Overtime

Laundry Files #3.5

by Charles Stross

Introduced to readers in the novels The Atrocity Archive and The Jennifer Morgue, the Laundry is a secret British government agency charged with preventing dark interdimensional entities from destroying the human race. Now, in "Overtime," the Laundry is on a skeleton staff for Christmas—leaving one bureaucrat to be all that stands between the world and annihilation by the Thing That Comes Down Chimneys. Written especially for Tor.com's holiday season, Charles Stross's novelette is a finalist for the 2010 Hugo Award.

Charles Stross is the Hugo-winning author of some of the most acclaimed novels and stories of the last ten years, including Singularity Sky, Accelerando, Halting State, the "Merchant Princes" series beginning with The Family Trade, and the story collections Toast and Wireless.

At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Short Stories, Ebooks

25 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 22, 2009

About the author

Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy.

Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.

SF Encyclopedia: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_...

Tor: http://us.macmillan.com/author/charle...

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

last year, i carved out my own short story advent calendar as my project for december, and it was so much fun i decided to do it again this year! so, each day during the month of december, i will be reading a short story and doing the barest minimum of a review because ain't no one got time for that and i'm already so far behind in all the things. however, i will be posting story links in case anyone wants to read the stories themselves and show off how maybe someone could have time for that.

here is a link to the first story in last year's project,

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

which in turn links to the whole monthlong project, in case you wanna do some free short story reading of your own! links to the stories in this year's advent-ure will be at the end of each review.

enjoy, and the happiest of decembers to you all!

DECEMBER 23

It’s Christmas Eve, and the stars are Right.

Parents the world over still teach their children that if they’re good, Santa will bring them presents.

There are things out there in the void, hungry things hidden in the gaps between universes, that come when they’re called. Tonight, hundreds of millions of innocent children are calling Santa.

Who’s really coming down your chimney tonight?

this is the only christmas-themed tor short i'd not yet read*, so even though i've never read a single laundry files book, i took the risk. i knew enough about the series to get the gist, and it's not difficult to get your bearings, even as a complete newbie. and i really loved this story. it's festive and funny and even though there are frequent digressions and mentions of series-related things for which i have no frame of reference, it ended up being more intriguing than frustrating, and i do recommend this story (or any of the christmas tor shorts) to round out your cozy holiday reading!

*and what the heck is going on with the free tor shorts? not only are there no new christmas ones, there hasn't been a new story posted since november 8th! is this the end of the free tor short? say it isn't so!

read it for yourself here:

https://www.tor.com/2009/12/22/overtime/

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[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read 3/28/18:

The weather outside (the universe) is frightful, but the fire (of the furnace) is so delightful, and since we've got no place to go (in time), let it snow (stack overflow), let it snow (stack overflow), let it snow (stack overflow).

Original Review:

My favorite kind of christmas story: gibbering nameless horrors leaving gifts in stockings.

[Kevin Kuhn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Stross wrote this short story and the version I read was copyrighted in 2009. Here’s the thing about first-person point of view stories, imho the narrator better be witty or clever or have just the right amount of snark. Well, Merry Christmas, the narrator/MC is just how I like my snark – heavy with a strong dose of wit and a dash of English cynicism. This is a Christmas story, but in the same way that Diehard is a Christmas movie.

I really enjoyed how Stross slowly reveals the strange reality we are in, but then causally saunters though it, like Applied Computational Demonology or precognitives are no big deal. First, we’re treated to a typical government office Holiday party. Then, but not until we’re halfway through the story, Stoss starts building the tension and some serious DREAD. Something is coming down the chimney, something terrifying.

This short story starts well, builds to the heat of a yule log, and ends with a witty climax that's over too quickly, like the orgasmic opening of wrapped paper gifts on Christmas morning.

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

A humorous Christmas horror story. Or it could be scary funny too.

Howard is stuck at work as Night Duty Officer.

'All bureaucracies obey certain iron laws, and one of the oldest is this: get your seasonal leave booked early, lest you be trampled in the rush.'

