don't believe in Magic, why wasn't Downing Street warded and guarded to high hell? As soon as Schiller arrived on British soil, knowing full well his nature, why didn't they put an official magic body guard on key figures? This I think is actually shameful. Stress or pressure be damned.

Don't forget that they lost a bunch of senior people in RHESUS, then got hit by the emergence of superhumans, and a full blown alien invasion with resulting deaths and bureaucratic mess that tied up a lot of their less secret but very necessary resources like money.

It doesn't excuse everything but it does explain it somewhat.

[Aptorian]

Just finished Delirium Brief.

This book went from annoying and unsatisfying to probably my favorite book in a hurry. First half Stross had me on the ropes. All that fumbling in the dark made me really doubt the book but then it really ramped up in the second half. Like Abyss said on the other page, what Stross did with that ending completely rearranged the landscape... and yet, somehow, when the next book arrives, I imagine the good old british class system reasserts itself and they're back to filling out forms and saving pennies on stationary.

SPOILERS

Spoiler

I am really fuzzy on who or what the Mandate is and what he/it wants. The Black Pharoh is a death cult as far as I recall but the Mandate/Avatar of the Black Pharoh does not seem like a harbinger of the apocalypse. Two books ago, he just appeared to be a kind of super powered mentalist/trickster/telepath who was a walking charisma dynamo that overruled peoples logic senses. Now we find out he's a demigod (actual god?) who... wants to rule England? How does all of this work. How did they manage to arrest and pacify him the first time? Was he just newly formed/manifested? Or has he always been walking around on earth doing crazy stuff? Why were they able to hold him in the Tower of London by just using deaf people? Shouldn't he had been able to just punch his way out of the prison? Also, beyond taking the barrier down, I don't really see why is or was needed? He was useful if they'd needed to remove an already sitting government with out bloodshed, but that didn't come to pass. So,,, why not turn on him, beyond, you know, playing fair and upholding a deal? Like the Mandate showed at the end, he will alter his agreements.

One thing I was disappointed about was not seeing or hearing more about the US. Probably my favorite scene in the series so far was that short sequence where Shillers people come to overtake Howard's connection in the US. The agent summons his Black Chamber contact and they assume "CONTROL". The way Control talked to the Schiller's people and its actions spoke of a ruthlessness and sheer deadliness that made the Nazgul so much more fascinating than anything else Stross had introduced yet.

Originally I thought Stross was the one taking over the US but the ending suggested that, Schiller was fleeing the US, not expanding. What is so terrible that it made Schiller flee? I REALLY want that to be the next books topic, but that would mean we'd be leaving British soil and taking us away from the aftermath or Delirium Brief.

[Abyss]

CASE NIGHTMARE BOOK NINE!!!!!!!!!!

OCT 30!!!!

THE LABYRINTH INDEX.


Read the blurb and be holy fuck'd....

Quote

"The Lovecraftian Singularity has descended on the world, beginning an exciting new story arc in the Laundry Files series!

The arrival of vast, alien, inhuman intelligences reshaped the landscape for human affairs across the world, and the United Kingdom is no exception.

Things have changed in Britain since the dread elder god Nyarlathotep ascended to the rank of Prime Minister.

Mhari Murphy, recently elevated to the House of Lords and head of the Lords Select Committee on Sanguinary Affairs (think vampires), finds herself in direct consultation with the creeping chaos, who directs her to lead a team of disgraced Laundry personnel into the dark heart of America. It seems the Creeping Chaos is concerned about foreign relations.A thousand-mile-wild storm system has blanketed the midwest, and the President is nowhere to be found. In fact, for reasons unknown the people of America are forgetting that the executive branch ever existed. The government has been infiltrated by the shadowy Black Chamber, and the Pentagon and NASA have been refocused on the problem of summoning Cthulhu.Somewhere, the Secret Service battle to stay awake, to remind the President who he is, and to stay one step ahead of the vampiric dragnet that's searching for him."

...as i said.... HOLY. FUCK.

Delerium Brief was an even bigger game changer than we thought!

[Andorion]

Abyss, on 28 March 2018 - 01:13 PM, said:

CASE NIGHTMARE BOOK NINE!!!!!!!!!!

OCT 30!!!!

THE LABYRINTH INDEX.


Read the blurb and be holy fuck'd....

Quote

"The Lovecraftian Singularity has descended on the world, beginning an exciting new story arc in the Laundry Files series!

The arrival of vast, alien, inhuman intelligences reshaped the landscape for human affairs across the world, and the United Kingdom is no exception.

Things have changed in Britain since the dread elder god Nyarlathotep ascended to the rank of Prime Minister.

Mhari Murphy, recently elevated to the House of Lords and head of the Lords Select Committee on Sanguinary Affairs (think vampires), finds herself in direct consultation with the creeping chaos, who directs her to lead a team of disgraced Laundry personnel into the dark heart of America. It seems the Creeping Chaos is concerned about foreign relations.A thousand-mile-wild storm system has blanketed the midwest, and the President is nowhere to be found. In fact, for reasons unknown the people of America are forgetting that the executive branch ever existed. The government has been infiltrated by the shadowy Black Chamber, and the Pentagon and NASA have been refocused on the problem of summoning Cthulhu.Somewhere, the Secret Service battle to stay awake, to remind the President who he is, and to stay one step ahead of the vampiric dragnet that's searching for him."

