Dead Lies Dreaming

The New Management #1

by Charles Stross

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 sliding unknowingly towards occult cataclysm . . .

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Lovecraftian

378 pages, Hardcover

First published October 27, 2020

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

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I'm just astounded.

After reading this book, I'm not only reeling after a great Heist story, but I'm rocking to a Dark Fantasy that happens to be Hard SF while very much being a Superhero tale being couched in a Lovecraftian universe while setting me up to be murdered by Bond in its classic thriller milieu just before I wonder if Peter from Peter Pan will ever grow up.

If you're asking WTF, then you're in the right frame of mind.

And it's AWESOME.

For you old fans of Bob and Mo and fairy kingdoms clashing against Elder Gods, put your expectations on hold. There's not much of that here. We're very much in a day and age after a Greater Evil has taken over the government and the best thing that a government employee can hope for is holding the chaos at bay just a few seconds longer.

For the rest of us, and that includes a group of thieves and a thief-taker in modern pre-apocalyptic London, we've got a little mission. And a -- or rather, The Necronomicon.

If you're not just a tad thrilled (or horrified) by this news, then go read some romance fluff. That's the only genre that isn't expertly mashed in this brilliant novel.

Oddly enough, a new reader of Stross could read this particular novel without having read the previous ones. They may miss a lot of the worldbuilding jokes and might freak out at the sheer complexity of the inherent humor of computational necromancy or residual human resources, but that's okay. They'll still be in for a treat. After all, Santa is dead.

Long live Santa.

*I cackle, running off into the sunset, my hair turning pure white just before I jump on a sleigh, fleeing Boris Johnson*

[K.J. Charles]

A profoundly weird urban fantasy/sf/horror/really not sure how you'd classify it heist adventure with chaos aplenty. We have a terrific group of people with powers, most LGBTQ, and a mysterious house with upper floors that go back in time, and an Extremely Evil Tory Bastard who was delightfully loathsome and an ancient family curse/cult and just all the fun of the fair. Enormous fun to read with lovely characters, a couple of adorable romances, some very inventive horrors, and a brilliant Evil Henchwoman with more to her than initially meets the eye. Tremendous fun. I've only read the first Laundry Files book (this is a new series spin off) but I didn't feel adrift; looking forward to more of the story.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was definitely worth the wait!!!

This 10th volume in the Laundry Files series is either a fun standalone or the beginning or something new.
In the previous volume, the Black Pharao finally made it into our realm, leaving his pyramid on the dark moon behind and taking over Downing Street. In times of Trump, Putin and, yes, also Johnson ... is this really supposed to scare us? Well, sort of. Because the new Upper Management is bringing back archaic punishments for even the littlest of crimes, having everyone mistrusting everyone else and being perpetually afraid. Moreover, London has become infested with rich people buying up every scrap of land before letting it decay and normal people being crushed between rivaling factions.
Enter a merry gang of robbers. But not your usual kind. No, they don't give back to the poor - unless you count the joy people will supposedly feel upon seeing the movie they are gonna make. You see, movie equipment is almost as expensive as a house near Kensington Gardens these days so what's a boy to do if he wants to persue his dreams?
Which brings us to ... well, dreams. The dreams of a young woman who is trapped in the service of a masochistic boss and who will sacrifice almost everything to become the next sad template of a corporate power-woman; the dreams of a trans boy just wanting to be himself; the dreams of a lesbian black girl in search of love; the dreams of a gay guy with no fashion sense - yes, it sounds as if the author was ticking off boxes but believe me, he wasn't, the cast was brilliant; and the dreams of a former cop who now works for a private security firm.
Everything is outsourced these days and therein lies the problem - as certain other, more violent parties will have learned by the end of this book.

So what is this REALLY about? Well, magic has come back into the world and with force. Owning THE Necronomicon will put whoever manages to acquire it at the top of the food chain and Black Pharao be damned. We thus get a bidding war (literally) followed by an actual treasure hunt that was the most fun since ... actually it might just have been the most fun EVER.
In between we learn about how magic works in a modern world, we learn of the things from other planes that want to creep in through the cracks. And we learn about a family's tragic past that, amongst other things, has resulted in one hell of a house that I'd like to explore for a bit!

