Review: A short but good Laundry files story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2014
The Laundry Files stories involve British public servant, Bob Howard, who works for a secret agency ('the Laundry') that manages magical incursions into our world. Before you start thinking of fairies, witches, wands and spells, however, understand that in this world one of the chief ways to do magic is through mathematical calculations, and most of the magical creatures come from other dimensions with very nasty intentions. Bob does many of his own spells using a personal organiser with some ramped up computation power and lots of specialised software. These stories really poke fun at bureaucracy and the tedium of working for cumbersome government agencies with procedures and forms for everything, but they do it in a very wry and tongue in cheek way, and in a  smart sci-fi/fantasy setting. Bob is a nice enough guy to worry about, and many of the other key characters have backstories that build nicely across the series.Down on the Farm is a short story, which has Bob investigating irregularities in a kind of retirement home/asylum for old agents. Some of the maths/physics went over my head, but I still enjoyed it, especially the harking back to wartime preoccupations. However, I think it might all be a bit obscure to someone who hadn't read any of the previous novels, so I would recommend starting with the Atrocity Archives, which is the first in the series.