The nightmare stacks
by Charles Stross · first published 2016
6mentions
2recommended by
5HN commenters
2016–2024first – last mentioned
40% recommend20% neutral40% critical
"The Laundry Files' 'fast-paced blend of espionage thrills, mundane office comedy and Lovecraftian horror' (SFX) continues as Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross assigns a day trader to a permanent position on the night shift ... After stumbling upon the algorithm that turned him and his fellow merchant bankers into vampires, Alex Schwartz was drafted by The Laundry, Britain's secret counter-occult agency that's humanity's first line of defense against the forces of darkness. Dependent on his new employers for his continued existence--as Alex has no stomach for predatory bloodsucking--he
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You’d might like the Elves in The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross [0]. Which includes (mild spoiler) an assault on the city of Leeds in the UK by a combined-arms Elven battlegroup (think Waffen-SS with pointy ears). They have battle-tested air-land…
on “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Tolkien Elves” ↗…really didn't work. Well, more one book and one ending that failed hard. Atrocity Archives and the other Bob books were some of the most entertaining, delightfully observed comedy fiction I've read. Nightmare Stacks didn't really join up, but was a rollicking good tale, and some interesting new characters. Labyrinth Index on the other hand, was disjointed and unfinishable (The only book from Charles, one of my favourite…
on “Lessons learned: writing really long fiction” ↗The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross includes (spoiler) an assault on the city of Leeds in the UK by a combined arms Elven battle group. The elves have Battle-tested air-land integration doctrine that sees them using their…
on “The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics” ↗Hah, I must admit that after being disappointed with the previous two or three I didn't bother with The Nightmare Stacks (and hadn't in fact realised it was out yet). If it's a return to form (and to be fair Stross has always been pretty variable) them I'll check it out.
on “List of spacecraft in the Culture series” ↗The Hidden Keys by André Alexis The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling The Prince by Machiavelli William S Borroughs: A Life by Barry Miles Programming in the 1990s by Edward Cohen On Numbers and Games (again) by…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗>To me, it made <cool scifi thing> about as fun to read about as... tedious government bureaucracy. This is also the problem with Charles Stross' Nightmare Stacks. The concept was kinda funny in 2004, but by book number 10 it just gets tedious. The reader cries out, What is the point of all this, and Stross answers with a shrug.
on “There Is No Antimemetics Division (2018)” ↗