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A review by songwind
The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross
3.0
It was a little hard to decide how to rate this book.
In many ways, it's an excellent Laundry novel. Poking fun at government bureaucracy, portents of the end of the world, etc. We're back in the head of Bob Howard, former IT monkey and gofer, now Eater of Souls andDeeply Scary SorcererDetached Special Secretary. I think Stross handled the change in Bob's circumstances quite well. As the Eater, he's no longer in the position of being a light snack for the things they come up against, and his time with Johnny and Persephone in [b:The Apocalypse Codex|12393566|The Apocalypse Codex (Laundry Files, #4)|Charles Stross|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1318285337s/12393566.jpg|17374689] has left him better able to handle physical threats. So the problems instead are more internal (keeping the Eater in check), political, and existential.
The main secondary theme of this novel is government privatization and corruption. That's played fairly well, too.
Where the wheels start to come off is agency.
The real kick in the pants is that even those three end up being bailed out by a sketchily set-up deus ex machina at the end.
All in all, I didn't dislike the book at all - but it was definitely a step down from the middle books of the series in terms of quality of execution.
In many ways, it's an excellent Laundry novel. Poking fun at government bureaucracy, portents of the end of the world, etc. We're back in the head of Bob Howard, former IT monkey and gofer, now Eater of Souls and
The main secondary theme of this novel is government privatization and corruption. That's played fairly well, too.
Where the wheels start to come off is agency.
Spoiler
Bob himself, despite being the primary POV character, accomplishes almost nothing. The things he does accomplish are mostly planned and ordered by the Senior Auditor. And Johnny ends up doing most of the heavy lifting there. Mo, Mary and Seph accomplish more - which is fine, but maybe they should have been the focus of the novel rather than Bob, like the last 2.The real kick in the pants is that even those three end up being bailed out by a sketchily set-up deus ex machina at the end.
All in all, I didn't dislike the book at all - but it was definitely a step down from the middle books of the series in terms of quality of execution.