Seriously, I am still marvelling over Stross' craftmanship that he used to combine the high-tech magical world we know from the series with stories like Bond and Peter Pan. Not to mention that he evidently also took a course in accountancy. *snickers*

The plot was layer upon layer upon layer of mythical magical goodness, the writing was fast-paced like you wouldn't believe, the action was strong, the characters had palpable chemistry and the worldbuilding was once again superb.
Maybe it was the storytelling-aspect of this volume that appealed to me most despite me not being too much of a fan of Barrie's creation.
Anyway, no matter if this is a standalone or kicking-off a new era (which would make sense considering how the last volume ended and that humanity has itself entered a new era under new management), it is delicious and fantastic and you don't even have to have read the previous 9 books to enjoy it (though I recommend that you do)!

Disclaimer: I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thanks, Netgalley!

[Sebastian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I generally enjoy the Laundryverse, and the style is the usual enjoyable smart-ass Stross, and I get what he is trying to do, but this one just didn’t work for me. Usually when Stross is riffing, pastiching or playing off of other writers and their characters I can’t really spot what he is doing until he points it out – this time it was so painfully finger-in-the-eye that it kept rubbing me the wrong way throughout (I mean… Wendy? Really?). This is compounded by the lengthy introduction and setup of an unnecessarily complex set of chess pieces on the board, and then convoluted rapid-fire ending, with unexpected prior relationships and plans popping out of the woodwork left and right like a complexity addicted telenovela.

Oh, and I understand writer fatigue and character-development dead ends and everything, and this does not in any way affect my rating of the book, but I do miss the familiar old Laundry gang.

[Johan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was this written by the guy who wrote "The Atrocity Archives" and "The Jennifer Morgue"?
Was this written by the guy who wrote the "Empire Games" and "Merchant Princes" series?
Was this written by the guy who writes these thought provoking blog posts?

Apparently, but you could have fooled me.

I was such a huge fan of the "Laundry Files" series and when the series started to decline I made excuses like nobody can keep this up, the next one will be better, it had some very good moments, ... and I kept giving them too many stars.
The downhill trend started with "The Rhesus Chart" and accelerated with "The Annihilation Score" and every novel after that. With "Dead Lies Dreaming" the series hits rock bottom. I can't even. There is no story. There is no character development. There are no real protagonists. You have gays, lesbians, transgender, perverts, psychopaths, sociopaths, ... as protagonists and that's all. They are all caricatures, and that's what they remain throughout the novel. I could relate to Bob Howard, Dominique "Mo" O'Brien, Persephone Hazard, Peter Wilson, ... and even James "Eater of Souls" Angleton, but in this novel the characters might as well have been made out of cardboard.

The Laundry Paradox: the more magic there is in the story, the less magic there is to the story.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Urban fantasy isn't usually my genre, and I haven't read the earlier books in the Laundry Files series. Still, I was drawn in by the cyberpunk vibe, the quirky team of misfits with oddball magical and psychic powers, and Charles Stross' sharp, energetic writing. His prose is full of wit and snappy dialogue, making this dark fantasy heist/quest a thoroughly entertaining ride. Rather than dwelling on the bizarre Lovecraftian horrors lurking in the background, Stross keeps the spotlight on the characters and their mission - which refreshingly has nothing to do with saving the world.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh... Feels like Stross is bored with the Laundryverse or doesn't feel like getting to the end so he's keeping distracted with uninteresting and somewhat stock new characters, repeating the same throwaway jokes with more sex and violence, and overloading London with more weakly godlike beings and their oh so predictable minions...

[Alick · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was everywhere. when government middle managers talk about offshore tax vehicles using a dutch double irish sandwich it's like yeah that's fine, but when a bunch of stoner criminals are talking like that it's like no these are a different type of people what are you doing. Mr Stross can write Bob well, but since Bob faded into the background all these new main characters end up being Bob too where it doesn't fit.

literally everyone is lgbtq somewhere except you don't feel sympathy for them, there's one trans character who literally does nothing but get offended all the way through, like his boyfriend says something presumably offensive somehow and he punches him to the ground, like dude that's domestic violence! and when the guy asks what he said no one explains, which i found annoying because i had no idea what he said either. he was literally warning them about a serial killer that'd been round the place which i thought was perfectly reasonable. So we have a trans guy getting violently offended from literally page 1 which is gonna rile up readers of all political stances.

plus the meta-story is kinda just not that interesting, when he did one based on james bond it was pretty interesting to watch it unfold and there was a plot reason for it, but he did the same with another old classic here and it just felt kinda jammed clumsily into the story, the same with the ending which was explained in a rather hand-waving corporate spiel so it just fell completely flat.

