The Apocalypse Codex

My reading for the past few months has been somewhat sporadic. I’ve kept up with my comics and graphic novels but have had little time to dedicate to my passion for science fiction and fantasy. I have been making an effort to carve out more time for reading and have recently finished The Apocalypse codex by Charles Stross.

I have spoken about Stross’ Laundry files here before. This newest addition to the series only further cements my love of this world and cast of characters. He blends lovecraftian mythos, spy thrillers, and office comedy into a captivating story that never loses site of the humanity of the characters.

The Apocalypse Codex continues the story of Bob Howard, computational demonologist. The story opens as Bob is recovering from an operation that has gone bad. Stross feeds us the story through Bob’s memoirs and the reports of the other people involved in the event. Bob is on the fast track for promotion and has been assigned to External Assets. This is the department that handles jobs that would be embarrassing to Queen and Country but are outside the purview of the Laundry. Bob is given responsibility to oversee Persephone Hazard and Johnny McTavish as they investigate the evangelical american preacher Ray Schiller. The assignment is a test for Bob on many levels and we get to see how he reacts as everything goes pear shaped.

The thing that I love the most about this series and this book in particular is that Bob is not a stagnant character.  In each book we get to watch him grow into a deeper and more believable person. This books shines the spotlight on this through his interactions with his wife, Mo. We get to hear about their daily life as a couple and how it is impacted by the difficult jobs that they both do. The part where they hold each other when the nightmares are gruesome is particularly poignant. We also get to see the lighter side of their lives as well when they have another married couple over for dinner and they struggle to skirt around just exactly what they do and stay within their cover stories. These vignettes aren’t throw away filler either and are called back to throughout the story. This touch of humanity is not something that is only applied to the protagonists of the story. Ray Schiller is no maniacal Bond villain. The goal that he is trying to accomplish is monstrous but it comes from motivations that are understandable given his perspective.

Stross’ love for playing with tropes is clearly in evidence here as well. I’ve mentioned how he gives Schiller motivations that are very believable. He also does not belabor the point of bashing Evangelicals any more than he does other religions in past books. His world does have a god but all he wants to do do is destroy our universe and make humanity into slaves before that happens. This may sound funny but Stross doesn’t get preachy about conservative evangelicals. Further, He juggles the trope of operations manager here as well. You get the standard operation goes bad and the manager is ordered to cut and run. Bob does his best to not leave his people out to dry. We are given further insight into this as we get to see Angleton, Bob’s boss, discuss with other agents the reasons to expect Bob to not take those orders if at all possible and why this is a good thing. Hell, we are even reminded that this loyalty to others is how he meets Mo in the first place.

The Apocalalypse Codex is a brilliant addition to the Laundry Files. We get to learn more about Bob and the Laundry itself while being taken on a wild ride in America. It makes me sad that I’ve finished this book and have to wait for the next installment.

Written on March 19th, 2013 , Books Tags: ,
This Dark Earth

This Dark EarthZombies are big right now.  I mean really big.  The Walking Dead is a big hit for AMC and a season of this show isn’t even a full twenty-four episodes.  In addition to the Walking Dead, There are video games, table-top rpgs, card games, dice games, and books all about this subject.  You can not swing an dead cat without hitting something zombie-centric these days.  This has a large down side for me as I am not a fan of this genre.  What little I have read in this genre leans heavily on the stupidity factor.  The setup gives you a group of people who have been surviving and the initiating action is one or more of them doing something out of character to get the ball rolling.  This fucking pisses me off and makes me want to throw the fucking book across the room.

