Dead Lies Dreaming by Charles Stross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes I'm just astounded.

After reading this book, I'm not only reeling after a great Heist story, but I'm rocking to a Dark Fantasy that happens to be Hard SF while very much being a Superhero tale being couched in a Lovecraftian universe while setting me up to be murdered by Bond in its classic thriller milieu just before I wonder if Peter from Peter Pan will ever grow up.

If you're asking WTF, then you're in the right frame of mind.

And it's AWESOME.

For you old fans of Bob and Mo and fairy kingdoms clashing against Elder Gods, put your expectations on hold. There's not much of that here. We're very much in a day and age after a Greater Evil has taken over the government and the best thing that a government employee can hope for is holding the chaos at bay just a few seconds longer.

For the rest of us, and that includes a group of thieves and a thief-taker in modern pre-apocalyptic London, we've got a little mission. And a -- or rather, The Necronomicon.

If you're not just a tad thrilled (or horrified) by this news, then go read some romance fluff. That's the only genre that isn't expertly mashed in this brilliant novel.

Oddly enough, a new reader of Stross could read this particular novel without having read the previous ones. They may miss a lot of the worldbuilding jokes and might freak out at the sheer complexity of the inherent humor of computational necromancy or residual human resources, but that's okay. They'll still be in for a treat. After all, Santa is dead.

Long live Santa.

*I cackle, running off into the sunset, my hair turning pure white just before I jump on a sleigh, fleeing Boris Johnson*

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