He broke the rule and failed to book his leave in time. Not surprising considering the way the last book ended.
The story goes back and forth between the night of his shift and the party that took place earlier. They even had a guest speaker.
The moment I saw 'One of the perks of being Night Duty Officer is that I can poke my nose anywhere I like' I knew the weirdness is not far away. A pretty good addition to the series.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

*lol* All of Bob's sacrifices mean nothing - at least not when it comes to booking the annual Christmas leave.
He should have foreseen the troubles from book 3 according to human resources and still planned ahead.

So now he sadly can't meet his mother-in-law, Mo instead goes alone, but has to work. Until Andy shows up and makes him come with him.

Ah yes, horrible office Christmas parties. With a twist, naturally.

This is a very special view on Christmas by a man with a hilariously and wonderfully dry sense of humour.

Ho-ho-ho!

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was going to save this for Christmas, but since I have no self control...Done!

Oh my, Bob. This is a funny take on holiday traditions from childhood to office.

Whoever sat on the copier lid that time did not have buttocks, hairy or otherwise--or any other mammalian features for that matter. What I'm holding looks to be the business end of a giant cockroach.

Again, a certain Lovecraftian charm/terror, whatever you want to call it. Only thing missing were the Christmas crackers.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good short paranormal holiday story about Bob working overnight in the office on Christmas Eve. Of course he doesn't have a quiet night.

[AndrewP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another short that fits between the book in the main series. The main focus of this is Bob working the night shift over the Christmas holiday. As usual this is a unique take on a common theme, in this case Santa Claus.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Original post at One More Page

I think Overtime is the only Christmas-themed book I have in my Kindle, and I really scheduled to read it in December. I have never heard of Charles Stross before, but who am I to deny myself of a free ebook, right?

In Overtime , Bob Howard ends up being the night shift guard on duty on Christmas -- he didn't want to, but he wasn't able to file his holiday leave so he was left with no choice. Bob was prepared for an uneventful night alone in his temporary office, but memories of the Laundry Christmas party and some strange noises and temperature drops tell him that something else is coming -- through the chimney.

I have never read any books from the Laundry Series, so the characters and the settings in Overtime were all new to me. I was kind of wary about that and I thought I would get lost in the story, but I was surprised that I wasn't. While I would want a better explanation of who the other characters were and what Laundry was really all about, I felt that this novella was still complete enough to stand on its own. It's very reminiscent to Jasper Fforde's work, with the same British humor (although I think Stross is Scottish) with urban fantasy tones. And I liked the Christmas twist on the story, too.

I'm not sure if I want to splurge on the other Laundry series books, but I am definitely curious. I think I would need a little more convincing...but not so much. Any words to convince me to do so?

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining short story (and free download) in Charles Stross's Laundry series. A civil servant in a secret British organization dedicated to keeping eldritch horrors at bay is the only one who can prevent the Bringer of Gifts from ending the world on Christmas Eve. It reminded me a lot of the Buffy episode "The Zeppo." Stross is in love with cleverness, so there are lots of geeky in-jokes, but I got them and found them amusing. I may go read his "Laundry" novels now.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

Awesome science fiction thriller / horror / mystery. I loved the start of this series it is tailor made to my likes. This is my first Stross novel even though he has been on my to read list for a very long time.

Great characters.
Great world.
Great science fiction.
Lovecraft!
Gadgets.
And more.

I really liked it.

This is a cool novella.

[atmatos · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has some moments of mirth, but over all it was pretty meh-tastic.

[Wing Kee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see why this was nominated for a Hugo.

It's smart, it's paced well and just well written. The play on Santa Clause is great and for a Holiday book it's a fun little tale. I like the Laundry Books cause of how wry and dry Bob is purposely designed and written to be and seeing the crazy cosmic horror world through his jaded eyes makes for a fun read. This was what Kraken should have been...

Onward to the next book!