So, when a friend provided me a copy of John Hornor Jacob’s new book, This Dark Earth, I had some reservations.  I trust her recommendations though.  So I took my iPad with me to the county fair and read the book whilst working the booth for the soil and water conservation board.  I was not disappointed.  The book opens up with the first of three main characters that wind their way through out the narrative.  Dr Lucy Ingersol is working at a hospital and lamenting the loss of a recent promotion due to her somewhat cold demeanor and clinical detachment.  At the very beginning, the reader is given a clear picture of what type of person Dr. Ingersol is and this image is further reinforced as the zombie out break starts in the ER of the hospital where she is working.  As things fall apart during the outbreak, we are introduced to the second important character of the book, Knock-out.  Knock-out is a big bear of a man who is driving a big rig when Lucy hops into his truck and tells him to get moving.  As the pair flee before the governments reaction to the zombie outbreak, the narrative switches to Knock-out’s perspective so that we are given a better idea of this character.  Not only do we learn more about him, but he provides a different viewpoint on Lucy which only adds more depth to her character as well.  This Dark Earth takes this stylistic choice of switching characters and uses it to tell a tale of the destruction of the world that was by zombies and the struggle to create a new world from the rubble.  Each character that takes center stage provides a story of the breakdown of  society and how that person dealt with the change.  In addition to this glimpse of the world, they also weave into the lives of the two major characters and provide a new perspective on these individuals and allow them to grow without always being on center stage.

I loved this book.  It embraces the cold intelligence Dr Lucy Ingersol while holding true to the deep emotional well that is seen in Knock-out.  At no point did I want to scream Fuck and throw the book across the room because characters decided to up and be stupid and not be who they were.  The story doesn’t give in to the standard trope of something stupid driving the plot but instead capitalizes on human nature to provide an antagonist for our main characters.  Now, I can hear you saying, “But Rob, aren’t the zombies the antagonist?”  My answer to this is fuck no! The zombies of This Dark Earth are more akin to an environmental danger than anything else.  The zombies are something that have to be accounted for but are not truly a driving force for any of the characters.  I find this both intelligent and entertaining as it makes it more a story about what it means to be human than what it means to survive.  If you must know what the zombies symbolize, I would say will to power.  I know that consumption is the standard trope here but how Mr. Jacobs describes the zombies throughout the book really made this connection for me.  The zombies are animate and mobile but have nothing that motivates them beyond the necessity of consumption.  It becomes apparent through out the book that the survivors are carriers for whatever caused this apocalypse and that death of any sort will result in anyone rising as a zombie.  This means that the living must strive to protect themselves from the zombies without but also from the specter of those they love becoming one soon.  This is just my take though, your miles may vary.

I have to say pick up this book and give it a read.  If you are a fan of the zombie genre this will provide you with a much more intelligent take on these tropes.  If you are not a fan of the genre, this book will reward you with a great story about the strength of humanity in the face of adversity.  Regardless of your stance on zombies, it has some incredibly touching human moments that are truly powerful and made this a five star book to me.

Written on September 4th, 2012 , Books Tags: ,
Midnight Riot

I was watching my twitter feed the other day, as I am wont to do.  I saw Charles Stross send out a tweet in regards to Ben Aaronovich.  I did a bit of a head desk and realized that I had not picked up his latest book.  I also repeated the head desk maneuver when I has realized that I had never mentioned this fine series of books to the readers here on Ideology of Madness.

Allow me to make recompense for this gross oversight on my part and illuminate you, my gentle readers, in regards to his entertaining first novel in the series, Midnight Riot.

Midnight Riot is an urban fantasy/police procedural story set in modern day London.  Peter Grant is a probationary constable on the London police force.  He has dreams of becoming a detective when he comes off of probation.  His dreams are dashed when he is assigned to Case Progression Unit which is the home of glorified paper pushes in his mind.  Everything changes while watching over a crime scene late one night and he meets the only eyewitness to the murder.  The only problem with the witness is that he is dead as well, but just for a much longer time.  This strange meeting with a ghost on a murder case leads to Peter’s promotion to apprentice wizard under Inspector Nightingale who is the last remaining wizard on the Metropolitan Police Force.  The person that decapitated the first victim is killing again and it is left to Peter and Inspector Nightingale to catch him before the body count mounts.  In case a murder investigation was not enough, Peter has to begin his training as a wizard and help fend of a feud between the warring spirits of the rivers of London.  All in a days work for the newest member of the Metropolitan Police Force.

