The Labyrinth Index

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R256XPQRQLA03W?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

I have always been a big fan of Charles Stross's Laundry series. The combination of spy tropes/Human Resources bureaucracy/IT Nerdism/Occult tropes blended with droll British humor means that when I pick up the next volume in the series, I know I'm guaranteed a good time.

The Labyrinth Index is no exception.

An interesting feature of the Labyrinth Index is where we are in the development of Stross's universe. We started the series with the premise that (a) occult powers exist, (b) computers were able to invoke those powers, and (c) the governments of the world were bottling up this problem. The assumed world of the series was that occult entities and magic were part of the Secret Histories that explain the world.

In this book, we have manifestly moved into a parallel universe. At the close of the last installment, the British government had surrended to Nyarlhoteph, the Black Pharoah, in the guise of a very charismatic Member of Parliament. In the book before that, England had been invaded by an Elven army. In this book, all of America has forgotten the existence of the Presidency.

We are clearly in a parallel universe, at this point.

The narrator of this book is Mhari Murphy, who we first met in the Rhesus Chart when she was transformed into a vampire, or “PHANG,” and brought into the Laundry as an employee with disabilities. Other PHANG's have played important roles in previous books. In this book, Murphy is tasked by the PM with leading an SOE task force to locate the missing President, while avoiding the American “Nazguls”, agents of the American Operational Phenomenology Agence, who have decided to throw their lot in with Cthulhu. Since the Nazgul's plot involves dismantling the Earth, the new British management is very concerned.

Bob makes a cameo in this novel, but the story runs quite well without Bob. As the Eater of Souls, we have to question whether Bob can bring the fish out of water element that makes these stories work. The common theme of most of these books is that the main characters are amateurs and know that they are in over their heads. I'm not sure that Bob can pull that off anymore.

Readers should embrace the evolution of the series. Each of the stories has worked with a variety of genres, from James Bond to LeCarre to Superheroes to horror. Stross has been a virtuoso in not replowing the same ground and keeping his series alive.

The series is fun. Check it out, but remember to start from the beginning.