Charles Stross Reveals How HisLaundry FilesWorld Is About to Change Forever

When Charles Stross is n’t writingmind - gasconade space opera about the hereafter of banking , he ’s the ultra - fertile source of two long - running series . And one of those , the Laundry Files , has pull ahead kudos ( and a Best Novella Hugo ) for its look at a spy federal agency that deals with other - secular threats .

We ’ve got the exclusive first looking at at the next Laundry Files ledger , The Nightmare Stacks — and Stross explain just how this Holy Writ transfer everything in his universe .

Here ’s the synopsis forThe Nightmare Stacks , which come out in June 2016 :

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Alex Schwartz had a promising time to come – until he contract an inauspicious bout of vampirism , and agreed to join the Laundry , Britain ’s only antagonistic - occult hush-hush agency .

His first assignment is in Leeds – his previous hometown . The thought of recount his parent that he ’s lost his old job , let alone them finding out about his ‘ consideration ’ , is causing Alex more anxiousness than memorise how to live as a vampire secret agent devise to confront multiple Revelation of Saint John the Divine .

His only saving grace is Cassie Brewer , a green - haired goth who flirts with him despite his awkward personality and monolithic amount of sun blocker .

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But Cassie has secrets of her own – secrets that make Alex ’s night biography seem positively normal . . .

This is a huge , major alteration of step for the Laundry Files series . So we had to take Stross what was up . Here ’s what he told us !

How has the Laundry Files series changed and evolved in the dozen geezerhood or so that you ’ve been writing it ? Are there elements that you ’re still surprised became so prominent ?

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I ’ve been writing the Laundry Files series for 16 years at this point . When I start , I intended the short novel “ The Atrocity Archive ” ( issue with “ The Concrete Jungle ” in the book “ The Atrocity Archives ” — remark the plural ! ) as a one - snapshot . It was only a few twelvemonth later , when people commence asking for more , that I had any theme of writing a continuation , and only with the third book , 8 years in , that I bring in I necessitate a design . And because the book ’s storyteller , Bob , had been aging in line with the veridical world as I wrote the first three books , the most obvious plan was : go after Bob ’s career as he grows older , more fourth-year , and more misanthropic .

This plough out to be a really fortuitous choice . It allowed me to fix some modest inconsistencies in the early books ; because they ’re Bob ’s work memoir , he often gets the wrong end of the stick at first then teach better about some expression of the job over time . It also allow me to deepen him as a character , adding complexity to the narrative as he eld and maybe becomes more self - aware ( although he does n’t really have to raise up until books 8 or 9 ) .

What I really was n’t expecting was that Bob ’s life would take over — and that the most important events in it would end up taking place off - screen , so far off - cover that I needed to clean new narrative voices ! His married woman Mo , for model , exhibits a very unvarnished position on Bob ’s seemingly bottomless reserves of self - illusion in “ The Annihilation Score ” , and demonstrates that the series is very much about the Laundry as an organization , rather than just being Tales of Bob . And in “ The Nightmare Stacks ” I had to result Bob behind only in ordering to give a worm ’s eye position of the start of event that will give upgrade ( eventually ) to the flood tide of the serial .

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This book sport a Modern part , Alex , instead of Bob . What ’s the reason for switch focal point ?

In “ The Atrocity Archives ” Bob set about out as a twenty - something technical school support cat who has blundered into a Len Deighton undercover agent thriller ( with supply tentacle ) . By the commencement of “ The Rhesus Chart ” , Bob has leveled up so far that he can wade into a nest of vampires — true rather inexperient vampires — and escape with mildly damage dignity and a push-down store of paperwork . powerfulness - ups are a constant job for any multi - book serial that riffs off the Hero ’s Journey : how do you engage with the underdog when your protagonist has rise from Midshipman to Admiral of the Fleet ?

Alex is in some ways not dissimilar to Bob in his former incarnation . There are drastic differences : Alex has powerfulness of his own — although they come at a drastic price . But Alex takes us back to the guy who gets sent to fasten the cabling rather than spending all his time in policy meetings . And he ’s got a young guy ’s problem and social anxieties , unlike Bob ( who by this distributor point is in his former forties ) .

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Also is a vampire protagonist hard to save in some ways ? And what variety of lamia lore did you settle to stay put with ?

The Laundry has been a fun sandbox for playing with occult parasites ever since the 2d Good Book ( “ The Jennifer Morgue ” — if you wait at it through the correct lense , the cat is a parasite ) , and I developed this through side - fib like “ Down on the Farm ” and “ Equoid ” . In “ Down on the Farm ” I examined the micro - scale parasites that chow down on the brains of ritual magicians ( as opposed to the trunk - steal mega - sponger they ’re unremarkably attempting to muster ) ; and then in “ The Rhesus Chart ” I study a look at how brainpower - jaw microparasites might forge a continuum with symbiotes at the other end .

The Laundry Files vampires are of this form : they ’re parasites , but rather than killing their legion , they use their host as a vehicle to bring them into contact with their nutrient . I require to take a picking - axe to the more overt spiritual affiliation of the various trad lamia mythologies , so I basically rolled my own variety . And of course , having invented a captivating but really ugly commensal organism that render its horde sure power in central for food , I figured I had to explore the psychological outcome on the carriers .

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Which are , of grade , drastic : the cost of PHANG syndrome is eminent enough that most sane the great unwashed who make what they ’ve become take a walk in the day immediately . The only grounds Alex is able-bodied to exist is because a sealed organization has a use for him and takes highly doubtful footstep to keep him alive .

You ’ve hinted on your blog that this Bible features a “ worst font scenario ” for a Code Nightmare Red , or alien encroachment , that demand hob . And that the events of this book can not be covered up or brush off as a mass delusion . Is this book a turning point for the series ? Is it all going public after this ?

Yup , it ’s a turn full stop ! It ’s also set explicitly in March / April of 2014 . Up to this point , the Laundry Files have unfold in step with the calendar , so that the first novel is place circa 2002 - 2003 . But from here on , the history of this creation rapidly depart from our own …

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What ’s next for the Laundry Files series ?

That ’s the novel currently titled “ The Delirium Brief ” , book 8 in the serial . It ’s place about a calendar month later , and business deal with the explosive reverberation of the Laundry come to igniter in the middle of the biggest political and military crisis since the Second World War . The narrative stand switches back to Bob again — and it opens with him being thrust into a TV studio apartment in London to be roasted alive on Newsnight by a sure famous British news giver …

And here ’s the full - sized U.S. cover for The Nightmare Stacks , unwrap exclusively on io9 :

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