I really enjoyed this book.  It has the style of dialog that I enjoy which is to say quick, crisp, and quirky.  There is a point in the book where Peter is talking to his friend about being an apprentice and the subject of Harry Potter comes up.  I like this nod to other pieces of urban fantasy and it fit well within the tone of the book.  The blending of the two genres is done well.  You are given a clear idea of how the London police force is ran how it is very much rooted in order and reason.  When the specter of magic and the unnatural are brought up the discomfort that the normal channels experience is palpable on the page.  The author does an excellent job of avoiding the standard Hollywood pitfalls of creating an overbearing captain that hates the main characters for no good reason.  Here, Peter and Inspector Nightingale represent the unknown to a system based on order which creates tension no matter what they do.  Add to this a nice dose of levity and you have a book that is both quick to read but leaves you sad when you finish it as you want more.

Oh!  The perfect elevator pitch for this book would be Harry Potter meets Hot Fuzz!

If you are looking for a new author to read in the urban fantasy genre, I suggest picking up Ben Aaronovich.  Midnight riot is a great book and there are two more books in the series as well!

Written on August 14th, 2012 , Books Tags:
The Atrocity Archives

After my recent review of Casting Call of Cthulhu, I was pondering my reading within the Cthulhu mythos.  I have read many of the stories by H P Lovecraft and several of those by the inheritors of his legacy.  In spite of my best efforts, I was never a fan of Cthulhu.  It wasn’t until I discovered the Laundry series by Charles Stross that this changed.

The Atrocity Archives is the first book in this series.  This book covers much ground as it introduces;  Bob Howard, the protagonist of the series, The Laundry, the agency Bob works for, and the universe in which the series takes place.  the Laundry is a secret British agency set up for express purpose of protecting the empire from threats from outside of our universe.  Demons, Zombies, and Elder Gods are just a few of the threats that lurk on the other side of reality which is easily accessed via complex mathematical formula.  The connection to the lovecraft mythos becomes evident in the explanation of these forces. there are beings that reside in both higher and lower dimensions and see any activity from our world as an invitation.  In addition to these things which we can control or bargain with, there are things that would destroy us without even noticing.  This easily puts it within the mythos for me with enough of a tweak to make it interesting.

It was the spy thriller aspect that the Laundry adds to the lovecraftian milieu which initially piqued my interest.  It was Bob that sealed the deal though.  Bob Howard is not your normal special agent.  He is a computer and math geek who almost destroyed a city by writing a new computer program.  He was given the choice of joining the Laundry or dying and took the only viable option.  Instead of the romanticized version of the spy world, we are given a setting that has much more in common with Office Space than James Bond.  Reports have to be filed in a timely manner and expenditures need to be approved and verified with superiors.  Bob has a certain dry humor that I appreciated and the level of snark with which he contemplates the others in his office is highly entertaining.  Bob’s perspective on this office environment is filled with snark which I find endearing.  This still being set within the cthulhu mythos means that even the petty office politics that Bob gleefully pokes fun at can quickly turn deadly.  It is these little things that help to keep the tension high throughout the book.

The book follows Bob’s first foray into field work after having been kept in the office to deal with the IT issues that any governmental agency normally suffers.  It highlights his complete lack of training for any of the physical stresses that he has to undergo in the pursuit of his goal while clearly showing that for the occult aspect he is clearly well prepared.  The story moves quickly with a definite Len Deighton feel to it. The story careens from mutilated cows in the British country side to old Nazi bunkers on the moon which makes for an action packed story.  The action is broken up by visits to the office where work is still waiting despite the harrowing missions that Bob is trying to complete.  This juxtaposition of the otherworldly and the banal would not seem to fit together but Stross pulls it off and makes it look easy.

If you like spy novels, Cthulhu, or Office Space, I highly recommend giving this book at read.  Abandoned Nazi moon bases!  What more could you ask for?

Written on July 31st, 2012 , Books Tags: ,
Hedy’s Folly

Have you ever seen the British TV series Connections?  It was a show that first aired in Brittain in 1978.  It had it’s second season in 1994 and it’s final season in 1997.  Seeing how it is a bit old, I won’t hold it against you if you hadn’t seen it.  I highly recommend combing through the interwebs and finding episodes to watch as they are both entertaining and edifying.  The conceit of the show is that the host, James Burke, would take something from our modern world and show how it can be traced back to some particular historical instance.  My favorite episode is one of the older ones called The Long Chain that linked plastics to the development of the Dutch Fluyt in the 16th century.

