One of the issues with the main protagonist ‘leveling up’ is that it can make them harder to write into a story. Bob Howard, who has been the main protagonist of the Laundry Files up until this point, was at the receiving end of both a career and supernatural-power advancement at the end of The Rhesus Chart. And this probably made it harder for Stross the write the same kinds of stories he had been up until that point. So for The Nightmare Stacks, he pivoted to the perspective of a newer, more entry level employee. I wasn’t originally sold on baby-vampire and neurotic mess Alex Schwartz as a protagonist when this book was first published, but honestly? I was quickly won over.
Alex is in some ways the opposite of Mo, who was our point of view in the previous book; she was in the business for years by the time of the Annihilation Score and was on the edge of a mental breakdown the entire time. In contrast, Alex is just dipping his toes in—he doesn’t even fully understand Case Nightmare Green. Alex was snapped up by the Laundry after his budding career in investment banking was left in tatters and he needed help managing his vampirism. The Laundry is setting up an auxiliary office in Leeds, of all places, and since Alex is originally from the area, that’s where they send him. Poor Alex is not terribly impressed with either the pay cut or the close proximity to his parents. Nor does he seem pleased to be share housing with other Laundry folks. However, I, as the reader was delighted; it’s been a while since with seen Pinky and Brains, Bob’s flatmates from the first book. And their bloody Kettenkrad! Add in some mentoring from Reverend Pete (who, like Mo, I’m always worrying over) and we have a rather cute Laundry B team on our hands.
As of both The Rhesus Chart and Annihilation Score, it’s becoming more and more clear that what’s left of the masquerade is hanging by the finest of threads and Case Nightmare Green—where magic becomes easier and and the Elder Gods threaten to return—is fast becoming a reality. But did you know that there are a proverbial ROYGBIV of other “Case Nightmares?”
Take Case Nightmare Red—the threat of alien invasion. This is broader than you think: the aliens do not need to come from ‘outer space’ per se but rather any place considered extra-dimensional. Currently, the excess magic that’s being generated by advanced computing across the last few decades has been creating a signal that links-up to the human noösphere. (Which is what we call the cumulation of total human experience, by the way.) This is, as you might suspect, is seen as attractive to Elder Gods. But this cultural-Klaxon can also alert other being from different realities to our existence. Yikes. The book doesn’t open with a quote from H.G. Wells for nothing.
But rather than coming from Mars, out latest threat comes from a set of humans from another dimension whose history took an alternative path; have you ever wondered how the genus Homo may have evolved if they started practicing magic during the Paleolithic period? That’s the alfär. Or, in plain English—elves. Again, like the vampires/PHANGs and the ‘superheros’ of Annihilation Score, elves are not a fantasy element that I’d assume would automatically work well with Lovecraftian horrors. But Stross really pulls it off here by adding his own flourishes to The Fair Folk. Northern England in not at risk of invasion from a fellowship of long-haired, pointy-eared pretty boys. The alfär are very alien. And very, very brutal.
All Laundry Files books involve juggling the domestic and the mundane with a good dose of action and unspeakable horrors, and The Nightmare Stacks is no exception. I think this is why it is one of my favourites: We have a nerdy, introverted vampire-boy connecting with a perky, green haired goth girl; we have the Laundry and the alfär pushing vampire-boy and goth-elf girl together in some screw-ball mutual honeypot plot; we have a Sunday dinner with Mum and Dad that goes disastrously off the rails*; and a full scale aerial assault between the Host of Air and Darkness, their dragons and two Eurofighter Typhoons.** In particular, if you are an aviation geek, there should be plenty to keep you engaged here. Or horrified:
Airline travel is remarkably safe than 21st century: TOM – 3748 is the first passenger airline to crash anywhere in the world this month. But it won’t be the last or the largest to do so today.
And this doesn’t include the shenanigans Pinky and Pete manage to get up with the bloody stupid Kettenkrad .
(It’s so dumb; I love it.)
If there is one flaw here though, it is the pacing; the slow build up with Alex arriving up north and meeting up with the perky green haired ‘Cassie’ progresses quite slowly in comparison to the end of the end of the book, which fells much more rushed and condensed. I would have killed for an extra chapter or even a de-brief at the end!
I don’t know how well Alex would have fared as a longer running protagonist, but he acquitted himself quite well here.
For cbr18bingo, this one is Left. Why? Case Nightmare Red came out of left field.
