Haven't read anything else by him yet, but his novelette, "A Colder War" is one of the most frightening Lovecraftian stories I've come across.
Randy M.
For those who haven't read A colder War, the following contains spoilers.
IIRC A Colder War is very much in the spirit and vein of the Laundry Books, but they do also contain humour to lighten things up. Like when Bob is sent to a meeting in a "real" Civil Service building (ie not connected to the ultra top secret Laundry, or the other intelligence agencies) that is about some obscure IT mumbo jumbo to do with "certification processes" and "best standards, of". As well as being a Computational Daemonologist Bob is also as his day job, the main bod responsible for the IT Network in the Laundry HQ, so has to go to such things. Whilst waiting for it to start, he meets a lovely chap called Allan, does something Civil Service IT related too as his day job, but says something along the lines of, "I belong to a little London Gun club called the Artist's Rifles, and Bob thinks nothing more.
Later, Bob is getting suited up - an attack in Amsterdam has ripped open a portal to another reality, featuring an empty plain with a large fortress like building in the near distance, nobody is quite sure where this is, or who opened the portal, and then someone looking through, looks up, this world has a nice very large Moon. And is has been Carved into a Mount Rushmore type bust of Adolph Hitler. His military support then arrives, dressed as firemen, as the portal is in a hotel, and they can't exactly shout "Keep back, someones ripped open a portal into another reality" so are making it look like a gas leak. To Bob's shock, Allan is leading his support unit. The Artist's Rifles are in fact the SAS's Territorial Army/Reserve Force. It just boggles the mind that in order to partially give them something to do when nowt's going on, assist their cover as Civil Servants and because even in the Laundry, Britains Front Line in Defending the Earth from the Scum of the Multiverse, Budget's, are just as viciously guarded, argued about and fought over as in the real/main Civil Service, and it just wouldn't do having these people just sat around, twiddling their thumbs doing nothing and sucking up budget resources that they have to attend meetings about obscure gubbins. Plenty of fun had in the series around those themes. The Laundry is a place where Heads of HR regularly attempt power games, and manoeuvres designed to get them "noticed" by "The Board" and secure further Promotion, and in the process end up endangering the secrecy of the Laundry, or actively murdering staff/causing them to be killed by whatever scheme they are running. Of course, in the Laundry such things are not... dealt with lightly when they fail or are exposed. Bob's Boss, Angleton has the Heads of HR caught behaving in that way in his Office. Literally. Disciplinary procedures tend to be somewhat firmer than demotion or dismissal, the heads of HR literally end up as Heads on Angleton's desk, shrunken "cannibal" style heads.
I say Boss, The Laundry operates a "Matrix Management Style" which means that day to day, Bob reports to the current Head of HR (at least whilst she or he is in possession of said head) but is also Angletons PA, and carries a much higher security rating than his nominal HR Manager, despite that Manager being, in terms of promotion several rungs up the ladder above him. So they get peed off, since he wont discuss any of his work outside of his IT duties. Seriously, the books delve deep into all that labyrinthine way and general insanity that tends to exist in Civil Service Departments, and yet it stays funny, and does not draw or bore you out of the main plot. They also operate a strict non negotiable policy that nobody outside the Laundry can know about what they are defending the Kingdom, and the Earth from, which means that when "Civvies" get involved, witnessing the stuff, whether it's witnessing a Terror from another Plane, someone in the know and idiotic enough to attempt to summon a being, but don't pay attention to either preparing the containment "circuitry" or breach it once the being is summoned, and immediately get turned into a zombie with horrid wiggly green worms in their eyes. So, when that happens to you, you get 1 offer, like I say non negotiable, you have to go and work in the Laundry, even if it's just as a filing clerk or admin assistant.
Bob got his Job offer not long after graduating at Wolverhampton University. He was sat in his student flat, playing with Fractals, when he noticed something odd, thankfully soon after, Angleton kicked down the door and stopped him from clicking Run on the realtime rendering algorithm he had written after noticing the odd thing, which turned out to be an open and ungrounded summoning grid that would have summoned a being which would have levelled Wolverhampton.
