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A review by sterling8
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
4.0
I seem to be awarding the Laundry books 4 stars an awful lot. The books are all good, and all have different small weaknesses.
The narrator in this book is Bob's wife, Mo. Mo is a combat epistemologist with a bone violin that can kill. At the beginning (and really, through to the end) of the book, she's suffering from PTSD and is dangerously close to burning out.
In this book, Stross is playing with the notion of superheroes. Case NIGHTMARE GREEN is ongoing, and the resulting uptick in supernatural energy is causing regular folks to manifest supernatural powers. Since superheroes are a dominant mythology at the moment, that's how people are interpreting these new abilities.
Mo is tasked with running a false-front agency which supposedly recruits superheroes and uses them to fight crime, but which really is watching for newly manifested powers and evaluating them for danger. Any superheroes they recruit are really icing on the cake, because the administrative team also doubles as a field team sent out to deal with strange phenomena. This team includes Mo, Mhari the vampire, Ramona the mermaid (both of these two are, coincidentally, Bob's ex somethings) and Office Friendly, a police officer who has turned up with superpowers who is attached to the office as a liaison for the police department.
Meanwhile, a mysterious entity known as Doctor Freudstein maneuvers for some shadowy goal, breaking into libraries and causing chaos. Mo dreams about her violin's possessing entity taking human form in dreams, acting as lover and as destroyer.
There was a lot more than usual about bureaucracy in this book. Mo works 80 hour weeks at this start-up, and her marriage to Bob is entirely on the back burner. They are at something of an impasse, her violin and Bob's new necromantic abilities have made it dangerous for them to be around each other. It's uncertain whether they can get through this. And Mo really does bury herself in work in an effort to avoid her marital and demonic troubles. It was actually kind of boring- I didn't care that much about which personnel would get their chairs put together first, and administrative meetings, even with Mahogany Row at the Laundry, were often rather dull. I know that this is actually the point of the books, but I'm becoming less entertained and a bit more weary of reading about the necessary logistics that must be behind the scenes of any operation.
And Mo and her support staff never talk about Bob. Never. It's like Stross lobbed a firecracker into the room and it turned out to be a dud. It's not that I want Mo's life to center around Bob, and I know that's the trope he's subverting. But then he pushes it to the point of it being odd that it's never brought up. It's nice to see these women acting professionally and relying on each other instead of getting in a cat fight. But honestly, Bob talks about Mo a lot more than Mo talks about Bob.
I actually do appreciate the look at a mature marriage- by mature I mean one that has lasted a long time. Bob and Mo see each other as partners as much as romantic opposites( maybe even more as partners). Mo doesn't have much in the way of hearts-and-flowers left in her about how she thinks about Bob. I think the reviewers who blame and deride her for this may be a bit unrealistic about how real women actually work. Women can love their husbands, sure, but that definitely doesn't mean that they don't notice the feet of clay as well as the best parts of their partner. I thought Mo was quite believable as a woman going through a rough patch in her marriage and unsure whether it would survive.
I'm not sure how well the comic-book heroes and demon violin worked together to form a plot. I'm not sure I want to read another book about organizational logistics. I think the joke is getting a bit tired for me. I know the series is really about how mundaneness interacts with the fantastic, but I'd like a bit more fantastic. That's the four stars. Oh, and once again, the main characters are bait. This happens in just about every book, and I've stopped being surprised by it. I'm ready for a different twist.
The narrator in this book is Bob's wife, Mo. Mo is a combat epistemologist with a bone violin that can kill. At the beginning (and really, through to the end) of the book, she's suffering from PTSD and is dangerously close to burning out.
In this book, Stross is playing with the notion of superheroes. Case NIGHTMARE GREEN is ongoing, and the resulting uptick in supernatural energy is causing regular folks to manifest supernatural powers. Since superheroes are a dominant mythology at the moment, that's how people are interpreting these new abilities.
Mo is tasked with running a false-front agency which supposedly recruits superheroes and uses them to fight crime, but which really is watching for newly manifested powers and evaluating them for danger. Any superheroes they recruit are really icing on the cake, because the administrative team also doubles as a field team sent out to deal with strange phenomena. This team includes Mo, Mhari the vampire, Ramona the mermaid (both of these two are, coincidentally, Bob's ex somethings) and Office Friendly, a police officer who has turned up with superpowers who is attached to the office as a liaison for the police department.
Meanwhile, a mysterious entity known as Doctor Freudstein maneuvers for some shadowy goal, breaking into libraries and causing chaos. Mo dreams about her violin's possessing entity taking human form in dreams, acting as lover and as destroyer.
There was a lot more than usual about bureaucracy in this book. Mo works 80 hour weeks at this start-up, and her marriage to Bob is entirely on the back burner. They are at something of an impasse, her violin and Bob's new necromantic abilities have made it dangerous for them to be around each other. It's uncertain whether they can get through this. And Mo really does bury herself in work in an effort to avoid her marital and demonic troubles. It was actually kind of boring- I didn't care that much about which personnel would get their chairs put together first, and administrative meetings, even with Mahogany Row at the Laundry, were often rather dull. I know that this is actually the point of the books, but I'm becoming less entertained and a bit more weary of reading about the necessary logistics that must be behind the scenes of any operation.
And Mo and her support staff never talk about Bob. Never. It's like Stross lobbed a firecracker into the room and it turned out to be a dud. It's not that I want Mo's life to center around Bob, and I know that's the trope he's subverting. But then he pushes it to the point of it being odd that it's never brought up. It's nice to see these women acting professionally and relying on each other instead of getting in a cat fight. But honestly, Bob talks about Mo a lot more than Mo talks about Bob.
I actually do appreciate the look at a mature marriage- by mature I mean one that has lasted a long time. Bob and Mo see each other as partners as much as romantic opposites( maybe even more as partners). Mo doesn't have much in the way of hearts-and-flowers left in her about how she thinks about Bob. I think the reviewers who blame and deride her for this may be a bit unrealistic about how real women actually work. Women can love their husbands, sure, but that definitely doesn't mean that they don't notice the feet of clay as well as the best parts of their partner. I thought Mo was quite believable as a woman going through a rough patch in her marriage and unsure whether it would survive.
I'm not sure how well the comic-book heroes and demon violin worked together to form a plot. I'm not sure I want to read another book about organizational logistics. I think the joke is getting a bit tired for me. I know the series is really about how mundaneness interacts with the fantastic, but I'd like a bit more fantastic. That's the four stars. Oh, and once again, the main characters are bait. This happens in just about every book, and I've stopped being surprised by it. I'm ready for a different twist.