Surprisingly, my favourite aspect of the book was the antagonist. They were competent ciphers of characters without being annoyingly smarmy or smug about it. For the most part, I enjoyed Persephone and Johnny. That isn’t a big deal, but it is an interesting change. This is also the first time, if I recall correctly, that Bob narrates stuff in third person that he didn’t experience. It isn’t just the exposition to induct us into the world … it takes a while for Bob to get out into the field and do his thing and then for the shit to hit the fan. Getting into this particular book now: the first third kind of drags. As usual, Stross isn’t afraid to shake things up and move the overall arc of the series forward. Bob brings you up to speed pretty quickly, and while there are obviously references (and spoilers for) earlier novels, this adventure really has Bob off on something quite new, and the ending sets him up for a kind of lateral move within the Laundry hierarchy that promises more interesting adventures going forward. This is also probably a great entry point into the series if you haven’t been following along and don’t feel like going back and reading the first three books. All the stuff you’ve come to expect, in spades. More mythology, new characters (Persephone and Johnny are cool Lockhart is OK), new perspectives even, and an intense thriller plot. TL DR if you’ve read this series before and want to know how this one stacks up: it’s good. They need to investigate an evangelical church that is a little too cult-like to be true-might the pastor actually be trying to summon a chthonic entity when he really means to resurrect Jesus? Of course he might. Rather, Bob soon gets tapped by another Laundry higher-up to manage some “external assets”-a witch and her mercenary sidekick. Fortunately for our reader’s brains, we don’t have to sit through 300 pages of Bob networking with other British civil servants. In The Apocalypse Codex, Bob Howard is back … and has to go to training courses because he is being groomed for middle management.
Don’t worry I bought this book and the next one, so while I won’t be reading it right away, three years will not go by. It has been a long time since I bought a Charles Stross book. Yes, um, hi, it’s been three years since I last read and reviewed a Laundry Files novel.
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