This is one of those “I wasn’t going to read….” reviews.
Because I wasn’t. I wasn’t even going to review the book. Not because I didn’t like it – far from it, I think that Charlie’s Laundry Files series is one of the best ‘out there’ – but because after I reviewed The Fuller Memorandum (LINK) five years ago I didn’t think I had a lot more to add. (It happens sometimes.)
But it was there, and I read the first few pages, and ….. here I am, writing a review.
For those who don’t know, the Laundry Files are an occult thriller series, part-Cthulu, part spy-thriller (see Len Deighton’s The Ipcress File for a non-genre example) about an undercover British government department whose job is to… well, you get the idea.
Our hero Bob Howard is, by turns, amusing and depreciating, in that much-beloved British manner – you know, the sort who says, as a matter in passing, that they’ve saved the world today, usually over a Nice Cup of Tea. Slightly more unusually, Bob also has the ability to see things beyond our usual ken – such as apocalyptic life-destroying beings wanting to invade and destroy our mundane world.
Much of the fun in the series is therefore showing Bob dealing with mundane bureaucracy that threatens his life nearly as much as the Lovecraft-ian horrors that threaten ours. His daily routine varies from filling out forms about filling out forms (in triplicate) to literally saving the world, almost in the same day. He’s geeky, with an IT background, yet also vulnerable.
So… as the title might suggest (Rhesus=bloodtype), this one’s about vampires – or at least things that behave like vampires, but given a pseudo-scientific rationale (see also Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend or Peter Watts’ Blindsight for similar examples.) Enter Alex, our geeky banker, whose life is changed from money-spinning monopoliser to blood-starved babe magnet. Along with a group of other high-flying financial experts, he becomes a PHANG ((Photogolic, Hemophagic, Anagathic, Neurotropic and … something else) and part of a much bigger battle, one that has been going on in a Cold War type of existence for centuries….
The good news is that The Rhesus Chart exhibits all the points I’ve mentioned before about this series – geeky characteristics, deadpan humour, paper-clips – enough for me to resist making too many comments about the book. There is always a galloping pace to Charlie’s writing, a deceptively easy-style prose that deftly packs four great ideas into one sentence and leaves you feeling that you’re trying to catch up before moving onto the next. It is just so clever.
This is also shown in the way is that things rarely go where you expect them, plot-wise. Just when you think you’ve got an idea of what’s going on, he twists things to something new. And so it is here – just when the reader thinks that Bob’s job is to hunt these PHANGs down, there’s a development that turns everything around.
All of this sounds rather grim. However, it must be said, for anyone who hasn’t read the series so far, that the Laundry Files series has always had an element of humour running through its plot and in that aspect The Rhesus Chart is no different. It works on many different levels, even at times gloriously silly – at one point one of the characters is offered tea, seemingly just so our adversary can proffer the line, “More tea, vicar?” At other times it is darker, and will make anyone involved in the intricacies of office management and politics wince with recognition. Anyone who doesn’t get the irony of our vampire coven of bloodsucking vampires being bankers has never had to pay a mortgage.
The downside of this (and there’s always one of those) is that at times prolonged exposure to all of this can be rather wearing – it is full-on, super-intense prose that can just be exhausting in its speed and depth. Think of it as the Dresden Files for PhD holders – ingenious, intelligent, complex. Talking down to the reader is not one of its faults, and as a result you may find that The Rhesus Chart may not be for everyone. (Personally, though, I love it.)
You may have noticed me mention earlier that this is some way into an on-going series – Book Five, to be accurate. I realise that this may put some readers off, or at least go back to the first in the series, but I think The Rhesus Chart is also a place you could start reading the series if you haven’t tried it before. There’s enough précising of what has gone before to work out what’s going on without spoiling the flow of the narrative. It also helps that, as part of the bigger Laundry Files series picture, The Rhesus Chart fits in well. Our characters develop as they should and there are major changes here that will affect our character’s lives for ever and not entirely for the better. The ending is supremely well realized.
In summary, The Rhesus Chart is a great entry to the Laundry Files series, and a good point to jump on at if you’ve so far been averse to doing so. Charlie’s intelligent and hyper-dense prose and its dark yet also rather silly humour makes it a great read. If you like books like The Dresden Files or the Rivers of London series, try this one.
Did I say I had little to write about this one? Perhaps I was wrong…
The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross
Published by Orbit, June 2014
362 pages
ISBN: 978-0356 502 533
Review by Mark Yon
