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''The Laundry Files'' is a series of novels by British writer Charles Stross. They mix the genres of
Lovecraftian horror Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named a ...
,
spy thriller Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligen ...
,
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
, and workplace humour. Their main character for the first five novels is "Bob Howard" (a pseudonym taken for security purposes), a one-time I.T. consultant turned
occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
field agent. Howard is recruited to work for the Q-Division of
SOE SOE may refer to: Organizations * State-owned enterprise * Special Operations Executive, a British World War II clandestine sabotage and resistance organisation ** Special Operations Executive in the Netherlands, or Englandspiel * Society of Opera ...
, otherwise known as "the Laundry", the British government agency which deals with occult threats. "
Magic Magic or Magick most commonly refers to: * Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces * Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic * Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
" is described as being a branch of applied computation (mathematics), therefore computers and equations are just as useful, and perhaps more potent, than classic spellbooks, pentagrams, and sigils for the purpose of influencing ancient powers and opening gates to other dimensions. These occult struggles happen largely out of view of the public, as the Laundry seeks to keep the methods for contacting such powers under wraps. There are also elements of dry humour and satirisation of bureaucracy. While the stories are partially inspired by the
Cthulhu mythos The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an ...
universe created by H. P. Lovecraft and others, they are not set in Lovecraft's universe. In Stross's world, the greatest magicians are the scientists who closely study the phenomena; it features a
secret history A secret history (or shadow history) is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars. "Secret history" is also used to desc ...
of historical thinkers who also dabbled in or stumbled upon occult uses of their work. ''The Concrete Jungle'' and ''Equoid'' both won the Hugo Award for Best Novella, and "Overtime" was a nominee for best novelette. The series as a whole was nominated for the
Hugo Award for Best Series The Hugo Award for Best Series is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The award is available for series of science fiction or fanta ...
in 2019.


''The Atrocity Archives''

''The Atrocity Archives'' is the first collection of Laundry stories by British author Charles Stross. It is set in 2002–3 and was published in 2006. 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
fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...
s; 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 A secret history (or shadow history) is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real history which is claimed to have been deliberately suppressed, forgotten, or ignored by established scholars. "Secret history" is also used to desc ...
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 Irish Professor of Logic 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 and 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 David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many a ...
'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 Frost is a thin layer of ice on a solid surface, which forms from water vapor in an above-freezing atmosphere coming in contact with a solid surface whose temperature is below freezing, and resulting in a phase transition, phase change from wa ...
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 SAS or Sas may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''SAS'' (novel series), a French book series by Gérard de Villiers * ''Shimmer and Shine'', an American animated children's television series * Southern All Stars, a Japanese rock ba ...
agents open their own gate, infiltrate the frozen universe, rescue Mo, and leave a nuclear bomb to 'sanitise' the scene. Bob belatedly realises 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 The ''Concrete Cows'' in Milton Keynes, England are an iconic work of sculpture, created in 1978 by the American artist Liz Leyh. There are three cows and three calves, approximately half life size. The ''Cows'' are constructed from scrap, s ...
in
Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...
. 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 –
Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794),
CNRS (
Geiger, and Rutherford. Alarmingly, the government has built a network to artificially emulate gorgons in
FPGA A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term '' field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware de ...
s, then planned a network of cameras that could be hooked into this emulation – the
CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly t ...
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 unauthorised 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 unauthorised installations. Howard, with the assistance of
Detective Inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia In Australian police forces, the rank of inspector is generally the ne ...
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 McLuhan is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Eric McLuhan (1941–2018), Canadian writer * Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980), Canadian educator, philosopher and scholar {{Short pages monitor