[David Gross · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the original laundry files. As time goes on, Charles Stross has gotten more and more shrill about his political leanings, and in this one he's finally reached the point where you can't hear the story over it. I could see it coming for the last several laundry volumes, but this one was too far. I guess I'm going to be done with the laundry files universe. That's a shame because the universe is a lot of fun.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dead Lies Dreaming is nominally a "Laundry Files" novel (it says so right on the dust jacket), and therefore part of a long-running Charles Stross series that I started reading with the amazing first book, The Atrocity Archives, in 2006. However, Stross seems to be spinning off a whole new timeline with this one. The Laundry's delicious blend of skulduggery and bureaucracy is no more—in this installment, magic has come out, into the open.

I think that's a loss—it's no longer possible to pretend that this could be our world, if we only knew. A dread Elder God is Prime Minister of England, for—well, not for heaven's sake. Superpowered heroes and villains are popping up all over the place, too—sometimes it seems as if Dead Lies Dreaming could almost be a Wild Cards novel, if it weren't for all the Lovecraftian underpinnings (which are, after all, a Strossian speciality).

And... this may be a Laundry Files book, but it ain't all that clean—Dead Lies Dreaming contains more graphic and, frankly, disturbing scenes of gore and sexual exploitation than other installments in Stross' (honestly!) relatively wholesome elder series. (Not that Stross is shy when it comes to such things; see, for example, Rule 34.)

All of which goes to explain why I wasn't quite as enamored with this novel as I'd hoped to be, based on its cover.

Even so... when all is said and done, this is still a Charlie Stross novel, and that means it's still—mostly—freakin' fun.

The writing's not always up to Stross' best, though. Especially in the first chapter or so, several repetitious passages seemed... well, flabby, though the prose smoothed out considerably later on. 2020 was a distracting year in general, though—I'm willing to give Stross something of a pass, on that basis.

*

The more Stross changes things, the more they stay the same. A nod to the late Sabine Schmitz on p.201 is just one of the many topical references that show up in his sidewise now. London is still, as in our timeline, firmly in the grip of absentee real-estate speculators who buy up properties as if they were NFTs or tulips, only to let them stand derelict. And Stross' focus is still (well, mainly) on the underlings who actually do the work, rather than on the tentacular figureheads (fingerheads?) in the New Management.

Sometimes the horror is entirely realistic, too—this dementia ward seems to me worse than anything Lovecraft could have dreamed up:

Hell came with beige carpets, en suite bedrooms, and satellite TV. But through every open bedroom door the screaming of souls in torment could be heard. And the worst thing about it was that there was no reason for it. There were no capering demons with pitchforks to enumerate the sins of the damned, no mercy for the virtuous, and no justice for anyone. Just endless suffering for all, trapped in the swirling mists of the eternal present.
—p.154

*

One of the better things about Dead Lies Dreaming is that it's actually something of a standalone work.

And one of the best things about this book is that, despite all the lurid set dressing, it's really about something—to be specific, Dead Lies Dreaming is about families, both the found kind and the biological kind... and you'd really have to be some kind of monster (and not, y'know, the good kind) to treat that with disdain.

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the next installment...

[Andreas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Synopsis: It’s an alternate London in the Laundry Files universe, but with a fresh start of characters and topics, and hopefully less tentacles. An anarchic robber gang, the transhuman “Lost Boys”, stage several robberies. Their ultimate goal is to fund an avant-garde Peter Pan adaption titled “Dead Lies Dreaming” where “Peter was nothing if not pansexual”.

There is a certain risk with those criminal acts, as the new power in Downing Street – headed by an Elder God reintroduced the Bloody Code which “prescribed death penalty for pretty much everything above the level of a parking ticket”. Even Santa falls under that law:

[He] saw four elven warriors shackling a Santa to a stainless-steel cross outside Hamleys Toy Shop. […] When the alfär executioner held his heavy-duty electric screwdriver against Santa’s wrist, the screams were audible over the rumble of passing buses. […] Doc squinted at one of the execution notices taped to the lamp posts. “Huh. He’s an unregistered transhuman.” Superpowered, in other words. Like us went without saying. “Identifies as, well, Santa. Guilty of breaking and entering, animal cruelty, flying under the influence, violating controlled airspace—” his eyebrows rose steadily—“human trafficking, slave labor, shoplifting toys, breaking rabies quarantine with reindeer.”

