I’ve been meaning to read this for a while and was pleased to find it delivered what I expected: an entertaining mix of technology, bureaucracy and eldritch horrors (you can decide if the last by definition encompasses the other two…)

The narrative is in Bob’s first person, present tense point of view. I wasn’t especially taken with him as a character, though I wasn’t so put off as to bail out. He always managed to have the skills or items needed to meet the challenges before him, or some associate intervening at the right moment.

The office politics were boldly drawn. I wouldn’t have minded more subtlety, a bit more behind the scenes manipulation and gaslighting rather than the (office equivalent of) straight-up moustache-twirliness that came across. We were never really left in doubt of the outcome.

Overall, a fun series starter.

@fnordius@muenchen.social Sounds sensible. As I was reading, I probably had an internal snarky running commentary going, "So YOU say, kiddo!"

@fnordius @mhthaung Bob is explicitly an unreliable narrator! Indeed, all the different first person PoVs in the Laundry books are a bit unreliable, although some show more insight than others.

@cstross @fnordius @mhthaung aren't we all unreliable narrators to one extent or another The way human memory works mean your own retelling and recollections quickly replace the actual original memory It's a relatively easy to prompt somebody into remembering something that didn't actually happen and in many cases they'll end up actually remembering it afterwards and that's before the person deliberately starts framing things for their advantage or do not embarrass themselves