Review: just makes me hungry for the next real Laundry novel
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 29, 2013
Confession: I'm no real fan of short fiction. I recognize It as a character flaw, but I've been unable to transcend it. So take that as context. I LOVE Stross's work. Of all his work, I love the Laundry novels above all. I recognize that it would make for a tawdry life for him if Bob and Capital laundry Services were all he ever wrote about, but my life would be the richer for it.So this was better than nothing, as I wait and wait and wait for the next installment to be offered up, but it wasn't much better than nothing. It was just too short to have room or time for all the best parts of Stros' writings. Not enough time with his characters. Not enough time for Bob's workplace complaints to be fully fleshed out. It was a little bit like a carton version of a Laundry novel. Only time for invoking the surface manifestations of the traditional Laundry story elements,, but not time to do anything with them.  It read like the cliff notes version of a Laundry novel. If I had my druthers z(assuming a full novel was not one of the options), I'd have rather been given an in depth exploration of some smaller element of life in the Laundry. So,e Byzantine office politics. Much as I love and am loyal to Bob, maybe even a side trip into the life of one of the supporting characters. Angleton. Or Bob's wife. Or maybe one of the SAS guys.Still, it was better than nothing. I had begun  to despair that Stross is just done with the Laundry forever more. So the reassurance was nice.  Mr. Stross, in e infinitesimally small chance that you are wasting your time reading this review, please know that, in my heart of hearts, I think you should write whatever the hell you feel like writing. Just because ai long for more time lost in the life of my favorite computational demonologist, does not mean you owe me that satisfaction. I am a great and grateful admirer of all your work.  Take this grumpy lament of what it is: a greedy, lament for an satisfied, purely selfish craving....Ignore it.And then please sit down and write the next full, really, really long Laundry novel before next Thursday.