I have definitely been spoiled this past six months in terms of truly exceptional reading. That's really saying something as I've finished not one but two Charles Stross works (Iron Sunrise and The Atrocity Archives), Kage Baker's Mother Aegypt collection, and Neal Asher's The Skinner novel. Now the Iron Sunrise novel is hard sf which we don't review, but I will note that there are better than even odds that it'll get nominated for major award come this time next year with it winning a Hugo not out of the question. But before I digress, let me give you the succinct statement of why you should run out now and purchase this book: if you like the universe that was depicted in the Hellboy film, you are simply going to love the universe that Stross has created in The Atrocity Archives. Really. Truly.
What interests me most about this short novel, The Atrocity Archive, and related short story, 'The Concrete Jungle', is how they came to be. Golden Gryphon does some of the coolest publications that I've ever encountered. So let's let Marty Halpern, the Editor of that fine press, explain how The Atrocity Archives came to be:
Golden Gryphon Press debuted its first limited edition chapbook (TURQUOISE DAYS by Alastair Reynolds) at the San Jose Worldcon (ConJose) in 2002. While working with Al Reynolds, I also came to know Paul Fraser, editor of the now-defunct UK magazine SPECTRUM SF, which published a bit of Al's short fiction. In one of my emails with Paul, I informed him that I was hoping to acquire some additional novellas from UK writers for our limited edition chapbooks, and Charles Stross's name came up in the discussion. I knew that Paul had also published Charlie's work, as I had all eight issues of SPECTRUM SF at that time. When I learned that Charlie was planning on attending the Worldcon as well, I asked Paul to email Charlie on my behalf to let him know that I would be contacting him, which Paul did.So on August 2, 2002, I emailed Charlie Stross, introduced myself, asked if he would like to submit a novella to Golden Gryphon for consideration for one of our chapbooks. I also invited him to stop by our table in the dealers room during the Worldcon so that we could meet and chat a bit in person, which would also allow me to give him a complimentary copy of the Al Reynolds chapbook.
Charlie responded that very same day that he was, and I quote: 'up to my eyeballs in work right now.' He then elaborated upon all the writing that he had lined up over the next few months and thus would be unable to set aside time at the present to write a new novella. However, he did suggest a novelette that he had co-written with Cory Doctorow that Ellen Datlow had purchased for SCIFICTION; this was for electronic publication, but the hardcopy rights were still available. Though I enjoy both Charlie's and Cory's short fiction, the chapbooks, at least so far, have all been original stories, so this novelette wouldn't work for me in this capacity.
Charlie also suggested a paper reprint of his novel THE ATROCITY ARCHIVE that was being serialized in SPECTRUM SF. And thirdly, he suggested a novella-length story ('The Concrete Jungle') that he hadn't completed writing as yet, that involved the same character, Bob Howard, in a story that takes place at a point shortly after the novel.
Charlie and I did quite a bit of emailing over the next several days. I had only read the first two parts of the serialized novel because the third issue hadn't been published yet, so Charlie emailed me the final section. The storyline was so droll and quirky and clever and horrific -- sometimes all at once! -- it had computer hacking, terrorists, a damsel in distress, Lovecraftian horrors, a final battle on a dying planet, and more! I was immediately sold on the idea of publishing the novel in hardcover. I knew that SPECTRUM SF had a limited readership, especially in the U.S., so there was a potential market out there; I also knew that Charles Stross was one of the emerging hot writers, so publishing him through Golden Gryphon Press would be a huge coup. Charlie also agreed to include the novella, 'The Concrete Jungle,' in the book to give his fans something extra, something previously unpublished, should they decide to buy the hardcover even though they may have already read the serialized version of the novel.
We had actually worked out a lot of the details of the book prior to the Worldcon, but we still met at the con, chatted a wee bit (Charlie's schedule at the convention was overwhelming; he had little free time), and I also give him a copy of TURQUOISE DAYS.