[Taylor Rickett · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Filler of Stockings may not be the jolly, red-nosed traveler we’ve come to expect. This year is Bob’s turn to work the holidays, but who visited the office party and upset the tea cart? And why? Only the Bringer of Gifts could cause such a winters ruckus!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Stross runs Christmas through the Laundry. Who's coming down the chimney? Is it Santa Claus? Heh. If you know Stross's Laundry-verse, you know the answer.

Bob forgot to put in for time off for the holidays (too busy recovering from the events in The Fuller Memorandum), so he's forced to work Christmas Eve as the Night Duty Officer. In essence, he's there to field any calls that come in regarding extra-dimensional nasties. We endure the limited budget office Christmas party, complete with a guest speaker by the name of Dr. Kringle, and walk with Bob as he patrols the spooky almost-Escher office building.

Recommended for Laundry-verse completists. Better than "Down on the Farm" but not as good (or as scary as) as "Equoid."

Be sure to save room for the mince pies.

[Netanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should have saved this for Christmas time reading, but I just couldn't help myself after the fun that was Equoid. The Laundry's Bob Howard is pulling overtime as the Night Duty Officer over the Christmas weekend, as he forgot to put in his request for leave early enough. Thankfully for the planet and all its inhabitants, Bob is on duty, in time to catch a nameless, gibbering horror as it tries to creep down the chimney on Christmas eve. Wonderfully done!

[Dan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful holiday tale, with just the right amount of tentacular cosmic horror.

[Jane Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Christmas tale

[Jason Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was cute, I enjoyed it. Fast read. As cute as a Cthulhu-themed Xmas story can be, at any rate

[Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - not as clever as it thinks it is, but diverting. Terry Pratchett’s HogFather + Lovecraft

[Lainey Ingram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!! A very short read but full of sass, wit, and weirdness....loved it! Now, to pick something else by the same author!

[Brok3n · Rating 4 out of 5]

The hazards of Forecasting

It is, I think, a fact surprisingly little appreciated among readers and writers of science fiction that precognition creates the same opportunities for paradox as time travel. What happens if you are told the future, and you take actions that make that future impossible? There is little formal difference between this species of paradox and killing your own grandfather. It seems strange to me that prediction paradoxes appear so little in science fiction, since they are prominent in folklore. How many stories do you know in which a prophet predicts a dire future for someone in a story, or a witch curses such a person to a disastrous future, and the cursee takes action to forestall the curse? (We all know how that works out...)

Britain's occult secret service, the Laundry, has a division called Forecasting Operations that attempts to use occult means to see the future. Well, to be strictly accurate, the Laundry sometimes has a division called Forecasting Ops. Occasionally Forecasting Ops may predict that it will cease to exist, or that it has never existed, and sometimes that comes to pass.

Overtime is a story in Charles Stross's Laundry Files series in which Bob Howard, the protagonist of the early books of the series, has an imbroglio with Forecasting Ops, over the course of the Holiday break, which he spends working (hence the title). You can read it for free in Tor's Reactor Magazine.

It's a good story, and it has been around for a while now, having been first published in time for Christmas 2009. I recently reread it because it was reissued along with A Conventional Boy, along with another even older Laundry Files story, Down on the Farm. A Conventional Boy is a novella, and I suppose that Tor bulked it out with these two old stories in an attempt to forestall readers' complaints that charging full price for so short a book was a rip-off. If that was indeed Tor's motivation, it was as successful as attempts to forestall fairy-tale curses usually are.

Overtime is actually relevant to A Conventional Boy since Derek Reilly, the protagonist of that story, predicts precisely (and also fairly accurately) events of Laundry Files stories that take place in later years. Also, we are told that at the end of A Conventional Boy that

They [the Laundry] gave him a cramped basement office with a desk in a building in London called the New Annex, where he had an actual job in Forecasting Ops, designing oblique strategies for the end of the world.

On its own merits, Overtime deserves praise. Read it!

Blog review.

[Jules Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cthulhu Christmas-themed novelette set in the Laundryverse, a couple of books into the series timeline. There's just about enough backstory that I think someone completely new to the Laundryverse could enjoy this, but you'll get a lot more fun out of it if you already know at least a little about the world it's set in.

