The Jennifer Morgue (Hardcover)

by Charles Stross (Author)
Key Phrases: summoning grid, boss key, moon pool, Black Chamber, Ellis Billington, Human Resources (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this alternately chilling and hilarious sequel to The Atrocity Archives (2004) from Hugo-winner Stross, Bob Howard is a computer übergeek employed by the Laundry, a secret British agency assigned to clean up incursions from other realities caused by the inadvertent manipulation of complex mathematical equations: in other words, magic. In 1975, the CIA used Howard Hughes's Glomar Explorer in a bungled attempt to raise a sunken Soviet submarine in order to access the Jennifer Morgue, an occult device that allows communication with the dead. Now a ruthless billionaire intends to try again, even if by doing so he awakens the Great Old Ones, who thwarted the earlier expedition. It's up to Bob and a collection of British eccentrics even Monty Python would consider odd to stop the bad guy and save the world, while getting receipts for all expenditures or else face the most dreaded menace of all: the Laundry's own auditors. Stross has a marvelous time making eldritch horror appear commonplace in the face of bureaucracy. (Dec.)
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Review

"If this keeps up, 'Strossian' is going to become a sci-fi adjective."  —The Kansas City Star

"Charles Stross owns the cutting edge of science fiction."  —James Patrick Kelly, author, "Think Like a Dinosaur," a Hugo Award–winning story

"A brauvera display of intelligent action and real human characters amid eldritch menaces!"  —S. M. Stirling, author, Island in the Sea of Time trilogy

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 340 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press (November 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930846452
• ISBN-13: 978-1930846456
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #393,883 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A scary send-up of Lovecraft, Bond, and Cold War spy novels, December 3, 2006

By	Terrell T. Gibbs (Jamaica Plain, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Like it's predecessor, "The Atrocity Archives," "The Jennifer Morgue" is based upon the premise that all of those nasty Lovecraftian horrors are real, all of the world governments know about it, and are engaged in an ongoing and highly secret occult intelligence gathering/arms race. A few other writers have mined this same vein, most notably Tim Powers in "Declare." But in contrast to Powers, Stross leaves no doubt that his tongue is firmly planted in cheek. The current volume is not only a send up of the cold war spy novel, but specifically of James Bond. Fortunately, Stross has the extraordinarily rare ability to satirize a genre without losing sight of what makes that genre work. Stross's Lovecraftian horrors are actually scary--in fact more so than those of most other writers who've tried to write serious Lovecraftian horror (which turns out to be surprisingly difficult to pull off). The cold war style intrigue, with intricately layered plots and counterplots also works beautifully. Stross could doubtless be a master of either genre if he could bring himself to take them seriously. But that's alright, because this is better. Much of the humor comes from Stross's hero and narrator, a cynical hacker forcibly inducted into the British occult intelligence service. As such, he is completely out of place in either of the genre's Stross is satirizing (watching him try to fit into a Bond-type plot is particularly amusing), yet in the world Stross has created for us, he is clearly the perfect man for the job. Along the way, Stross manages a particularly sharp (but somehow affectionate) deconstruction of the entire Bond canon.

I'd encourage Stross to drop everything else and devote all of his time to writing sequels in this series, except there's nothing else that he writes that I'd be willing to give up. Still, none of his other work manages to be quite this much fun.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Perfect Novel - For The Right Reader, March 21, 2007

By	A. W. Crawford (WI, US) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you liked The Atrocity Archives, you'll love The Jennifer Morgue. If some of the more geeky computer references confused you, you'll still enjoy the basic story here (everybody's seen James Bond movies, after all) but again you'll be missing half the fun.

As another reviewer has indicated, to get full appreciation of every little nuance, you need to be an old school UNIX geek, preferably with a familiarity with the Internet that stretches back a decade or two, who still yearns for the days when USENET ruled, and before The Eternal September began.

Not meeting all these criteria doesn't mean you won't find this hugely enjoyable, but the more of them you meet, the more you'll enjoy the book. Having known Charlie since before he'd had anything published and used to hang out in some of the seedier USENET groups, I think I fall fairly firmly into the target audience, and even I missed one or two of the cleverer references first time round. However, I read the book cover to cover in a single sitting and enjoyed every page. Multiple re-reads are a must, the cover's as superb a homage to the book's influences as the story itself, and the story itself leaves an impressive number of openings for more Bob Howards books, from direct tie-ins to the implications of GREEN NIGHTMARE, which Charlie seems to have put in place specifically to give him a way to shut down the Bob Howard universe completely should he ever tire of writing about the character.

Personally, I hope he doesn't tire of writing about Bob for a long, long time. Haven't enjoyed a book so much in years. In fact, although it's a very different sort of book, the last thing I read that established a permanent niche for itself in my mind so quickly was Pratchett/Gaiman's Good Omens in the early 90s. I'm picky about what I read, and I place these two books in a separate little league, all of their own.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can Stross actualliy get better with his Bob Howard novels?, April 10, 2007

By	Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Charles Stross continues the adventures of Bob Howard (The Atrocity Archives) with The Jennifer Morgue. Bob Howard is an agent of The Laundry, a deeply secret British intelligence agency
which is focused on saving the world from the supernatural. Bob Howard is not your average agent, however. He is no James Bond. Rather, he is a computer hacker type guy who just has happened to stumble on to a skill set which has involved him in demonology.

The Laundry has set Howard up with an agent from the American Black Chamber (or perhaps it is the other way around) to stop billionaire Ellis Billington from raising something from the Pacific Ocean and in turn piss off at least one of the supernatural species inhabiting our planet which are much older and more powerful than we are and allow humanity to exist mostly because we have not inconvenienced them.

Where The Atrocity Archives was something of a combination of H.P. Lovecraft, Len Deighton, and perhaps Neal Stephenson, The Jennifer Morgue goes in a different direction. The Jennifer Morgue still takes the possibility of Lovecraftian creatures and introduces a send up of Ian Fleming's Bond novels. This is a Bond style adventure with good humor, high adventure, and clever, clever writing.

Stross has shown growth from The Atrocity Archives to The Jennifer Morgue and shows once again that this style of writing and the Bob Howard novels are very much in his wheelhouse and are shining examples of the talent and gift of Charles Stross. This is very original fantasy fiction which pays homage to the spy novels of yesteryear and yet takes it into an entirely new direction.

The hardcover also contains another Bob Howard story: "Pimpf" which deals with video games and the Laundry bureaucracy. "Pimpf" is decent enough, but lacks the heft of The Jennifer Morgue.

The only question left at the end of The Jennifer Morgue is probably what readers of Fleming's Bond or even viewers of the Bond series once asked: When will Bob Howard return?

And who will Stross send up in his next outing? LeCarre? Clancy? It doesn't matter. I trust that Stross will deliver once again.

-Joe Sherry