Now that tells you a lot about how this book came to be, but very little about the novel itself. What you need to know is Alan Turing, the creator of cryptography whose theories are still used in encryption to this day in our universe, has, in the universe where Atrocity Archives takes place, given the world the Turing-Lovecraft theorem. Yes, it has become horribly possible to open interdimensional doorways that allow Lovecraftian Intelligences to enter this world. But before Turing's findings could be made public, most of the civilized world's covert agencies decided to hide the fact that there was a danger, a very nasty danger, to the entire Universe from Really Nasty Beings from Elsewhere. Hard to believe that they could hide such a threat? Not at all -- indeed the late Douglas Adams in his seminal series, The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, postulated something called SEP, short for Somebody Else's Problem: not my problem, so I don't see it. But having surpressed his work on the public level does not mean that they aren't doing something. Thus came into existence (though away from public awareness) The Laundry, a ultra secret U.K. group, created to watch for and stamp out any use of the Turing-Lovecraft theorem. (Using it is really easy -- it's just code. Controlling it easily when things go wrong, very wrong, is another matter.) Nearly all of its staff are mathematicians or software programmers who have cracked the Turing-Lovecraft theorem and been caught at it. Their choice is no choice at all -- join The Laundry or die.
In the first and much longer of the two tales, The Atrocity Archives, Bob Howard, our very reluctant warrior against Really Nasty Beings from Elsewhere, becomes involved a plot involving Nazis, secret societies, terrorists and those Really Nasty Beings from Elsewhere bent on destroying the Earth that Bob Howard inhabits. Setting aside his weird roommates who also work for The Laundry, office politics perhaps literally from Hell Itself, and his desire to jump the bones of Mo, a fellow worker at The Laundry, Bob has to figure out how to contain those Really Nasty Beings from Elsewhere at the pocket universe that they now inhabit after they've drained nearly all the energy there and thereby shrank the Universe down to something a little bigger than the orbit of Earth and Moon, and get back to his own universe. Now given that A Hand of God -- made from a guilty man just executed by cutting off his hand -- is part of the solution, I'd say that indeed anyone who liked Hellboy will love this tale.
(Look for the description of what the Really Nasty Beings from Elsewhere do to Luna in that universe in response to the Nazis who summon them as it gives you a very chilling handle on just how powerful these Intelligences are.)
Bob Howard, who narrates the story in the first person, is a truly fascinating character, not terribly interested in what he's doing, but brilliant at solving problems when need be. Stross, as always, has a deft hand at characters, characters that are both believable and grow as the plot advances. Howard could be, in the hands of another, less talented writer, a stock techie nerd out of some bad Lovecraftian SFish novel, but here he is drawn in a way that that makes me, as a reader, care about what happens to him.
In some ways, the related short story, 'The Concrete Jungle', is a much funnier read as it involves office politics at The Laundry. Just imagine just how nasty they can get when Really Nasty Beings from Elsewhere get involved. Brrrr! And I won't say more that as it'd spoil the fun. Yes, fun. Though horror in genre, these are akin to the Indiana Jones films in that the characters are interesting, the plot well-thought out, and the pacing damn near perfect. Now none of that surprises me as I've now read a number of works by Stross including the one I'm reading now, the forthcoming The Hidden Family, second in in The Merchant Princes trilogy. Like Kage Baker and Neal Asher, his fiction is always among the best being written today.
I'll briefly note the sterling job which Golden Gryphon Press has done on this volume, with a lovely font on a very nice paper with an appropriately weird work of art on the cover. (well, I hope it's fictional. If it isn't, be very, very afraid.) But like Stross, I've come to expect the very, very best from Golden Gryphon. Oh, and do read his afterword, 'Inside the Fear Factory', as I expect it'll surprise you as to how close to our Cold War this tale hews.
Now excuse as I must get back to The Hidden Family and see how Mariam Beckstein is doing in her attempted corporate reorganization of the Family.
