Mysteriously, this book never made it to my on-line shelves the first time I read it.Second time around, it was fun enough but I found parts repetitive - recapitulating the basic set up of the series once makes sense - especially for people jumping on board at this late stage - but four or more times? (I lost count.) Also Stross appears to think his readers are stupid because it felt like the shenanigans of the plot are explained several times over, too.There's something going on in this series

No no no no no no no.Just so you know: my current state of mind is such that I just sent the following tweet to the author:This 5th book details how Bob is sent to check on health and safety violations, leading him to the discovery that although vampires can't possibly be real ... well, they are. In the form of a nasty other-dimensional parasite taking over. The reason we don't know about it and, indeed, deny the possibility? Because they are good at secrecy. Guess what happens when you drag one...

Could have used an editor. It seemed like every chapter started by restating what had happened so far, and I'm sure I saw the same sentences used six times.

I'm having an increasingly love hate relationship with this series. The early books in the series had enthralling build ups but very weak endings. Stross seems to have overcome his problems building interesting exciting finales, but the books themselves are getting more and more boring in the lead up.And I'm really beginning to loath Bob as a narrator. It's getting to the point where I'd be ok with Bob being eaten by some tentacle cosmic horror if I could just get his overly self-aware, self-imp...

Possibly the best of the Laundry Files novels. Stross returns to the bureaucratic/corporate IT satire that the series began with, ruthlessly sending up managerial fads. He takes the bankers/vampires analogy beyond the obvious, playing with the trope in a way that offers up some sharp social commentary along with the humor. The plot is tight without being convoluted, the pacing quick and carefully structured. A lot happens for the overall series arc, more so than in previous volumes, and definite...

Re-read 5/21/18:My god this series only gets better as it goes along. I thought this was a somewhat weak novel in the whole mix but I was definitely mistaken. Knowing what comes later influences my decision. Easy.This is, however, a pretty big turning point for both Bob and the Laundry. His personal life suffers by way of the events that eventually occur, but the Laundry suffers more. It's invasion time. By bloodsuckers. And there a LOT of casualties.Of course, that means a general org-chart rea...

A different take on the vampire genre.World: The world building has always been fantastic and very Strossian. We get the same here, through his lens we see vampires differently and it all ties into the internal logic of the world, it's different, it's unique and I did not expect that at all. Good stuff. The world building is actually also tied into consequences and status quo changes this time and that's a huge thing. Where Bob ends in this book changes the world completely, but I won't spoil th...

I didn’t realize how much I needed The Rhesus Chart until I started reading it, but almost from page one this was like a comforting cup of tea. See, I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately—nothing to do with the quality of my reading material, more just not being in the mood to read and actively finding reasons not to read, which is so unlike me! But The Rhesus Chart is the kind of urban fantasy candy novel that I can’t put down. I wanted to read this on break, after work, before bed … I st...

A great plot idea and the always fascinating cast should have made for an enjoyable addition to the Laundry series. Unfortunately, I found the book terribly paced, with long stretches of unnecessary exposition—mostly mr. Howard telling us the obvious or worse, summarizing previous events of the book for the benefit of other characters. Moreover, the attitude and language of mr. Howard, which worked so well for the early entries in the series, is by now getting stale. Whereas the series has alway...

Well bloody hell. That didn't end the way I expected it to (and that's not a bad thing!). Unsurprisingly as Case NIGHTMARE GREEN continues to approach, the Laundry series continues to get darker. I don't want to say too much because this one in particular really needs to not have anything approaching spoilers. But argh! What I actually said when the audio ended (BTW the audio version kicks some serious butt) was "Well sh*t". I cannot wait for the next one (late next year alas!). Well played agai...

Charles Storss, how are you managing to break my heart twice in one spy/vampire/bureaucrat/Cthulu mash-up novel? Can't wait for number 6.

I tend to give Stross' work 5 stars by default and then subtract from there. The Rhesus Chart, unfortunately, is sufficiently uneven that the 4 stars I do give it is a little bit generous and subjective. I love the book, as I pretty much love everything Stross bothers putting to paper, but objectively this is among his weaker efforts in pure technical terms.Its weakest aspect is, ironically, the central storytelling conceit: Bob Howard's narration. Where this has been a strength in previous book...

Bob vs vampires.As I've said before, these are fun and I read each of them hoping I can give it four stars, but they always have too many problems that I can't ignore. I'll run down what for me are the top four issues of the current entry.The book is structured as a 200 page prologue followed by a 150 page main plot. This causes obvious pacing problems, and the sad thing is it would be pretty straight-forward to fix in at least two different way.There is a hidden villain who turns out to be the

http://www.themaineedge.com/buzz/bloo...Vampires don’t exist.That’s a normal enough attitude for most people, but when a super-secret organization devoted to defending the world from the supernatural horrors that lie beyond the dimensional veil adopts the same attitude – and vehemently so – it ought to raise a few questions.So it is in “The Rhesus Chart”, the fifth in the Laundry Files series of sci-fi/spy mash-ups by Charles Stross. Agent Bob Howard – the reluctant hero - is once more in the mi...

Good paranormal horror thriller in which computational demonologist Bob discovers what seems to be a nest of vampires, except everyone he works with is convinced that vampires can't exist. While this didn't end with a cliffhanger, it did end with me exclaiming, "Wait, what?!" and looking for additional pages...

Perhaps it would be inevitable that the Laundry would have to deal with vampires, eventually. Or would they? After all, everyone knows that vampires don't exist...and they seem particularly sure of it in that bureaucratic branch of the British civil service that deals with gibbering horrors and threats from beyond.Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.In the meantime, you can read the

While I would happily recommend the first two Laundry novels to nearly everyone as a must read, the latter one, and now this, feel more like a "ha, got a captured audience, got a recipe to keep them fairly entertained, write and repeat."Also, with this book, imo, Stross has outed himself as a geek/nerd tourist, rather than an initiate (see towards the end of my review), which seriously devalues this book, unfortunately...Let me explain:Just finished reading this and am a bit torn - as in some ot...

"Everybody knows vampires don't exist." I love the Laundry series, it's one of the most interesting urban fantasy series I've seen in recent years. It's unique combination of British spy fiction, computer lingo, and the Cthulhu Mythos has made it a smashing success. With good reason. While I wasn't a big fan of The Jennifer Morgue, I've loved all novels before and since. I also am quite fond of the short-stories and novellas. So, when The Rhesus Chart came out, I was one of the first buyers. Th

Wow. I've liked all of the books in the Laundry Files, but this one is the best so far. An accident by a bank stock group leads to an infection that, well, they're not quite vampires, but close enough for government work. And from there, things spiral way out of control. This book builds amazingly well; I was a little annoyed by some of the chapter beginnings which seem to rehash previous events like it was published serially, and there's a foreshadowing that seems a bit heavy handed, but when t...

As always, this Laundry Files novel takes excellent aim at current IT and organizational fads as well as horror/SF cliches, and delivers a rollicking adventure at the same time. I had just been reading up on agile methodology for software development and was thoroughly entertained by this book's warped application of the agile "Scrum" framework to how a contemporary nest of vampires would work through their objectives. The protagonist, Bob Howard, is also reaching maturity as circumstances enabl...