You are most probably wondering why I am talking about an old British TV series when the title of this post is Hedy’s Folly.  The reason is simple as the style of the book has the very same feel as the TV show.  Richard Rhodes approach to this book was to give you something that is ubiquitous in the modern world and provide the historical point of origin in the past and work the reader forward.  In the case of Hedy’s folly, Rhodes starts with wifi and cellphones and connects them back to the invention of signal hopping that was created by Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil.

Yes, you read that correctly.  The technology that allows my iPhone and other internet connected items to work can be directly traced back to “The most beautiful woman in the world” and “The bad boy of music” of their time.  It was this idea that sold me on the book in first place.  I was very surprised in just reading the initial blurb that I wanted to know more of how these two individuals ended up getting together at all, much less inventing something that has such a large impact on modern life.  Rhodes move back and forth between these two people lives throughout the book.  Each section of their life that he shines a light on provides a bit of insight into how they get to the point of inventing signal hopping technology.  In addition to these windows into their lives, he places them within the zeitgeist so that you can see the greater driving factors that also shape their progress.  Each vignette is an interesting tidbit from each person’s life.  One of my favorite pieces of knowledge was finding out that Hedy Lamarr had done a film early in her career wherein she appeared naked.  It had caused such an uproar that it was said she would never have any sort of career in acting and her first husband went to great lengths to acquire almost every copy of the film and destroy it.  This piece of information is titillating and scandalous but also provides another layer to how Hedy arrived in Hollywood and ended up creating this amazing invention.

I know that this is not a normal recommendation from me.  Richard Rhodes writing style is light and airy which makes for an easy read.  The subject matter is both interesting from the perspective anyone that loves cinema, music, or history.  If you are a tech geek, the way the story is developed gives you a greater understanding of how technology gets developed and where things can go wrong in that process.  I highly recommend picking it up and giving it a read.

Written on July 18th, 2012 , Books, Uncategorized
Old Man’s War

After watching Prometheus, I decided I needed a dose of good science fiction.  This was a problem for me as I have not kept up with the genre and had no clue where to begin.  It was a face-palm moment when I realized that I was following a great science fiction author already.

I found John Scalzi’s blog Whatever about two years ago and had made it one of my daily visits when I hit the internet.  I enjoyed his insights on varied topics and his Big Idea series had introduced me to several authors that I now read religiously.  I was sad to realize that I had not picked up any of his books and this was the perfect time to do so.

I decided the best place to start was with his first book Old Man’s War which was published in 2005.  This was the story of John Perry.  On his 75th birthday he did two things.  He visited his wife’s grave and he joined the army.  Now, I know that may sound kind of crazy but it becomes clearer as the book eases you into the setting.

We learn, along with John, that the earth is actually a backwater planet.  Progress has slowed to a crawl.  The promise of an extended life draws people to join the CDF at 75 years old.  By joining, the person becomes legally dead on earth and promises never to return.  The question that plagues John is how they will utilize a septuagenarian as a raw recruit to defend humanity.  The answer is astounding but makes perfect sense.  They are going to transfer his consciousness into a technologically advanced younger version of his own body.  The CDF needs people with a depth of life experience as it makes for a smoother transition to the new body and they are more prepared to deal with the variety of challenges they are soon to face.

At its heart, this book is about two things.  It is the story of John Perry’s beginnings in the Colonial Defense Force and an exploration of what it means to be human.  We follow John during his time in training and throughout his rise through the ranks.  We are given a clear picture of the capabilities of the new body that he has been given and the extent of the technology that humanity has at its disposal.  We get to watch as John has to learn the capabilities of his new body.   Each new piece of information takes him farther from the man he remembers.  After to coming to grips with his new reality, an even bigger wrench is thrown into life when he is rescued from a failed mission by a soldier that looks just like his dead wife.

I really enjoyed this book.  The pacing was wonderful and made for a quick read.  John Perry is an affable protagonist making it easy to identify with him.  The themes that are explored throughout the book are handled deftly without ever sacrificing character to make a point.  All in all, a book well worth your time to read.

