Review: The Delirium Brief (Laundry Files, #8)

The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent continuation and an almost-conclusion of the Laundry Files overall story!
It picks up directly from the previous book, so don't think about reading this if you hadn't read what came before. However, it does have a very brief summary of the story so far at the beginning, so if it has been a while since you have read it, this helps.

I like how the story starts with our protagonists having progressed to be at the top of the organization. It was good following them along all these years, and seeing them now in high positions, being recognized. It also brings back a lot of characters and plotlines from the older books - it's a great "it's all coming together" book, but it does require you to have a good memory for a lot of it.

The action is great in this one. In previous books, they always felt like they spent 90% building up to something, then you got the action on the last 10%. In this one, the action is much more evenly spread, there is stuff happening from the beginning. This plot moves briskly, and there is a "twist" about a third of the way in (the "enemy attack"), and it is a pretty shocking one, and drives the rest of the plot. By the halfway point, the plan is already clear. This book is not holding back, there is a lot going on, and it's pretty fun. Bob is a great character in this book. He is incredibly powerful, but also grounded, very human and very non-American: he doesn't simply go around beating the bad guys sensibly, and when he does hurt someone, he feels very guilty. It makes for a much more compelling character than if he was more of a super-hero.

It strikes me how non-American all of the action is. Guns are rare; people are reluctant to use guns and kill people; there is way more bureaucracy than violence.

The ending is great, and it could be a good stopping point, except that I really want to know "now what???".

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