A very funny novella. Answers the question - what if you wrote an airport thriller but only managed to write 86 pages before losing interest in the project? What happens when an editor begs for 'anything, we just need something to publish'? ( )

I only got around to reading this novella in 2023, despite my usual promptness in reading new installations in Stross' Laundry Files series. It was published in 2021, and concerned events set in 2014, prior to The Delirium Brief. It was a sort of nostalgic reading experience for me to go back before the New Management and read one of Bob Howard's adventures from those halcyon days when Case NIGHTMARE GREEN was merely terrifyingly imminent. This one hews far closer than most to the Ghostbusters paradigm of horror-comedy, even admitting as much in so many words (61).

In this tale, secret agent Bob is newly acceded to the responsibilities and powers of his recently-deceased mentor. He is dispatched to Japan to tie up some loose ends, and the results are typical: computational demonology meets eschatological kawaii-cum-kaiju, with a side order of a scarily competent para-human local contact to whom Bob is not attracted because he is conscientiously married (though separated).

There was a little more general exposition on the Laundryverse than I needed, but considering that I basically read the whole book in two sittings, I can't complain.

A novella, not a novel, and unfortunately not one of his best. Bob's been sent to Tokyo to help contain an outbreak of yokai - Japanese fokloric creatures - and the manifestation of a large, pink Hello Kitty. There are a few of the usuall Stross-like geeky jokes and allusions, but generally it's rather flat and overpriced for its size (86 pages). ( )

This novella fits between previous books and I had missed reading about Bob. This covers events where Bob was missing in the main line series since he was off in Japan. And now we find out just what he was doing there. Angleton didn’t make any friends when he helped with an incursion and now Bob is being sent to fill Angleton’s place on a job there. Bob is tested when he arrives to see if he can handle what he needs to work on. The story is classic Laundry Files, and I was glad to read it since I prefer this to the last few books that have come out in the offshoot of the main storyline

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss
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There is nothing wrong with this novella that another couple dozen pages wouldn't cure, but I'm just mostly happy to get a bit more of the adventures of Bob Howard. As always, your mileage may differ. ( )