The Atrocity Archives
| The Atrocity Archives | |
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 Cover Art by Steve Montiglio |
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| Author(s) | Charles Stross |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Golden Gryphon Press |
| Publication date | May 28, 2004 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 295 pp |
| ISBN | 1-930846-25-8 |
| OCLC Number | 53276312 |
| Followed by | The Jennifer Morgue |
The Atrocity Archives (2004, ISBN 1-930846-25-8) contains two stories by British author Charles Stross, consisting of the short novel The Atrocity Archive (originally serialized in Spectrum SF) and The Concrete Jungle, which won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Novella.
The stories are Lovecraftian spy thrillers involving a secret history of the 20th century, although they are not set in Lovecraft's universe[1]. Horror elements such as the Nazis using higher mathematics to open "gates" to other dimensions are combined with humorous elements satirizing bureaucracy. The protagonist of both stories is a computer expert calling himself "Bob Oliver Francis Howard" (a pseudonym, as a person's real name can be used against her most fictional systems of magic) who has been conscripted into a secret British occult intelligence organization, "The Laundry". (Although the pseudonym matches the author of the original Conan the Barbarian stories, it is more likely to be a reference to the "Bastard Operator From Hell" which matches the protagonist's nominal systems administration job and his attitude towards field work.)
A sequel entitled The Jennifer Morgue, patterned after the James Bond movies, was released in November in 2006. A third book, The Fuller Memorandum, was released in July 2010.
Stross's earlier story "A Colder War" also mixes elements of Lovecraft and espionage, and is sometimes mistaken as a tie-in with the Bob Howard stories; however, the fictional background and assumptions are different.
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[edit] Literary significance and reception
Publishers Weekly was somewhat mixed in their review saying "though the characters all tend to sound the same, and Stross resorts to lengthy summary explanations to dispel confusion, the world he creates is wonderful fun."[2] The Washington Post called it "a bizarre yet effective yoking of the spy and horror genres."[3]
[edit] Inspiration and similar works
Stross states that his inspiration for the spy in these novels is closer to the out-of-place bureaucrats of Len Deighton than to the James Bond model. He also mentions that when he began writing the series in 1999, he chose as villains "an obscure but fanatical and unpleasant gang who might, conceivably, be planning an atrocity on American soil"; but that by the time the novel was to be published in late 2001, Al-Qaeda was no longer obscure, so he chose a different group to use in the novella.[4]
"Bob Howard"'s boss in the Laundry is given the pseudonym "James Jesus Angleton"[5], possibly out of a desire to irritate American intelligence agents.
Another work of speculative fiction that tackles many of the same themes (albeit from a Catholic perspective) is Tim Powers' Declare. In the afterword to the Science Fiction Book Club 2-in-1 edition of The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue, Stross notes that friends warned him against reading Declare while he was working on The Atrocity Archives due to the strong parallels between the two works. Stross also mentioned the similarities between the novel and the Delta Green game, similarities referenced in the short story "Pimpf" included with The Jennifer Morgue.
The Spiraling Worm by David Conyers and John Sunseri is another collection of stories concerning spies against alien monsters from other dimensions.
[edit] Adaptations
Cubicle 7 published a role-playing game based on the Laundry stories in July 2010.[6]
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/interview-1.html#comment-56968
- ^ "THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES (Book)". Publishers Weekly 251 (17): 46. April 26, 2004. ISSN 0000-0019.
- ^ Di Filippo, Paul (July 11, 2004). "Other voices, other worlds and a dose of urban fantasy. By Paul Di Filippo". The Washington Post: p. BW10. Archived from the original on 2008-10-03. http://www.webcitation.org/5bINovJSs. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^ Stross, Charles. "Afterword: Inside the Fear Factory" in On Her Majesty's Occult Service. Science Fiction Book Club, 2007; pp. 245–257
- ^ http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/interview-1.html#comment-57011
- ^ Stross, Charlie (March 10, 2010). "For sale; first edition of the Necronomicon (used once)". Charlie's Diary. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/03/for-sale-first-edition-of-the.html. Retrieved June 22, 2010.
[edit] External links
- Golden Gryphon Press official site
- "The Concrete Jungle" from The Atrocity Archives published under a Creative Commons License
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