The Rhesus Chart: A Laundry Files novel

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I hate that it wasn't specified enough in the version I bought. While I understood most that was going on, it's probably advisable to read the previous installments. See 1 question about The Rhesus Chart…. Lists with This Book. No no no no no no no. Just so you know: This 5th book details how Bob is sent to check on health and safety violations, leading him to the discovery that although vampires can't possibly be real In the form of a nasty other-dimensional parasite taking over. The reason we don't know about it and, indeed, deny the possibility?

Because they are good at secrecy.

Guess what happens when you drag one No no no no no no no. Guess what happens when you drag one of those secretive things into the light. I'm used to Stross' wonderful writing; his down-to-earth characters that are all fully developed, realistic; I either love them or love to hate them if you know what I mean. I'm also used to action, bureaucratic nightmares worse than any Eldrich Horror and the hilarity that ensues thus. The problem with that? The author has lured me into this false sense of security.

Here, we're treated to the whole treatment of shock, pain, grief. Seriously, I'll send the author my therapist's bill! There is loss and a lot of entanglements and emotions and And then the book just Now excuse me, I have a date with a family-sized box of tissues and need to apathetically rock back and forth on the couch.

View all 11 comments. Sep 08, Bradley rated it it was amazing Shelves: My god this series only gets better as it goes along.

I thought this was a somewhat weak novel in the whole mix but I was definitely mistaken. Knowing what comes later influences my decision. This is, however, a pretty big turning point for both Bob and the Laundry. His personal life suffers by way of the events that eventually occur, but the Laundry suffers more. And there a LOT of casualties. Of course, that means a general org-chart rearrangement and no manner of funny and light built-up in this novel will erase the fundamental tragedy.

But yeah, I laughed my ass off about the vampires. For most of the novel. It was gorgeous and satirical and clever as hell. If only the end hadn't been so dark! And yet, that darkness really hit me in the gut. That last bit makes me stay around.

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This is totally cool. Watching Bob become beast couldn't be more fun, and the workplace drama, whether it is the Laundry or cutthroat banking, is always humorous. Not too much was on the plate for this novel, but in my opinion, that was just fine. It allowed me to focus tightly on the interpersonal relations, and for good reason. The ending was a real zinger. The novels are only getting better as time goes on. View all 8 comments. Mar 20, Terje Bless rated it really liked it Shelves: I tend to give Stross' work 5 stars by default and then subtract from there. The Rhesus Chart , unfortunately, is sufficiently uneven that the 4 stars I do give it is a little bit generous and subjective.

I love the book, as I pretty much love everything Stross bothers putting to paper, but objectively this is among his weaker efforts in pure technical terms.

Its weakest aspect is, ironically, the central storytelling conceit: Where this has been a strength in previous book I tend to give Stross' work 5 stars by default and then subtract from there. Where this has been a strength in previous books—Howard's quirky personality and outsider's perspective are what actually makes the Laundry universe work—here Stross stumbles at times. At several points principally where Stross' narrator reaches for movie tropes and similar for summation the fourth wall is broken in a way that takes you out of the story even in first person prose, if the narrator too directly addresses the audience it breaks the suspension of disbelief.

Worse still, these instances tend to be points at which Stross for some reason feels the need to have Howard sum up the state of the story so far. If these had been summations of the story from previous installments I might have understood it not enjoyed it, perhaps, but understood it , but here he just sums up the previous chapter or two. It comes across as either filler or a somewhat insulting assumption that his audience can't keep up with the plot developments they've just been shown and have to be told what's going on. Fair enough that Stross' narrator is neither omniscient nor present at the events in question, but this holds true as well for the first third or so of the book where Howard has no trouble dramatizing the events preceding the point where he first intersects the plot.

