The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'll be honest, I've been a long-time raving fan of the Laundry Files, so when I got the next pre-release from Netgalley I practically fell over.

For those of you who've never had this on your radar, let me synopsize: It's part Spy-Novel, part Gibbering Cthulhu horrorshow, and part bureaucratic nightmare. Oh, and it's wickedly funny and charming and I love all the characters in this SF-UF. Sound good?

Oh yeah, and we get a huge dose of Bob in this latest one. Lately, we've been getting great Mo and great Alex and Cassie, too, but Bob has been my main go-to guy here, from his days as computational magic-tech-support all the way through his rise in active-duty Spy to middle management and THEN to... *gasp* upper-management. His wife Mo with her ex-eldritch-murder-violin has had her own bump into Senior Auditor status, never to be left behind.

But what about now? What is the Eater of Souls doing?

Oh, nothing much. Just fielding the Elvish invasion/sanctuary application fallout on English Soil, fencing with mind-numbing horrors and other paperwork, and a full-scale liquidation of the Laundry Files. Oops. Political nightmares! But what about all the demons in the basement? What is to happen with them or our Special K or our beleaguered fanged civil servants?

Here's the best part, however... we get a huge dose of Bob AND Mo AND Alex and Cassie in this novel, yo! All the mainstays get their time in the light, and good thing, too, because things have never been this dire.

What about the (magical) Oaths of Service, man??? Oh man...

Is it the end of the world? Very likely.

I won't spoil this because it hasn't even been released yet, but the twist is absolutely horrifying. I read the entire thing with a huge smile on my face. It's just one of those kinds of novels.

Utterly enjoyable, that is.

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