The story follows the gang as they get a special job uncovering an occult book, the famous Necronomicon. Their quest leads them through a inter-universe dream-house on a time travel back into London’s Whitechapel – as ugly as a Brasilian favela back then – in the year 1888. Incidentially, that’s Jack the Ripper’s year.

On their heels, a couple of heavy-armed Russians, and a so-called Mr Bond try to uncover the same item. But the book is highly dangerous itself, protected by wards, and driving mens’ soul to madness.

Review: That longer citation set the comical horror tone of the whole novel. I don’t appreciate horror at all, but in this case it was light enough that it didn’t cause any nightmares (yet). In fact, it is more a thriller with lots of action and shooting than anything else. The transhuman powers and the magic system was introduced very carefully and was amusing first and fascinating later on when the whole setting unfolded. Stross did a masterful job with the novel’s world building.

He probably harvested a lot from his long running Laundry Files series. I just cannot comment on this background, because I haven’t read anything from it, and the novel never gave me the feeling that I missed anything. So far, I’ve read from Charles Stross only his novel Accelerando with the great novella Lobsters, and some other short stories. Dead Lies Dreaming is far lighter with technical terms than Accelerando and easier accessible. It’s a real page turner, never letting up the action and heist story.

I could have lived without the character of Mr Bond who read more like an over-the-top parody and whose plot-line could have deleted without larger impact. Most of the over characters were well-done. The author pushed in LGBTQIA heavily into this story, as we find transgender and multiple homosexual characters in the Lost Boys. I liked them all and cared for them, but in the end it was really a story of two siblings: The leader of the gang Imp and his sister Eve working as executive assistant for an ultra-rich asshole. Their family has a lot of burdens – their father is dead, and the mother in a sanatorium for mages. Stretched over the whole novel, their history and relationship become clear, and I loved the way Stross introduced it bit by bit.

The style crosses several subgenres of speculative fiction: There is some Cyberpunk in it, but Stross never gets too far into infodumping the newest cryptographic terms. He touches lot of occult Lovecraftian elements, and they give far more than an atmospheric twist, because they are essential for the setting and for the plot. And there is the comical superhuman aspect, where many protagonists have one or the other form of special abilities. Stross juggled those subgenres marvelously and weaved them into a action-heavy thriller.

It’s a perfectly enjoyable, giggle-infusing, and well rounded novel in all aspects, and I fully recommend it. I’m very looking forward to the next volume in this Stross come-back

[Daniel Genis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunate addition to the Laundry universe. The new characters have identities forced down our throats; most are gay, trans or people of color, as well as magical. It feels so inauthentic, and without much of the Laundry or even the New Management to compensate for the forced diversity is a mistake. We never cared about whether Bob Howard at all managed to reconcile his sexuality with his physical identity, and fashionable trauma was never a subject the Laundry agents cared much for. Stross, whose EVERY SINGLE OTHER BOOK I’ve loved and many reread, has failed us with this one, and most definitely failed the series. Let’s hope he returns to form, even if it’s a story about Alex the PHANG or Mo rather than Bob. So sorry to feel this way about the work of an author I’ve loved since Accelerando.
Oh god, mansplaining? Everyone’s offended by nothing? Why, Charles Stross? Why disgust your fans? I’ve gone out of my way to find things like Toast and Wireless, because I like your mind, but this isn’t you. This is the work of the SJW trend that you adopted to stay current I suppose. Please desist.

[Tabish Arif · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't continue reading this. I don't like giving up on books, but I feel zero motivation to continue reading this, even though I've read 80%.

I like the concept, but the execution isn't very good. The biggest problem that I have with this novel is that there is no character development at ALL. It's simply non-existent. Magic ate it or sth. Why am I supposed to care about these characters? I just can't, I have no reason to. I suppose Eve was a good character until we're supposed to feel sympathy for her (for a reason I won't spoil). Her entire backstory feels like something that was written for a separate character, and it takes away from her femme fatale appeal.

If anyone else wanted to read this because it deals with superheroes and time-travel and has a light-hearted tone, I'd recommend watching Umbrella Academy instead.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard bounce off this start of the New Management series. I'm not much of a horror fan and the public execution of Santa at the opening is just gross. I read a couple of chapters and then started skimming. Deeply unlikable characters didn't help matters. Stross has been a reliable writer for me, even if the later Laundry Files books were not really to my taste. This one is absolutely not for me! A new record for early abandonment, I think. Read some of the other 2 and 1 star reviews to see what others think. Let's hope he has a new Space Opera in the wings . . .

