The Fuller Memorandum (Laundry Files Series #3)

by Charles Stross

Overview

Computational demonologist Bob Howard is taking a much-needed break from the field to catch up on his filing in the Laundry archives when a top secret dossier known as the Fuller Memorandum vanishes—along with his boss, who the agency’s executives believe stole the file.
           
Determined to discover exactly what the memorandum contained (and perhaps clear his boss), Bob runs afoul of Russian agents, ancient demons, and the apostles if a hideous faith who have plans to raise a very unpleasant undead entity known as the Eater of Souls.
          
Now Bob must use all of his skills to learn the secret of the Fuller Memorandum in order to save the world—and avoid becoming an item on the Eater of Souls’s dinner menu…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780441020508
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/28/2011
Series:	Laundry Files Series , #3
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	642,131
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 6.70(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Charles Stross, born in 1964, is a full-time science fiction writer and resident of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the author of seven Hugo-nominated novels, including Accelerando, Neptune’s Brood, Saturn’s Children and The Laundry Files series, and winner of three Hugo Awards for best novella. Stross has had his work translated into more than twelve languages. He has worked as a pharmacist, software developer, and tech-industry journalist.

Read an Excerpt

Bob Howard, accidental hero, return in the fourth of Charles Stross's novel about the activities of that most secret of British secret agencies—The Laundry.

Prologue

Losing My Religion

There can be only one true religion. Are you feeling lucky, believer?

Like the majority of ordinary British citizens, I used to be a good old–fashioned atheist, secure in my conviction that folks who believed—in angels and demons, supernatural manifestations and demiurges, snake-fondling and babbling in tongues and the world being only a few thousand years old—were all superstitious idiots. It was a conviction encouraged by every crazy news item from the Middle East, every ludicrous White House prayer breakfast on the TV. But then I was recruited by the Laundry, and learned better.

I wish I could go back to the comforting certainties of atheism; it's so much less unpleasant than the One True Religion.

The truth won't make your Baby Jesus cry because, sad to say, there ain't no such Son of God. Moses may have taken two tablets before breakfast, but there was nobody home to listen to the prayers of the victims of the Shoah. The guardians of the Ka'abah have got the world's best tourism racket running, the Dalai Lama isn't anybody's reincarnation, Zeus is out to lunch, and you really don't want me to start on the neo-pagans.

However, there is a God out there—vast and ancient and infinitely powerful—and I know the name of this God. I know the path you have to walk down to be one with this God. I know his secret rituals and the correct form of prayer and his portents and signs. I have studied the ancient writings of his prophets and followers in person, not simply relying on the classified digests in the CODICIL BLACK SKULL files and the background briefings for CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN.

I'm a believer. And like I said, I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh, uncaring cosmos—in which my existence was a random roll of the dice and I was destined to die and rot and then be gone forever—was infinitely more comforting than the truth.

Because the truth is that my God is coming back.

When he arrives I'll be waiting for him with a shotgun.

And I'm keeping the last shell for myself.

A couple of years ago, Angleton suggested I start writing my memoirs. It seemed a pretty weird idea at the time—a thirty-year-old occult intelligence officer should take time off on the job to work on his autobiography?—but he had a point. "Bob," he said, in his usual frighteningly avuncular tones, with a voice like dry sheets of parchment rubbing, "like it or not, that thick little skull of yours contains valuable institutional knowledge that has been acquired over years of service for H. M. Government. If you don't start now, you may never catch up with the job. And if you don't catch up with the job, part of the Laundry's institutional memory might vanish for good." He gave a curious little chuckle, as if he regretted having had to admit that there was any value to my meager contribution. "You might die on your next field assignment, or be turned by the enemy. And that'd be nearly ten years of work down the drain."

Then he pointed me at the rule book that explained how all officers above OC2 rank are required to either keep a classified journal or to periodically update their memoirs, which would be stored under lock and key—automatically classified under the various keywords they'd been cleared for during the time period covered—the books to be opened only in event of their author's death, retirement, or permanent disablement in the line of duty.

You know something? I hate writing. I keep having to distract myself, hence all the little jokes. It's actually not as if the job is all that funny, when you get down to it. Especially as I have to write everything either in longhand or on a 1962 Triumph Adler 66 manual typewriter, and burn the ribbons and carbon papers afterwards in the Security Office incinerator in front of two witnesses with high security clearances. I'm not allowed to use rubber bands or paper clips to hold the papers together (although string and, ye horrors, traditional red sealing wax—and don't get me started on how difficult it is to melt the stuff in a smoke–free building with fire detectors in every office—is permitted). My fingers are hardwired for the Emacs programmers' editor and a laptop; this historic office re–enactment stuff gets old real fast. But I digress.

This is the story of how I lost my atheism, and why I wish I could regain it. This is the story of the people who lost their lives in an alien desert bathed by the hideous radiance of a dead sun, and the love that was lost and the terror that wakes me up in a cold sweat about once a week, clawing at the sheets with cramping fingers and drool on my chin. It's why Mo and I aren't living together right now, why my right arm doesn't work properly, and I'm toiling late into the night, trying to bury the smoking wreckage of my life beneath a heap of work.

It's the story of what happened to the Fuller Memorandum, and the beginning of the end of the world.

Are you sure you want to carry on?

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Fuller Memorandum"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Charles Stross.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

Great entertainment—fast, smart, and frequently funny....Combines a Le Carré-style espionage thriller with Lovecraftian horror to great effect." – The Guardian (UK)

“A terrific pull-no-punches paranormal espionage thriller as the action starts from the onset…Bond and Bourne never face the adversaries Howard confronts.” – Alternative Worlds

“Urban fantasy done just the way I like it…full of twists, turns, and surprises.” – Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review

From the Publisher

The third installment in the Laundry Files, which spoofs spy thrillers, will be richer for having read the earlier books. Bob Howard is placed in an untenable position when his boss disappears and a top-secret file goes missing. Bob is an agent in a branch of the British intelligence service, the Laundry, which goes after magical threats: demons and the like. Gideon Emery is an engaging narrator who makes Howard a down-to-earth spy with moments of introspection and nonviolent tendencies. Emery’s offhand manner keeps the narration light even when bad events happen. He rides with the tongue-in-cheek humor without overdoing it. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2011 - AudioFile