The net effect is that a development that should be the climactic scene in this book, and fairly huge for the series and the Laundry universe as a whole, reads drily and perfunctory. This should have been swimming in pathos, and instead it barely managed to rise to the level of holding my interest. This of course compounds the fact that what is then left as the actual climax of the story—not least because this is the event which our narrator, Howard, is directly involved in—is written more as the penultimate challenge, the final set of minions before the boss fight. The combined effect is one of anti-climax and skews dangerously close to bathos when it comes time to exhibit the consequences.

There are also some annoying plot holes, the worst for me being that directly contradictory information is given about the state of a major character's fate in a way that undermines the tension that either possible outcome would have provided. These are annoying, but, I suspect, mostly reflect too much hurry during the writing and editing, and are overall minor sins for instance, a commenter on Stross' blog pointed out that the timeline currently leads to a minor character being pregnant for 11 months.

Overall I'm left with a suspicion that here we see the scaffolding poking through. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I were to learn that Stross signed a deal for a number of new books in the series of which this was the first, or that someone his agent, publisher, or his own commercial acumen pressured him to make this a good jumping-on point for new readers which, if nothing else, would explain the incessant summation. It also seems obvious to me which is usually the surest sign that I'm wrong, but still Everywhere the plot felt disjointed could be easily explained by Stross' hand trying to retcon and shift his characters and the universe into a subtly different direction to fit with his plans for the next three books.

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There are developments in Howard's personal life, telegraphed early in the book, that make sense mostly to supply a source of tension for future books. A character is introduced possibly intended as a deliberate red herring that probably will play no role for several books, but which take up disproportionate space in this book for no good reason.

Another character is reintroduced with a completely different personality than previously, and then goes on to exhibit such markedly divergent traits as to leave the overall impression as pure schizophrenia and to be clear, I'm implying that Stross either failed to reconcile different sides to this character, or simply changed his mind while writing and insufficiently corrected previous prose. Who exactly constitutes the main villain isn't exactly clear; there are several of them and despite enormous buildup, by the end of the book you can't help but feel they're actually all kinda pathetic.

Now, apparently the next book in the series will be narrated by Mo and will overlap with The Rhesus Chart , so possibly Stross had half an eye on that and the further books, but overall I'm just plain disappointed by this showing. There's no doubt Stross is a better author than what's on show here, and I had so been looking forward to that book. That all being said, even Stross half-assing it and phoning it in is better than most of his peers on their best showing.

While the scaffolding may show through, the remodel Stross seems to be attempting here is both necessary, timely, and makes me excited for future books in the Laundry universe. The plot may be a bit thin and strained at times, but Howard as a narrator is amusing as hell and draws you safely by thrills and horrors both.

And ultimately, more of Stross' unique vision and imagination is worthwhile no matter its wrapping. I love Stross' writing in general, and especially The Laundry Files, and that includes this particular ugly duckling. Not, contrary to apparent intent, the best place for new readers to get onboard I still recommend The Atrocity Archive for that , but for existing followers of Agent HOWARD's exploits, more Laundry can only be a good thing.

Sep 09, Mark rated it liked it. As I've said before, these are fun and I read each of them hoping I can give it four stars, but they always have too many problems that I can't ignore. I'll run down what for me are the top four issues of the current entry. The book is structured as a page prologue followed by a page main plot.

The Rhesus Chart : A Laundry Files novel

This causes obvious pacing problems, and the sad thing is it would be pretty straight-forward to fix in at least two different way. There is a hidden villain who turns out to be the Bob vs vampires. There is a hidden villain who turns out to be the minor character whose only role previously was to carry a sign saying "I am most definitely not the hidden villain. I cannot fathom what the point was in keeping them hidden and then revealing them. There is another villain that chooses to commit suicide as the only way of avoiding being killed. Since that it so obviously contradictory, it saps all of the impact out of that section.

Finally, the narrator stops the book at multiple points to say "hey reader, here is what is going on, here is what you should be paying attention to, and please note these are the villains and boy are they scary. So in summary, just like the others in the series.