Stross has his customary crib sheet for the novel at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-...
CAUTION: SPOILERS!
You will see (in the non-spoiler opening) that he was having personal issues on top of the COVID stuff. So there should be hope for the future!

[Aidan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third reboot / re-entry point for the long-running Laundry Files series, the least connected to the "main" plot line, and possibly the most successful in making a now-familiar setting pop again. It's weighed down by a over-busy, grungy first act, but builds steam steadily to a satisfying conclusion that leaves it just on the edge of four-star territory..

-----

Despite being a step away from the main series, Dead Lies Dreaming fits the formula of the recent Laundry books to a T: pick a spec-fic classic or sub-genre, strip away the frilly bits, fill back with computational demons and tentacles to taste. This really shouldn't work for Peter Pan, which is the classic in the cross-hairs on this occasion, but Barrie's work makes for a strangely solid fit to Stross' approach. It helps that the basic material of Pan is, well, pretty creepy (as we're reminded perhaps a little too overtly and often), and Stross's re-imagining doesn't just parody the original but leans hard into its themes of death, family, and the end of childhood.

It's also a relief to have a novel in the series that takes the time to flesh out the richness of the Laundry setting with (comparatively) normal characters, not least since our original protagonists have levelled up to the point of barely being human. There's also a whole host of little callbacks and Easter eggs that help make the series feel cohesive and lived in, even if thriller-genre elements like pseudo-Bonds, disposable Russian heavies and occult corporate villains have maybe been trotted out a few too many times already.

So far, so promising, but you might be forgiven for putting the book down before it really gets going. The first act is lumbered with a fairly large cast to introduce, main-series continuity to establish, plot breadcrumbs to scatter, and quite a bit of complicated back-and-forth to get all the characters together. Add in some gratuitous sleaze and grit that makes it feel like the book is trying a bit *too* hard to show that it's actually all grown up, and it's a rocky start.

However, things tighten up nicely once Stross stops trying to write a Rule 34 sequel and a certain door opens near the halfway mark. As a clever final-heist plot comes together, the gradual revelation of why our Peter Pan stand in never wants to grow up — and why his sister has grown up only too too much — develops a surprisingly large amount of pathos. The phantasmagoric Victorian set piece that ties it all together and takes up nearly the entire third act is spectacular, and it's easy to forget that all the action in Neverland is covering up some shaky setup. Still, it's a welcome change of pace for the series, and hopefully future adventures with not-Pan and his Lost Boys will be able to keep the pizzaz without the labourious setup and preening grime.

Third dying star to the right, and straight on until morning, if it ever comes...

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Either the first of “The New Management” or tenth of the “The Laundry Files”. Probably best to go in expecting the former rather than the latter.
I had probably been spoiled by a relatively recent release of a short novella from the Laundry Files – Escape From Yokai Island – which had managed to catch the horror/comedy of the earlier entries to the series and featured the original “hero” Bob Howard, a relatively low level civil servant who is part of the British civil service department dealing with eldritch horror.
This is not that.
The earlier books were nothing short of brilliant. They have been getting darker as time has gone by, and the author has moved on from Bob as the protagonist to widen the series out with, in my view, mixed success.
To be fair I do understand that the set up of the series is such (that computers are a doorway into the world for the creatures from the dungeon dimensions, and that in earlier days the only 'computers' were the human brain and there weren't that many of those, whilst now the population is huge and computers are everywhere – therefore Lovecraftian Armageddon) that things are going to get bad, very, very bad. I also suspect that Stross is somewhat disenchanted with British politics and that's bleeding through into his work. I also appreciate that artistry is what it is and the artist goes where they must. However, once it goes to a place that just isn't entertaining any more I'm checking out.
I probably should add cardboard cut-out characters that I just don't care about, a simplistic cookie cutter plot and just generally not well executed. I was rooting for the things with tentacles by the end.
Good luck to the obviously many people on Goodreads who enjoyed this book, I do envy you in many ways, sadly I'm not one of them.

[Susan Hampson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first Charles Stross book, although it is number ten in the Laundry Files series. I was told, the book could be read, as a stand-alone, and I agree with that. Stross rapidly got all of his character introductions on the table, to begin with, giving me plenty of time to settle into who was who.


The characters are diverse enough to make them all instantly memorable as the story darts between the very different lifestyles of brother and sister, Imp and Eve. Magic, curses, intrigue and dropouts’ make up a fascinating and compelling Peter Pan type story in the most bizarre way.

