aPriL does feral sometimes 's Reviews > The Fuller Memorandum

If Dilbert, the office nerd from the eponymous comic strip, was working for a top-secret English organization (called The Laundry) which specializes in tracking down Lovecraftian critters and Old Gods who are escaping from other dimensions into our own, you’d have the personality and life of main character Bob Howard, narrator of the Laundry Files series. ‘The Fuller Memorandum’ is the third in author’s Charles Stross’ alternate universe science fiction/horror/fantasy series. Howard is a computer geek who has by necessity learned special skills of magic in addition to those of a computer technician. Besides being a whiz at math and computer programming, he now knows a lot of magical spells and the art of dispelling demonic Cthuloid attacks.

Howard is not happy about this, but he doesn’t have a choice in working for The Laundry. In the first book, The Atrocity Archives, he accidentally almost destroyed an entire English city by creating a magical computer algorithm. So. He was given a choice - work for the good guys of The Laundry, or die, or something. Because he activated a portal, he demonstrated he had the talent The Laundry needs. This talent made him dangerous to be loose in the world without any knowledge or training about his skill set. Besides, in the second book, The Jennifer Morgue, he falls in love with another Laundry employee, Dr. Dominique (Mo) O’Brien.

There is an American and a Russian spy department which also deals with the Old Gods and the various magical monsters who invade our universe. Everyone in these national organizations try to play nice together, but, you know, nationalist pride of place in defeating horrific stomach-turning monsters.

I have copied the book blurb:

”Bob Howard is taking a much needed break from the field to catch up on his filing in The Laundry's archives when a top secret dossier known as The Fuller Memorandum vanishes - along with his boss, whom the agency's executives believe stole the file.

Determined to discover exactly what the memorandum contained, Bob runs afoul of Russian agents, ancient demons, and the apostles of a hideous faith, who have plans to raise a very unpleasant undead entity known as the Eater of Souls...”

It's in the book of rules for agents of The Laundry that officers keep a classified journal of their assignments, thus Howard’s narration. This is a good thing, gentler reader. The horrors of Howard’s job, both human- and monster-caused, puts his life in exciting jeopardy every time he must go into the field. Not to mention the awful rules of corporate life which drain the mind of energy because of the time-sucking horrors of required expense and activity reports, and attendance at Human Resource meetings, with which many of us can sympathize. We readers would never know about the terrors going on behind the screen of what we think of as ordinary life, or the bravery of the secret agents of The Laundry otherwise, if not for these books! You go, Bob!