Bob Howard works for a branch of the British secret service which is devoted to putting off for as long as possible the forthcoming invasion of our universe by the eldritch horrors from beyond time and space. Except it's still the civil service, with all that implies about audit trails and HR...

Being confined to a hospital bed by your last field assignment is no excuse for not putting in your annual leave request on time, so Bob's left minding the office phone over Christmas as Duty Officer. The upside is triple pay. The downside -- sometimes you have to earn that triple pay. It's Christmas Eve, and the Bringer of Gifts will be visiting all the boys and girls, even the ones at work. And especially the ones who work in the Laundry.

Lovely satire of the office Christmas party and life in the civil service under austerity measures, with a large helping of geeky jokes, and good fun to read. It was a Hugo nominee for good reason.

Originally published and still available as a free read at Tor.com, but also now available formatted as a cheap DRM-free ebook.

[Brainycat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brainycat's 5 "B"s:
blood: 0
boobs: 0
bombs: 0
bondage: 0
blasphemy: 3
Bechdel Test: FAIL
Deggan's Rule: FAIL
Gay Bechdel Test: FAIL

Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.

This is a very, very short addition to the Laundry Files series. It pokes a bit of fun at the English traditions, a lot of fun at corporate bureaucratic culture, and then wraps itself up in a tidy conclusion. As I was reading this, I thought my file was corrupted - I was 20 pages into a 38 page story and I still wasn't sure where the conflict was and had only one clumsily inserted clue about the nature of the antagonist.

To be honest, I don't think this is a very good example of Mr. Stross's abilities as a writer. If it were longer he could have added more subtlety and mystery, but the very short length meant he had to pare the story down to it's absolute bare essentials. For me, the long setup and short conclusion threw the balance and cadence way off. A crucial read for fans of the Laundry Files series, but not recommended for people who aren't already familiar with the series.

[John Cress · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a short story which was only a buck plus won an award so I figured why not. The preview also discussed the paranormal so I was a bit anxious to give it is try. However, this ended up being like one of those award winning movies that I would ask myself, 'how did that win?'. The story centers around an office for those hunting paranormal events. Santa ends up being one of these events. This sounds like a great premise but I found my mind wandering off and the story for what ever reason just didn't grab me. I can't quite figure out why but the 'it' factor just wasn't there. There may be others who love this short story as it did get awards.

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overtime makes me want to return to the Laundry Files series, the humorous books by Stross that blend bureaucracy and Lovecraftian terrors. This particular short is the first Christmas short I have read this year that actually has something to do with Christmas! It's a bit terrifying, but who doesn't want to think of a pan dimensional Santa squid.

If you haven't read the series before, this is quite readable without having picked up any of the other books. It's just a nice, quick diversion from the usual Christmas motifs, and something I find quite delightful when everything else is so full of sparkles and nostalgia.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this Lovecraftian tale set at Christmastime, full of English sarcasm and commentary about the public sector workplace and other aspects of life in the UK (the protagonist complains about the BBC's programming but, of course, he should've watched Channel 4 instead!). I think the humour somewhat undermines the horror, which also seems too easily resolved. Perhaps the books in the Laundry Files series handle the horror side better so I'll be interested to read the first volume to see what it's like.

['Nathan Burgoine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great short story with a psuedonatural/supernatural twist, taking place at Christmastime and involving Stross' "Laundry" organization. It reminded me in many ways of a cross between a Terry Pratchett 'Hogfather' and the Pratchett/Gaiman "Good Omens." A fun short read.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick, fun read. It was a bit obvious where it was going but I always enjoy reading Bob's adventures. This reminded me how much I enjoy The Laundry and makes me want to pick up the next full length book.

[Vít · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kratičká novelka ze světa Prádelny, kterou jsem si měl přečíst už před Vánoci. Proč?
No přece kvůli té představě, že uvidím jak Santa Claus vystrkuje z komína svoje zelená chapadla a cpe si do tlamy koláčky. To je jiný kafe než zlaté prasátko!