The story drops back to the childhood of the siblings, the magic and sacrifices that had been taken for granted, as being acceptable. This dark magic had a high price. Imp and Eve couldn’t have been more different than they were. One successful, powerful and confident while the other scraped by illegal means if need be.


There is deception, double and triple crossing, setups, breakups and mending of bridges. If you like your reads with a pinch of tinker bell pixie dust, then this will be right up your street because this is modern, futuristic and fairy tale darkness all rolled into one!

I wish to thank the publisher for a copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly.

[Brok3n · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still not a Laundry Files novel

I previously reviewed the Kindle edition, which I read in 2020. Over the last few weeks I listened to the audiobook. Like most of the Laundry Files audiobooks (which this is not), it is narrated by Gideon Emery, who as always does a superb job. However, the main difference between this second experience and my first experience of the novel derives not from the different format, but from my having gotten over the reality that this was not a Laundry Files novel. So I listened to it without constantly comparing it in my mind to the Laundry Files. It is better so.

It really is a very good story, and Emery does a great job of making the creepy parts creepy. Also, I have since read the other extant New Management novels, and this one is, in my judgement, the best of the three.

Blog review.

Merged review:

Still not a Laundry Files novel

I previously reviewed the Kindle edition, which I read in 2020. Over the last few weeks I listened to the audiobook. Like most of the Laundry Files audiobooks (which this is not), it is narrated by Gideon Emery, who as always does a superb job. However, the main difference between this second experience and my first experience of the novel derives not from the different format, but from my having gotten over the reality that this was not a Laundry Files novel. So I listened to it without constantly comparing it in my mind to the Laundry Files. It is better so.

It really is a very good story, and Emery does a great job of making the creepy parts creepy. Also, I have since read the other extant New Management novels, and this one is, in my judgement, the best of the three.

Blog review.

Merged review:

Not a Laundry Files novel.

Although there is a stamp on the cover of this book labeling it "A Laundry Files Novel", this is not actually accurate. On his blog, Charles Stross has said that Dead Lies Dreaming is not a continuation of The Laundry Files, but the first book in a new series, which might be called Tales of the New Management. On the other hand, the cover stamp is not totally inaccurate. The story takes place in the world of The Laundry Files. Specifically, it takes place in the England in which the Black Pharoah has become Prime Minister of England.

You can easily read Dead Lies Dreaming without having read The Laundry Files. The characters are entirely new. (In fact, to a fan of The Laundry Files, it is a little disappointing not to see any familiar faces.) Also, most of the careful world-building of The Laundry Files has been made unnecessary.

Every fantasy novel has a theory of magic. Magic can't do everything -- there is a price, and a source of power, and limitations. In some cases, such as the Harry Potter series, this theory is so incoherent and and lacking in logic as to be almost nonexistent. (Don't get me wrong -- I love the Potter books.) This theory is incomplete and vague. If it were not, then magic would not be magic -- it would be technology. The Laundry Files are the exception -- the Theory of magic in The Laundry Files is explicit and detailed. "Magic is a branch of Applied Mathematics". Mathematics is more than universal -- it spans universes. The universe we see is a shadow cast by the absolute mathematical truths of Platonic reality. Those capable of apprehending these truths can perceive and understand other universes. Computations, in brains or in computers, can speak and travel across universes. In The Laundry Files, magic is a technology.

Bob Howard, the hero of the first Laundry Files novels, is a man who could explain to you the difference between a Riemann and a Lebesque integral. His comfort with math is not irrelevant to his heroic competencies. (He is also funny, resourceful, bold, loyal, and indeed he checks most of the boxes of the Scout Law, with the conspicuous exception of "reverent".) And he is superb with information technology. Thus he becomes a powerful sorcerer. To a mathematician and programmer, the Laundry Files feel familiar and comfortable.

None of that really matters in Dead Lies Dreaming. As in most fantasy novels, Magic is done by intuitive magicians and superheroes who do magic without an explicit understanding of theory. Although the sentence "Magic was a branch of applied mathematics" does appear in the book, it is far less central to the story than in The Laundry Files. It is still important, but in a way that you need not be explicitly aware of.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet's favorite color was yellow. This fact appears nowhere in Pride and Prejudice. We know it because Jane Austen told her friends. Austen knew her characters deeply -- they were real to her and had deep stories that don't appear in P&P. However, we can feel her affection for them and their reality. In the same way, the existence of a theory of magic that underpins the world of The Laundry Files gives Dead Lies Dreaming a felt depth and authenticity.

