Laundry Files
11 primary works • 15 total works
Book 1
'Brilliantly disturbing and funny at the same time' Ben Aaronovitch on the Laundry Files
'Tremendously good, geeky fun' Telegraph on the Laundry Files
NEVER VOLUNTEER FOR ACTIVE DUTY . . .
Bob Howard is a low-level techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob's under a desk restoring lost data. His world was dull and safe - but then he went and got Noticed.
Now, Bob is up to his neck in spycraft, parallel universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than a full system reboot to sort this mess out . . .
This is the first novel in the Laundry Files.
Praise for this series:
'Charles Stross owns this field, and his vast, cool intellect has launched yet another mad, sly entertainment that will strangle the hell out of anything else on offer right now' Warren Ellis
'Stross at the top of his game - which is to say, few do it better' KIRKUS
'Alternately chilling and hilarious' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
'Ferociously enjoyable - SFX
Book 1.5
Book 2
SOME AGENTS HAVE ALL THE FUN. OTHERS SAVE THE WORLD.
Bob Howard is an IT expert and occasional field agent for the Laundry, the branch of Her Majesty's Secret Service that deals with occult threats.
Dressed (grudgingly) in a tux and sent to the Caribbean, he must infiltrate a millionaire's yacht in order to prevent him from violating a treaty that will bring down the wrath of an ancient underwater race upon humanity's head. Partnered with a gorgeous American agent who's actually a soul-sucking succubus from another dimension, Bob's mission (should he choose to accept it) is to stop the bad guys, avoid getting the girl, and survive - shaken, perhaps, but not stirred.
Book 2.9
Book 3
Bob Howard is an IT specialist and field agent for the Laundry, the branch of Her Majesty's secret service that deals with occult threats.
Overworked and underpaid, Bob is used to his two jobs overflowing from a strict nine to five and, since his wife Mo has a very similar job description, he understands that work will sometimes follow her home, too. But when 'work' involves zombie assassins and minions of a mad god's cult, he realises things are spinning out of control.
When a top-secret dossier goes missing and his boss Angleton is implicated, Bob must contend with suspiciously helpful Russian intelligence operatives and an unscrupulous apocalyptic cult before confronting the decades-old secret that lies at the heart of the Laundry: what is so important about the missing Fuller Memorandum? And why are all the people who know dying . . . ?
Book 4
Bob Howard used to fix computers for the Laundry - the branch of the British Secret Service that deals with otherworldly threats - but those days are over. He's not only been promoted to active service but actually survived missions against cultists, enemy spies and tentacled horrors from other dimensions. Willingly or not, he's on his way up in this dangerous organisation.
When a televangelist with connections to 10 Downing Street seems able to work miracles, the Laundry takes an interest. But an agency that answers to the Prime Minister can't spy on him themselves, and Bob's shadowy superiors come up with a compromise - they hire 'freelancers', with Bob in charge.
British citizens who discover the occult are either forcibly recruited by the Laundry or disposed of, and Bob's never heard of freelancers before. Officially they don't exist. Anyone who's big and bad enough to remain independent is going to be hard to handle, and Bob's not too sure that the one-week 'people management' course he was sent on in Milton Keynes is going to be enough . . .
Book 5
LONDON CAN DRAIN THE LIFE OUT OF YOU . . .
Bob Howard is an intelligence agent working his way through the ranks of the top secret government agency known as 'the Laundry'. When occult powers threaten the realm, they'll be there to clean up the mess - and deal with the witnesses.
There's one kind of threat that the Laundry has never come across in its many decades, and that's vampires. Mention them to a seasoned agent and you'll be laughed out of the room.
But when a small team of investment bankers at one of Canary Wharf's most distinguished financial institutions discovers an arcane algorithm that leaves them fearing daylight and craving O positive, someone doesn't want the Laundry to know. And Bob gets caught right in the middle.
Book 6
Book 7
Book 7.5
Escape from Yokai Land explains what he was doing there.
