The Jennifer Morgue

Charles Stross

Language: English

Publisher: Penguin

Published: Jan 13, 2009

Description:

From Publishers Weekly

In this alternately chilling and hilarious sequel to The Atrocity Archives (2004) from Hugo-winner Stross, Bob Howard is a computer übergeek employed by the Laundry, a secret British agency assigned to clean up incursions from other realities caused by the inadvertent manipulation of complex mathematical equations: in other words, magic. In 1975, the CIA used Howard Hughes's Glomar Explorer in a bungled attempt to raise a sunken Soviet submarine in order to access the Jennifer Morgue, an occult device that allows communication with the dead. Now a ruthless billionaire intends to try again, even if by doing so he awakens the Great Old Ones, who thwarted the earlier expedition. It's up to Bob and a collection of British eccentrics even Monty Python would consider odd to stop the bad guy and save the world, while getting receipts for all expenditures or else face the most dreaded menace of all: the Laundry's own auditors. Stross has a marvelous time making eldritch horror appear commonplace in the face of bureaucracy. (Dec.)
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Review

"Stross packs this new novel full of hilarious in-jokes and frenetic set pieces."
-_San Francisco Chronicle_

"One of the most enjoyable novels of the year... Stross steps carefully through all of the archetypes of a classic Bond adventure without ever becoming predictable. The resolution is as perfect as it is unexpected."
-Jonathan Strahan, editor of the annual Best Short Novels anthology series

"Some writers play with archetypes. In The Jennifer Morgue, Charlie Stross makes them sing, dance, and do the dishes for him."
-S. M. Stirling, national bestselling author of The Scourge of God

"_The Jennifer Morgue_ is Stross's most entertaining novel to date...Astonishing."
- Locus

"Alternately chilling and hilarious."
-_Publishers Weekly_