All that said, it's a wonderful engaging story, with more than a touch of Lovecraftian horror. (I cannot personally attest to that, having never read HP Lovecraft myself.) Peter Pan and Wendy and Neverland and the Lost Boys appear, and even a terrifying Tinkerbell, along with James Bond.

Blog review.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

When magic and superpowers emerge in the masses, Wendy Deere is contracted by the government to bag and snag supervillains in Dead Lies Dreaming, the tenth instalment in the Laundry Files series, and although not strictly a necessity, I would recommend reading them chronologically. As Wendy hunts down Imp―the cyberpunk head of a band calling themselves “The Lost Boys”― she is dragged into the schemes of louche billionaire Rupert de Montfort Bigge. Rupert has discovered that the sole surviving copy of the long-lost concordance to the one true Necronomicon is up for underground auction in London. He hires Imp’s sister, Eve, to procure it by any means necessary, and in the process, he encounters Wendy Deere. In a tale of corruption, assassination, thievery, and magic, Wendy Deere must navigate rotting mansions that lead to distant pasts, evil tycoons, corrupt government officials, lethal curses, and her own moral qualms in order to make it out of this chase alive.

Returning to an alternate England, Kensington to be exact, we embark on a dangerous adventure with both new and old characters sharing the spotlight. The worldbuilding is impeccable, immersing you in the world with ease and this instalment is certainly a lot more dark and gritty than the preceding books. It's a madcap caper with lots of hilarious humour and a cast of characters who are eccentric and engaging; Wendy and The Lost Boys, a gang of superpowered transhuman heisters comprising Imp, the Deliverator, Doc Depression, and Game Boy, are superbly developed and each has their own distinct personality. This is a captivating, zany and refreshingly original series (and book) which is thoroughly entertaining with its chaotic intersecting plotlines, sardonic wit and great characterisation. There is danger, drama and bullets flying and enough to keep you engrossed and absorbed from first page to last. Many thanks to Orbit for an ARC.

[Moe Lane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find the Laundry Files relaxing, in an odd sort of way. Someone once pointed out that one of the most interesting things about HP Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook" is that the author put real rhetorical and emotional energy into his horrified presentation of NYC. There's genuine power and force in that story - but if you don't hate and fear the City as much as Lovecraft did, you can see that power and force without it really scaring you.

That's me with the Laundry Files. Charlie Stross has loathed current events for the last six or so years. He's put that loathing into this series. He's a great writer, so he's doing it really, really well. And I kind of feel bad for him, because I don't share that elemental revulsion. But I pre-order these books in hardcover, so I guess it's all working out OK?

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not really a spoiler that even though this is marked as book 10 of the Laundry Files, it's not really about the Laundry Files at all! It's set in the same world, well, a few years after the adventures of Bob and Company. I felt like the start was a little rough because it introduces a lot of characters but then a third of the way through, it really picks up steam and becomes very interesting. It's a world of magic and curses, but also Lovecraftian horror. I really enjoyed the story a lot and am looking forward to the next one.

[Joel Benford · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this series is getting long in the tooth, I've read all the jokes before. It's time Stross returned to his central storyline and finished it.

[Alex Sarll]

Stross' latest is a Laundry Files spin-off, a nested Peter Pan riff posing as an occult/techno-thriller in a sideways London where the Lovecraftian apocalypse is real to the extent that Nyarlathotep is now Prime Minister. So there's the first problem: it's another dystopia which in fact looks fairly appealing compared to our own timeline. There's one scene where a character's ward is nullified as she comes under psychic attack: "a bleak tide of depression washed over her. It felt like she'd jumped in a river of regrets, her pockets stuffed with cobblestones. It came to her distantly that she could barely muster the energy to breathe – in fact begrudged herself every successive moment of mindlessly prolonged life." At which I could only sigh enviously at the thought of a world where that mood is the result of magical aggression, rather than the day-to-day default. Hell, I was feeling a bit this way with the previous Laundry novel proper, and that was pre-lockdown. A development Stross could hardly have predicted, granted, but there's no such excuse in having the villain here be a tycoon whose political career was stymied by photos of him fucking a dead pig at university, something which is obviously no impediment in our own world. Said villain is called Rupert de Montfort Bigge, and depicted with exactly the degree of subtlety that moniker suggests, a monster of greed and depravity in a way which feels slightly old-fashioned when we know the destruction our own world's super-rich can cause while having entirely colourless private lives. Yes, having Rupert be a feudal lordling of a Channel Island called Skaro did make me chuckle at the near-anagram with a little extra bite, but there were definitely times here where I was getting a Pat Mills vibe, a sense that while I absolutely agree with the author about the evils of privatisation, deregulation and unfettered inequality, he was still hammering the point to the extent it was harming the art*.

