{"id":1929,"date":"2014-06-22T06:29:48","date_gmt":"2014-06-22T14:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1929"},"modified":"2014-06-22T06:29:48","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T14:29:48","slug":"review-the-fuller-memorandum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1929","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Fuller Memorandum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Fuller Memorandum<\/em> is another Library Files novel from Charles Stross. I like the Laundry Files because they seem like Stross is having great fun writing them.\u00a0 On their surface they&#8217;re exciting stories set in a well-imagined modern fantasy setting seasoned with the sorts of geek culture that appeal to me.\u00a0 They&#8217;re much more than simple time-wasters, though.\u00a0 Each one I&#8217;ve read so far is actually an almost mimetic commentary on some form of adventure genre or author.\u00a0 <a title=\"Review: The Jennifer Morgue\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=1892\"><em>The Jennifer Morgue<\/em><\/a> played with the James Bond franchise with verve and insight.\u00a0 The earthy, trust no one spy thriller a la LeCarre gets the business here.<\/p>\n<p>Accordingly, the mood in <em>Fuller<\/em> is more oppressive than in <em>Jennifer<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 If Fleming and his cinematic heirs\u00a0 are escapist, LeCarre and his camp are brutalist. Bringing the same set of characters through those sets of tone is a beautiful display of\u00a0 writing skill.\u00a0 Sometimes I think that Stross started writing these to practice exactly that sort of flexibility.\u00a0 If so, he&#8217;s gotten remarkably good at it.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to putting the Laundry folks through a wringer where actions have more consequences and trust is scarce, Stross shows us the whole Laundry world from a more depressing angle.\u00a0 The feeling of whistling past the graveyard is more one of staring thoughtfully at the stones.\u00a0 A universe with such a Lovecraftian epistemology is bound to be depressing, and the tone lets Stross run with it.<\/p>\n<p>All of this is actually quite fun, though a different kind of fun than <em>Jennifer<\/em>. Everyone is still recognizable as the engaging characters from other Laundry novels, and there are still plenty of winks, nods, and in-jokes running around.\u00a0 In addition to the (meta-)commentary, it&#8217;s a taut modern fantasy thriller.<\/p>\n<p>Strongly Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fuller Memorandum is another Library Files novel from Charles Stross. I like the Laundry Files because they seem like Stross is having great fun writing them.\u00a0 On their surface they&#8217;re exciting stories set in a well-imagined modern fantasy setting seasoned with the sorts of geek culture that appeal to me.\u00a0 They&#8217;re much more than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1930,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions\/1930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}