Review: The Annihilation Score (Laundry Files, #6)

The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is 5th novel in The Laundry Files series. It needs a lot of knowledge from the previous books in order to make sense and be enjoyable. I thought that it was weird how much it calls back to previous books - the result must be that it filters out people unfamiliar with the series, or people who read a long time ago and don't remember the details, you can't just pick this up on its own and enjoy it. The effect must be a diminishing fanbase (and diminishing returns) as the series progresses.

The story is good, but a little dragged out. Most of it feels like prologue, like it's building up to something, and the plot only becomes clear in the last 10% of the book. There are interesting parts sprinkled all throughout the book, but a lot of it feels like filler.

Still, I really like its approach to the Cthulhu mythos, to the genre of spy thriller, and how it mashes them up. This entry in the series is also particularly good as it shifts attention to one of the supporting characters, "Mo" O'Brien, giving the series a more diverse point-of-view. It was also striking that it used this change in protagonist to inject some elements of romance novel into the story - it was a bit cringey, but on the whole fun.

Finally, I liked how in this book, the series shows that the characters are developing and growing as people. Both Bob and Mo started out as "normal people", then have low-ranking positions in the Laundry, then become field agents, then super-spies, and finally get very high in the organization. It's a satisfying ending.

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Review: I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld, #38; Tiffany Aching, #4)

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A Discworld book about the young witch Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegle. The story follows and calls back a lot to Wintersmith, so it might be useful for the reader to have read it recently, or at least look up a summary to remember what it was about. However, it's a much darker story than the usual, which is normally not at all for the Discworld series. It's still written in the usual Discworld style, funny and irreverent, with lots of puns and little jokes interwoven with the narration and dialogue. The Nac Mac Feegle are, as always, hilarious and a highlight. But the book has a pretty dark start, and the main theme ends up being about religious zealotry. It's also interwoven with many sub-plots and mini-stories about prejudice, ignorance, and violence. The book is about Tiffany Aching growing up (she was 13 in the last book, she is "almost 16" now); so it seems that the book themes are also "growing up".

The theme is not necessarily bad, but the books drags the story quite a bit. We only get to the main plot around 1/3 of the way in, and as we get towards the end, the main plot (the fight against the antagonist) feels almost secondary to all the other stuff going on. This is partially due to Pratchett's style of filling up his books with subplots and jokes; but it also feels like the main story is simply not that compelling.

In the end, it was a good Discworld story, but not a notable one.

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