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A fun book that could be much better. Jul 11, Matt rated it liked it Shelves: I'm having an increasingly love hate relationship with this series. The early books in the series had enthralling build ups but very weak endings. Stross seems to have overcome his problems building interesting exciting finales, but the books themselves are getting more and more boring in the lead up. And I'm really beginning to loath Bob as a narrator.

It's getting to the point where I'd be ok with Bob being eaten by some tentacle cosmic horror if I could just get his overly self-aware, self-imp I'm having an increasingly love hate relationship with this series. It's getting to the point where I'd be ok with Bob being eaten by some tentacle cosmic horror if I could just get his overly self-aware, self-important, not as funny as he thinks he is, hipster meme dropping self to just shut up.

Really, as an exercise in realistic creation of a semi-autistic English IT nerd, I have to admit it's pretty convincing, but Bob is turning into one of those pathetic nerds that irritates even other nerds. Sadly, I'm more and more convinced that the reason Bob's characterization is convincing, is Bob is just Charles himself. Backing up a bit, my first encounter with Charles was through the edition of the Fiend Folio, which was unique in being largely the creation of the UK branch of nerds rather than the Wisconsin clan.

One problem with this novel is if that if you don't understand what I just said, you won't understand the novel either. On some level as a geek I like that Stross doesn't bother to explain himself to the reader, but if he's going to do that he should go full bore and stop putting full summaries of the setting and recaps of past events every 20 pages. But even more so, I'd just rather he stop trying to prove he's a real geek and just get on with the story telling. Seriously, at this point adding oblique references to Numenera and the hundreds of other geek bits of the moment is doing nothing to make this a better story.

It's all wink, wink, nudge, nudge and let's see how many geek bonus XP we can earn if we reference some obscure element of the first episode of the original Star Trek, etc. But any way, in Fiend Folio Charles came up with the idea of the Slaad. Now the truth is, that the Slaad were a mix of genius and epic fail. They were genius enough to survive as beloved reoccurring content for a particular sort of geek, and epic fail enough that everyone that has looked at them seriously has said to themselves, "This is almost totally wrong.

Instead, they are a couple of good ideas married to a couple of bad ideas that basically makes them a kind of demon-lite. As a game token, they worked really well. As reification of some idea to toy with in your intellectual space, they just didn't - solid crunchy play things on one level and half-baked never refined ideas on the other. That's largely what the Laundry stores have always been, except that at least back in the day - as he was with the Slaad - Stross was a content provider. In these latest works, Stross seems less like a content provider and more like a content aggregator that is half Google web crawler and half 'Will it Blend?

Every paragraph dumps 50 meme references so that I really think it would be possible to reconstruct Stross's browser history in detail by pulling apart the novel, right down to which essays on The Guardian he read, which reddit threads he browsed, and on which days he visited DailyKos or DU to figure out what his colleagues across the pond were reading. The result of this is that Bob is the only believable character in the series, and only because Bob is Charles.

When Charles tries to give a voice to any other character in the series, it just completely falls flat. Now, as a DM I've encountered this sort of problem before. A bit of a spoiler here, but on page 1 of the book I guessed that Stross was going to kill off Mo. I'd seen it coming for a couple of books now.

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Mo is just getting in the way of Bob's increasingly sexy geek mojo. For the last three or four books, Bob would have been getting it on with a whole host of sexy eager girl super spies, if it wasn't for that whiny weepy ball and chain he has to go back to and which is a continual drag on his libido and sense of cool. It's clearly what Charles wanted to do, even as he had his alter self scrupulously adhering faithfully to his marriage vows. Lastly, the story is no longer in the least bit scary.

Stross still has never once excelled in terms of fear that moment Howard is racing across an alien landscape in order to close a door before something too big to imagine eats his whole universe way back in the first book. I hesitate to even classify this thin soup of totally scareless scenes as horror, except that by convention stories about vampires are in the horror category and Stross keeps name dropping to increasingly little point the Lovecraftian mythos.

