The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross (Laundry Files #9)

Over nine books,  author Charles Stross has performed a remarkable feat of world-building, shaping his world where magic is real with layers of detail that make it seem almost plausible. If you haven't read the first eight books in this series, you don't want to start here but hopefully this might interest you enough to start at the beginning. I probably over describe and explain to the point of incoherence  but I'm trying to put the book in the context of the rest of the series. Here are some links to reviews that make points I wish I had: Review: the Labyrinth Index and a more critical review that nonetheless rates it great, Pushing the Limits of Absurdity.

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If you are new to this series, Stross has created a world where Lovcraft's horrors —like Cthulhu and the elder gods— are all too real. Magic, it turns out, is a branch of applied mathematics and computers of course, are used to perform lots of math very fast. Bob Howard, the protagonist of many of the books, was recruited into The Laundry when a program he was working on very nearly unleashed eldrich horrors into our world. The Laundry is a British occult intelligence agency tasked with keeping knowledge the occult from the public and containing or preventing any breakthroughs into our world. Throughout the series, Stross has fun with British government bureaucracy. You might be trying to save the world but your expenses better be itemized and time sheet correct.

In The Labyrinth Index, something odd has happened in the US. The president has disappeared and among the public, it seems all knowledge that we even had an executive branch has been erased. There has been an occult coup by the Operational Phenomenology Agency who wish to use the power of the president to raise the sleeping Cthulhu. The British Prime Minister who is actually the avatar of one of the god N'yar Lat-Hotep (aka The Black Pharaoh) does not wish this to happen. See The Delirium Brief for how this came about. Cthulhu awake will be an extinction event for humanity. Fortunately the president hasn't been captured and the PM sends a team to rescue/kidnap him. He chooses Mhari Murphy to lead the team. Mhari is a vampire or PHANG (Persons of Hemphagia-Assisted Neurodegenerative G?) * and will, in fact, combust if exposed to daylight which adds challenges when you're undercover. The team makes it to the US but will they make it out?

I'm not sure if Stross has introduced anything for which he doesn't provide a practical explanation. For example, what if an army of elves riding unicorns, and wielding powerful magic invaded The North? In book 7, The Nightmare Stacks, we learn that someone had thought to develop a contingency plan for an extra-dimensional invasion. If you want to know how a jet fighter would fare against a flying and fire breathing dragon and what ground combat would be like, Stross has it covered.

I mentioned above that Stross is building a very technically detailed world where magic works. The way Stross does this is a large part of my enjoyment of these book.  For example, it this book, we learn that the iPhone is a major threat to national security because its computational power thines the walls between our world and the horrors beyond. Also, The OAP has used AT&T and Comcast cabling to impose a geas (spell) on the nation to "forget" the president. We also learn a lot about the Concord jet.

The Labyrinth Index isn't one of my favorite in the series but it is entertaining and does advance the overall story arc. It is nice to see Mhari Murphy get a larger role and it does introduce my new favorite character Yarisol, a psychopathic elf mage (all the elves are psychopaths by our standards) who is both lethal and childlike in her reactions. and funny.

* the meaning of the acronym varies.

Keywords: occult, Lovecraftian, horror, Cthulhu, supernatural thriller