The multiverse is a very weird place.

I read the most recent of Charles Stross Laundry Files books The Annihilation Score over the weekend. It was a good read, and I highly recommend it to fans of the series, although with the caveat that you really need to have read the other Laundry Files novels first otherwise very little is going to make sense in context. It’s not my favorite of the Laundry Files books (that’s still The Fuller Memorandum ) but it’s fun to get a view of the Laundryverse through the eyes of a different character. In the Annihilation Score, the book is from the POV of Doctor Dominique ‘Mo’ O’Brien, a sorcerer/spy for the Laundry a group of British secret agents that guard the world against Lovecraftian horrors. She’s also the wife of the series’ other main character, Bob, so she gives quite a different take on the series narrative and it helps round out the universe. It goes in depth on the nature of Mo’s signature weapon, the white violin (built by one Eric Zahn) and the nature of the violin’s particularly nasty form of magic. It’s not a perfect book (no book is), but is a lot of fun especially if you have an eye towards Lovecraft tropes.

I’m working on a film script at present. Writing for film is a lot faster than writing a novel. Not easier by any stretch, but much faster. I find myself wondering what limits there are on horror movies. I have zero interest in torture movies or gore fests, but I love me some supernatural creep factor and I’m not sure what an audience would accept in terms of implied violence. I guess I will have to wait and see.

The only other news I have is that I made it to work with pants on and I’m not on fire. We’re going to call this a win.

– Andrew