Bob's been assigned to work with the Miyamoto Group, checking the wards that lock down Japan's warded sites-a task previously handled by his predecessor Dr. Angleton, the Eater of Souls. This mostly involves policing yokai: traditional magical beings, increasingly grown more annoying and energetic.
But then Bob's simple trip turns into a deadly confrontation with the ultimate yokai. It's massively powerful. It's pink. And it says "Hello."
Book 8
SHORTLISTED FOR THE LOCUS AWARD 2018
Bob Howard's career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from the supernatural, has involved brilliant hacking, ancient magic and combat with creatures of pure evil.
Now the Laundry's existence has become public, and Bob is being trotted out on TV to answer pointed questions about elven asylum seekers. What neither Bob nor his managers have foreseen is that their organisation has earned the attention of a horror far more terrifying than any demon: a government looking for public services to privatise. There are things in the Laundry's assets that big business would simply love to get its hands on . . .
Inch by inch, Bob Howard and his managers are forced to consider the truly unthinkable: a coup against the British government itself.
'Brilliantly disturbing and funny at the same time' Ben Aaronovitch
Previous titles in this series:
THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES
THE JENNIFER MORGUE
THE FULLER MEMORANDUM
THE APOCALYPSE CODEX
THE RHESUS CHART
THE ANNIHILATION SCORE
THE NIGHTMARE STACKS
Book 9
Britain is under New Management. The disbanding of the Laundry - the British espionage agency that deals with supernatural threats, has culminated in the unthinkable - an elder god in residence in 10 Downing Street.
But in true 'the enemy of my enemy' fashion, Mhari Murphy finds herself working with His Excellency Nylarlathotep on foreign policy - there are worse things, it seems, than an elder god in power, and they lie in deepest, darkest America.
A thousand-mile-wide storm system has blanketed the midwest, and the president is nowhere to be found - Mhari must lead a task force of disgraced Laundry personnel into the storm front to discover the truth. But working for an elder god is never easy, and as the stakes rise, Mhari will soon question exactly where her loyalties really lie.
Book 10
In a world where magic has gone mainstream, a policewoman and a group of petty criminals are pulled into a heist to find a forbidden book of spells that should never be opened.
A new adventure begins in the world of the Laundry Files.
Dead Lies Dreaming presents a nightmarish vision of a Britain 'under New Management', sliding unknowingly towards occult cataclysm . . .
'Brilliantly disturbing and funny at the same time' Ben Aaronovitch, on the Laundry Files
'Stross at the top of his game - which is to say, few do it better' Kirkus
'Ferociously enjoyable' SFX
Laundry Files series:
THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES
THE JENNIFER MORGUE
THE FULLER MEMORANDUM
THE APOCALYPSE CODEX
THE RHESUS CHART
THE ANNIHILATION SCORE
THE NIGHTMARE STACKS
THE DELIRIUM BRIEF
THE LABYRINTH INDEX
The Laundry Files: Under New Management
DEAD LIES DREAMING
Book 11
It's a brave new Britain under the New Management. The Prime Minister is an eldritch god of unimaginable power. Crime is plummeting as almost every offense is punishable by death. And everywhere you look, there are people with strange powers, some of which they can control, and some, not so much.
Hyperorganised and formidable, Eve Starkey defeated her boss, the louche magical adept and billionaire Rupert de Montfort Bigge, in a supernatural duel to the death. Now she's in charge of the Bigge Corporation, just in time to discover the lethal trap Rupert set for her long ago . . .
Wendy Deere is investigating unauthorized supernatural shenanigans. She swore to herself she wouldn't again get entangled with Eve Starkey's bohemian brother Imp and his crew of transhuman misfits. Yeah, right.
Mary Macandless has powers of her own. Right now she's pretending to be a nanny in order to kidnap the children of a pair of famous, Government-authorized adepts. These children have powers of their own, and Mary Macandless is in way over her head.
All of these stories will come together, with world-bending results...
'For all of Stross's genuine ability to spook and dismay, The Laundry Files are some of the most tremendously humane books I've ever read'
Tamsyn Muir, author of Gideon the Ninth