But when you are saving the Earth by sticking a sticker on it, it's long left horror and entered the world of camp. Jul 02, Allen Adams rated it really liked it Shelves: Agent Bob Howard — the reluctant hero - is once more in the mi http: Agent Bob Howard — the reluctant hero - is once more in the middle of everything whether he likes it or not.

This time, a group of finance wonks at a major London bank have inadvertently developed a complex computer program that — in a world where magic and advanced math are one and the same — results in an infection of sorts. Said infection grants the afflicted heightened strength and awareness and advanced powers of persuasion — as well as an extreme sensitivity to sunlight and a thirst for blood. Before long, everyone has been pulled into the midst of a centuries-long enmity between warring factions that are more than willing to do whatever it takes to come out on top.

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On Earth, Agent First magically copies the look and memories of British drama student Cassiopeia Brewer, in order to infiltrate human society. This causes some problems, as Earth's liberal society is at first incomprehensible, and then later enticing, to the Elf. Alex's power being apparent also makes the otherwise hopelessly socially incompetent year-old virgin Alex very attractive to Cassie. The Elves invade Leeds , and while they suffer some losses due to modern technology being unknown and unexpected to them their military technology being based on magic , they do threaten the British heartland.

She reveals she was magically bound to take a magician to her father. Alex was supposed to be magically bound to Cassie's will, but because of Cassie's experience living Cassie's life, she has been turned against her superiors, and no longer wants to exterminate or enslave the entire human race. After killing Cassie's evil stepmother, Cassie and Alex escape, and an airstrike is called. The All-Highest is killed by a Hellfire missile fired by a Reaper drone. This automatically transfers the title of All-Highest of the Elves to Cassie, with magic enforcing obedience. As planned with Alex, she immediately surrenders to the UK army, declares the Elves to be refugees who cannot go home for fear of their lives, and requests asylum under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act The mastermind behind this plan turns out to be an old antagonist from The Apocalypse Codex , Raymond Schiller, still trying to bring about the end of the world.

The rump of the Laundry executes a coup in cooperation with the surviving cultists from The Fuller Memorandum , bringing Britain under the rule of Nyarlathotep as a lesser evil. The Delirium Brief is published by Tor. The Labyrinth Index is the ninth book in the Laundry Files series, and was released on 30 October Stross's short story " A Colder War " also mixes elements of Lovecraft and espionage, and is perhaps a precursor to the Laundry stories; however, the fictional background and assumptions are different, and it is its own distinct setting as the world is destroyed at the end of it, the Laundry series is clearly not a sequel.

Stross' short stories Down on the Farm , Overtime , and Equoid are within the same Laundry continuity. Down on the Farm and Equoid both take place between the second and third novels; Overtime takes place between the third and fourth novels. Cubicle 7 published The Laundry , a role-playing game based on the Laundry stories in July From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the British film, see The Criminal. For the American film, see The Concrete Jungle film. This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.

Retrieved 28 August By Paul Di Filippo". Archived from the original on 3 October Retrieved 3 October Science Fiction Book Club , ; pp. Back Home part Retrieved 9 April Retrieved 27 July Archived from the original on 21 October Archived from the original on 17 March Retrieved 17 November Retrieved 28 July Retrieved 22 June Bibliography of Charles Stross. Singularity Sky Iron Sunrise Halting State Rule 34 Saturn's Children Neptune's Brood Hugo Award for Best Novella.

Heinlein Waldo by Robert A. Bob Howard is an intelligence agent working his way through the ranks of the top secret government agency known as 'the Laundry'. When occult powers threaten the realm, they'll be there to clean up the mess - and deal with the witnesses. There's one kind of threat that the Laundry has never come across in its many decades, and that's vampires.

Mention them to a seasoned agent and you'll be laughed out of the room. But when a small team of investment bankers at one of Canary Wharf's most distinguished financial institutions discovers an arcane algorithm that leaves them fearing daylight and craving O positive, someone doesn't want the Laundry to know. And Bob gets caught right in the middle. The Best Books of Check out the top books of the year on our page Best Books of Looking for beautiful books?

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