...as i said.... HOLY. FUCK.

Delerium Brief was an even bigger game changer than we thought!

Yeah this one is feeling properly apocalyptic all right.

[Cyphon]

The thing about the privatisation bit of the delirium brief is that it's also a dig at David Cameron. The bit where the board go to Jeremy Michaels is implied that the PM is under/in the cult but the point he's making is he's just a huge human dickhead. Just not a cthulu dickhead until he goes into the inner sanctum. From Twitter he seems fairly hard core "left wing" so those two things make sense as a critique/satire.

As he likes to keep roughly parraell to real world politics I wonder if he'll use the Black Pharoah to mimic the brexit scenario as a fortress England approach.

[Abyss]

CASE NIGHTMARE WE'RE ALL COLORS OF FUCKED, one month and counting!!!!!!

Textvert:

Quote

Since she was promoted to the head of the Lords Select Committee on Sanguinary Affairs, every workday for Mhari Murphy has been a nightmare. It doesn’t help that her boss, the new Prime Minister of Britain, is a manipulative and deceptive pain in the butt. But what else can she expect when working under the thumb of none other than the elder god N’yar Lat-Hotep a.k.a the Creeping Chaos?Mhari’s most recent assignment takes her and a ragtag team of former Laundry agents across the pond into the depths of North America. The United States president has gone missing. Not that Americans are alarmed. For some mysterious reason, most of the country has forgotten the executive branch even exists. Perhaps it has to do with the Nazgûl currently occupying the government and attempting to summon Cthulhu.It’s now up to Mhari and her team to race against the Nazgûl’s vampire-manned dragnet to find and, for his own protection, kidnap the president.Who knew an egomaniacal, malevolent deity would have a soft spot for international relations?

Excerpt here: https://www.tor.com/...charles-stross/

[Mentalist]

Yeah, Stross is really going big here. Ever since Rhesus, stakes have just been going up.

[Aptorian]

I still can't quite wrap my mind around The mandate. Now he's actually the elder god Nyarlahotep? I mean the black man stories fit him but oh boy. We went from eldritch like monsters to just straight up importing core Lovecraft lore.

[Abyss]

Alternative Goose, on 03 October 2018 - 03:34 PM, said:

I still can't quite wrap my mind around The mandate. Now he's actually the elder god Nyarlahotep? I mean the black man stories fit him but oh boy. We went from eldritch like monsters to just straight up importing core Lovecraft lore.

Effectively yes, he's the embodiment or avatar or something. There was a word used in the last book i don't remember.

I always thought it was funny that the book expressly states there no Cthulhu, but 'the black pharaoh' has been a fixture for a while.

[Aptorian]

I always thought of The Sleeper in The Pyramid as Sleeping Cthulhu.

[Abyss]

I don't think he would have fit in the coffin.

[Aptorian]

Did we ever see the inside of the Pyramid? I just imagined it was a gigantic tomb.

[Abyss]

Alternative Goose, on 03 October 2018 - 07:45 PM, said:

Did we ever see the inside of the Pyramid? I just imagined it was a gigantic tomb.

Didn’t the finale of CODEX take place there?

[Abyss]

Just want to note, spoiler-free here in the ded-thread... LABYRINTH INDEX is KILLING IT.

Any hesitation i had about Mharie as pov/narrator (as Mo was a bit of a disappointment to me back in ANNIHILATION SCORE), gone.

1/3rd in and Stross is just nailing chapter after chapter.

The pacing is flawless, the levels of story and things going on brilliant, the sheer fuckedupedness of the USA that the Laundry crew finds themselves in very very cleverly done.

[Aptorian]

It's out? To the Kindle mobile!

Edit: Hmm. 19 dollars. I am too poor to sate my stross needs.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 05 November 2018 - 05:51 PM

[Abyss]

Alternative Goose, on 05 November 2018 - 05:49 PM, said:

It's out? To the Kindle mobile!

Edit: Hmm. 19 dollars. I am too poor to sate my stross needs.

Audible trial membership includes a freebie.

[Abyss]

LABYRINTH INDEX

CASE NIGHTMARE SPOILER

HOLY FUCKING FUCK...




chapter 11... second to last chapter so do not read this unless you're there or don't care because it's NUTS....

Spoiler

seriously, don't spoil this for yourself...

Spoiler

"What do you think the Black Pharaoh, the Lord Of Sleep (that would be Cthulhu, btw), and the rest of their ilk, are fleeing from?"

...that one line just shuffled almost everything we thought we knew about what was going on in this series.


Stross.... fuckkkkkkkkkk.

[Andorion]

So, Stross is turning it up even further and still raising stakes at this juncture.

My chief takeaways from this:
Its a matter of time before the Black Pharaoh starts exacting too high a cost, and I guess that's where the SA's contingency comes in.

Things which give the Elder Gods nightmares? Is Case Nightmare expanging?
Is the Sleeper in the Pyramid neutralized?