The protagonists are a more rounded bunch. Wendy, a long way from the Barrie via Disney version we expect, is a rentacop who can magically summon items; she ends up on the trail of some Lost Boys pulling superpowered heists to fund a Peter Pan film; and then Bigge's mutinous PA also gets involved. But none of them ever quite came alive for me to the same degree as the leads in the Laundry Files proper, perhaps because there the narrators always had at least a whole novel to inveigle themselves into your sympathies, instead of having to share space like this. Still, it's not like Stross hasn't created compelling leads in shorter spaces before, and this contributes to a general sense that he's not quite operating at the peak of his powers here. Lords know he's not been having a good time of it lately, and some of the most powerful sections feel like they may be drawing on that – for all the Cthulhoid nasties, the most genuinely horrific passages are undoubtedly the ones about dealing with a parent's degenerative illness, the indignities and damage attendant on that. Elsewhere, though, there are big action sequences which feel a little too straight thriller, a bit big-budget TV, and not really what I'm after in a Laundry (or even Laundry-adjacent) book, to the extent that it can start feeling like a franchise extension by another hand. Except then you'll get a passage that's pure Stross, like the novel twist on the magical Macguffin, or in particular the tense discussion on the technicalities of its attendant curse – "ancient death spells and intellectual property laws don't always play nice together".

It all builds to a conclusion which is equal parts atmospheric and frustrating; its approach to a key SF trope feels a bit cake-and-eat-it, which I could forgive for the mood it builds, if it weren't then slightly swamped in too many factions whose motives I didn't entirely buy given they were mostly meant to be on the same side. You know Ben Wheatley's Free Fire? Imagine if, on top of the other things which made it less than entirely satisfying, the warehouse location and its immediate environs were really interesting in themselves, and the gunfight was largely getting in the way. There are some fun traps and reversals, but mostly I was left with the sense of a book which might have been happier as its own thing, or perhaps earlier in the Laundry timeline (circa Annihilation Score, for instance), but which as it stands feels like a bit of a square peg.

*It should be noted that I'm reading a Netgalley ARC, granted with a proviso that details could change before final publication, but this is not a matter of line-by-line quotes which could be checked so much as a general issue with the fabric and feel of the book.

[Anj✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in the same world as The Laundry Files series but with a new cast of characters, Dead Lies Dreaming is an inventive and entertaining read!

It’s a tale of heist, magic, and corruption intertwined with some Peter Pan references and time travel. Dead Lies Dreaming has well-developed characters, a well-written and interesting plot, fast-paced, and I can’t believe it at first, but mathematics is some sort of magic here!

Highly recommended to fans of Charles Stross and urban fantasy readers who enjoy their book with twists (Cthulhu Mythos)!

Thank you, Little Brown Book Group/Orbit and Netgalley for the DRC of Dead Lies Dreaming. All thoughts and opinions are mine.

[Kirsty ❤️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this overall but found it hard going. It's my first experience of Stross's work and maybe I should've started with something else? It's a mix of science fiction, heist story, fantasy, and so much more. The characters (both good and evil) are well drawn and I loved the world building. For me maybe a few too many characters and I got lost in the plot a few times. Overall I liked it but didn't love it

[Steve Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent read from the ever-inventive Mr Stross. The characters are great, the plot is original and moves along at a good pace, and overall it's a very enjoyable page-turner.

This is book one of two, although you can read them separately and still enjoy them. The second book is even better than this one, so consider buying them both together.

[Miloš Petrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

It takes a not inconsiderable effort to make accounting interesting.

[Soo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes:

Yay for libraries!

Quirky beginning, a drab setup and then a snowball of interesting events that lead to a solid ending. Looking forward to the next book!

[Noémie J. Crowley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been looking forward to dive into Stross’s universe for so long, and I really should have done it before. Witty urban fantasy with a twist of thriller ? Count me the fuck in ! Very diverse characters and women that are not limp sexy tools ? HELL YEAH! All in all that was such a cool read, I was so invested into it and I just finished it in under 3 days. Well paced, fun, but also horribly heartbreaking, my type of thing - and another stone on my "i actually don't dislike fantasy" tower.

[Vasil Kolev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice, somewhat quick read.