I absolutely love these books and try to get everyone into them (I wonder if it shows) its bloody hard to try and give a feel of how awesome they are, without revealing genuine Spoilers, so I have to carefully restrain myself. I am not sure how the general "not we" public view them, as you certainly benefit the most if you are a geek with an interest in horror, science fiction, fantasy, and some interest in espionage thrillers and computers - Charles is a Software Engineer, with a Comp Sci Degree which shows sometimes, when Bob will, especially if talking to his flat mates and co workers "Pinky and the Brain" who are in a civil partnership, and are Bob's technical support, in the vein of James Bond's Q, except half the devices they build or jury rig for Bob would put Q in almost sexual ecstasy at such toys, and the other half would scare the living sh*t out of him, and give him nightmares for life. It's certainly the first Book or Series I have read where the reason for the rapid expansion of private and public CCTV in Britain is not the stated reasons of crime prevention etc, but is in fact a weapon system being banged together, in this case ready for CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN.
CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is of course the Series Arc, I can't remember where in the series, the actual specific information of what Green is, comes into play, or even if it would count as a Spoiler since its the main Arc/point of the series. But if anyone would like to know rather than treading upon various Wiki's and groups and risking stumbling on more spoilers, then send me a PM and I will let you know - knowing what it is doesn't imo spoil enjoyment of the books, for me personally the constant referring to it, without knowing what is is was actually quite frustrating. Sort of like, knowing that last year's Doctor Who Arc involved Gallifrey and the recklessness of the Doctor and Clara and how they feed and bounce that recklessness off each other doesn't particularly spoil the journey to Hell Bent. My Green Theory from early mentions was fairly bang on, in terms of what it is about, its just the details or logistics of how it comes into play that was lacking.
The Conceit of the series is that the books are Bob Howard's Memoirs, but each instalment is being written immediately after each Case or Mission the book involves, rather than as an old man - he has been ordered to do this by Angleton, as they don't have many Computational Daemonologists, its not something you can easily recruit for whilst under extreme secrecy - since it involves a large degree of Software & hardware engineering knowledge, combined with having a personality that means, the first time a candidate meets or even sees one of the many and varied representatives of the "Scum of the Multiverse" wont drop dead of shock & horror, crap themselves, turn into a gibbering wreck (very common) and clearly are unable to perform the role, or worse, crap themselves, turn into a gibbering wreck, and require supervised care in a Laundry mental health ward for the rest of your life. So, if Bob dies, especially during the later books, there would be a dramatic and perhaps even catastrophic Loss of Institutional Knowledge at the Laundry. Equally, when the warning signs show that Green is imminent, in terms of months, at most a year or two, the Laundry is no longer going to be able to function as a Secret Operation, they will by necessity have to come out into the open, as they are going to be Britain's first, and frankly only Line of Defence, ahead of the rest of the Security Forces, whether Army, MI5, MI6 or the Police, none of whom, not even the other Intelligence Agencies know of the Laundrys existnce, and people are going to notice Laundry Agents and the SAS scrapping in their streets, not to mention notice the effects of Green itself, and the Laundry operation is very small, like I said, especially in terms of people with Bob's Skill sets, so when Green is imminent, as well as coming out into the Light, they are going to need to begin recruiting as many Volunteers to be trained as Agents as possible, and the ability to read Bob's Memoirs, and learn from the mistakes he has made in more forgiving times and situations will literally be a mater of life or death for the new agents, and of course, if Bob dies before the recruitment begins, without those memoirs, training and learning becomes even harder due to the knowledge loss.
So Go Forth, Read, Enjoy, Laugh and Cringe - in the Parallel Alternate Reality of the Laundry, the Holocaust was done for a very different, and perhaps much nastier reason - mechanised mass death due to people being brainwashed and whipped into blind hatred is sort of an understandable motivation, but in the Laundryverse that is not why it happens....