Written on June 20th, 2012 , Books, Science Fiction
Mortal Coils

Mortal CoilsThere is an an app called Goodreads that I use to track books I have read, keep a list of books I would like to read, and keep up-to-date on the books and blogs of my favorite writers.  My to-read list in the app currently stands at 19.  This list has grown so large as I have had neither the time nor inclination to read long form fiction as of late.  The growing size of this list was distressing though.  Being OCD, I had to take some action to stem the growing tide of books that needed to be read.  To that end, I purchased Mortal Coils by Eric Nylund and dedicated some time to reading.  I am glad I did.

Mortal Coils is the story of Fiona and Eliot Post.  They are 15 year-old twin orphans that are being raised by their grandmother and great grandmother.  Their lives are strictly regimented and order is maintained by adherence to over 132 rules that their grandmother has set forth.  This oppressive regime extends even to education as the children are home schooled and therefor have little interaction with other people outside of the job that they have just recently started.  As the story unfolds, we are quickly introduced to several shadowy figures that are searching for the twins.  The discovery of the twins illuminates the true purpose behind all the rules under which they have lived.  They served the two-fold purpose of keeping them hidden from their relatives and to keep the twins ignorant of their true heritage.

With their discovery, this coming-of-age story begins to pick up more steam.  In addition to the standard problems that teenagers face, the two must come to grips with being members of two powerful supernatural families  The twins very existence is cause for much consternation among both families and tests are undertaken to determine their true lineage.  The tests by one family are called heroic trials while the other family undertakes temptations to discern the twins nature .  With the names of the tests, it comes as no surprise to find that one family is composed of demons and the other is populated by gods, goddesses, and immortal heroes.  What follows is a slow revelation of the nature of the two families and the possible place the twins have in either.

That I enjoyed this book was a little surprising.  My exposure to YA fiction is somewhat limited.  I have read and enjoyed the Hunger Games and Harry Potter but little else has been able to hold my interest. The families being composed of gods and demons provided the impetus to begin reading this book.  The unique spin that being a child of a goddess and a demon brings to a coming-of-age story kept me reading.  As I am a fan of things mythical, this additional complication added an interesting wrinkle to the story.  The slow revelation of who was whom within each family was very engrossing.  Clues are sprinkled about the narrative indicative of the identity of the major characters.  These clues added an extra urgency to the story a I wanted to find out if I was correct in my deductions about certain characters.

I highly recommend picking up this book.  It is a quick and entertaining read with a unique take on a classic coming-of age tale.  It is excellent summer reading fare.

Written on May 24th, 2012 , Books
Blood Oath

I could think of no better way to tie up the theme of badassery than by telling you about the novel Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth.

Let me start off by giving you the elevator pitch.  Blood Oath is equal parts The Bourne Identity, World of Darkness, and H P Lovecraft.  It takes urban fantasy and seamlessly integrates it with the spy thriller genre.  The setting is our modern world but with elder horrors lurking at the edge of reality, werewolves leading organized crime in Russia, and mad scientists creating horrors to be used as weapons of mass destruction.  In this world, every nation needs an operative that can work within these supernatural shadows.  The United States has Nathaniel Cade.

Nathaniel Cade, also known as the President’s vampire, serves the interests of the United States by keeping the nation safe from supernatural threats.  The book opens with a military strike team observing a deal being brokered in a former soviet block nation.  The perspective the reader is given is that of a special forces sniper watching the proceedings after having gone radio silent.  The tableau that unfolds has the deal going sour and the sniper taking the shot despite orders to not engage the Russian operatives.  Instead of this ending an ugly confrontation, it just escalates the violence as the operative transforms into a werewolf and leaps to the window where the sniper is positioned.  Before the rampaging werewolf has a chance to eviscerate the sniper, Cade joins the fray.  The action is quick, brutal and ends with Cade holding the lower jawbone of werewolf in his hand and berating the soldier for almost ruining the operation.  If that doesn’t qualify as bad ass, then I don’t know what does.

The style of writing in Blood Oath plays heavily to the strengths of Christopher Farnsworth’s experience as a screenwriter and a journalist.  The action is fast paced  and well written with an eye to setting a scene.  He skillfully handles a large cast of characters while ensuring each one is engaging regardless of their time on the screen.  He utilizes this cast of characters as a tool to provide many different perspectives on the action transpiring.  This allows the reader to have a greater understanding of various plots that are unfolding.  Farnsworth slowly reveals the complexity of Cade’s interactions with the various arms of the US government as well as that of the many holders of the office of President.  What is most impressive is that Farnsworth deals with the idea that the larger the group of people involved in a conspiracy the less likely that this conspiracy will remain secret.

Farnsworth has created an interesting character in Nathaniel Cade  as well as an intriguing setting.  The characters fit well within the tropes of the spy thriller and urban fantasy without being caricatures of the big names in either genre.  Being a fan of both styles of fiction, I found this book to be excellent melding of the two.  What could be better than a vampire fighting a werewolf on behalf of the President of the United States.  That’s bad ass.

Written on April 25th, 2012 , Books
Book Review: The Fall (Guillermo Del Toro/Chuck Hogan)

I’m a HUGE Guillermo Del Toro fan.  He has, without a doubt, one of the most amazing visual minds of anyone working in media today.  It’s no wonder that everyone wants to work with Del Toro, from Disney to video game companies to novelist Chuck Hogan.  Del Toro has a lot of ideas when it comes to vampires, and he takes some of his concepts from Blade II, along with plenty of new ideas, and brings them to his collaboration with Chuck Hogan, The Strain Trilogy.

I wasn’t the hugest fan of the original novel in the trilogy, The Strain. (check out my review)  I felt like it was bit too much build up without enough resolution.  That being said, I was still curious enough to see where the story was going to pick up The Fall, the second novel in the trilogy.

In The Fall, the vampiric strain has debilitated New York City, and the heroes of the original are trying to figure out their next steps, not realizing that the monsters behind the vampiric outbreak are already working on their endgame.

The vampiric virus unleashed in The Strain has taken over New York City. It is spreading across the country and soon, the world. Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather—head of the Center for Disease Control’s team—leads a small band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters. But it may be too late. Ignited by the Master’s horrific plan, a war erupts between Old and New World vampires, each vying for total control. Caught between these warring forces, humans—powerless and vulnerable—are no longer the consumers, but the consumed. Though Eph understands the vampiric plague better than anyone, even he cannot protect those he loves from the invading evil. His ex-wife, Kelly, has been turned by the Master, and now she stalks the city, in the darkness, looking for her chance to reclaim Zack, Eph’s young son. With the future of the world in the balance, Eph and his courageous team, guided by the brilliant former professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and exterminator Vasiliy Fet, must combat a terror whose ultimate plan is more terrible than anyone first imagined—a fate worse than annihilation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Written on March 2nd, 2011 , Books
The Klutz Book of Inventions and Flip UltraHD Give-a-way!

Necessity is the mother of invention.

To increase productivity, mankind needed an efficient way to illuminate the night.  So, Heinrich Goebel invented the light bulb and Thomas Edison, needing to be rich, stole that invention.  Guys like me needed to be able to sit through all three Director’s Cuts of The Lord of the Rings back-to-back without a bathroom break, so some genius made the Stadium Pal.

We are a needful people and The Klutz Book of Inventions is here to meet that need.  Perhaps you’re in need of Soundproof Underwear for instance?    The Klutz Book of Inventions is Co-written by Klutz founder John Cassidy and Brendan Boyle of IDEO, they came up with almost 200 never-before-seen contraptions that are brilliant, useful, and ridiculous all at the same time.

This book is hilarious.  The Wife snagged it from me the moment my review copy emerged from the package and was cracking up.  It’s a fun, fully illustrated volume of “162 inventions that do it all!”  Just think how useful this book would have been to Thomas Edison.  162 inventions right there in one book, ready for the stealing.

Sponsored by the good folks at Klutz, Ideology of Madness is hosting a contest to win The Klutz Book of Inventions in addition to a FLIP UltraHD Camcorder.  See details below.

The Deets:

One (1) Winner will receive:

  • Flip™ all-new slimmer UltraHD, and
  • A copy of KLUTZ BOOK OF INVENTIONS

All you gotta do is tell us about your snazzy innovative idea for an invention in the comments below.

One entry per person, please.

One winner will be chosen at random.

Items will only be shipped within the United States.  Prize support is courtesy of  Big Honcho Media.

Contest ends Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:59 pm Central time.

Written on November 15th, 2010 , Books, Contests, Electronics Tags:
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