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titusfortner's review against another edition
3.0
I love (and miss Bob), but this short novella didn't do enough for me.
mjfmjfmjf's review against another edition
3.0
A snippet of a story. Which I got to read on my laptop and phone - I really need to get setup so I can read Overdrive books on my kindle, but reading on my phone wasn't too bad - I might could get used to it. There's not much to this one. No cast of characters - really just Bob doing magic and combat. It was okay and ended pretty well. But I prefer a whole lot more.
matosapa's review
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
annarella's review against another edition
5.0
Charles Stross is a genius and this is an excellent novella: gripping and well written. Loved the plot and world building.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
thearbiter89's review against another edition
4.0
Ah, to be reading about the misadventures of good old Bob Howard once again. Too bad it's like 80 pages long and reads like an amuse bouche to a longer meal that'll never be served.
It's a great short story that combines usual Laundry spook tropes with wild Shinto animist yokai legendaria - a mashup of non-adjacent vertices of the nerd n-polyhedron that simply screams with unrealized possibility.
The fact that a Scottish writer has written a story in Japan might raise questions of whether it escapes the curse of starry-eyed cultural appropriation that is often so endemic amongst third-wave cyberpunk authors of this stripe and generation (looking at you, Neal). But the Laundry's saving grace is that its appropriation of unfamiliar cultural property is often at the level of parody, and that takes much of the sting out such accusations (which are themselves often overblown) when the yokai in question is a possessed Hello Kitty cognate whose mouthlessness becomes transmuted into a symbol of eldritch horror.
But ultimately, the novella doesn't seem very satisfying because this is akin to a kind of long-past-due-date fanservice - just another day in the annals of a character who himself has not seen significant exposition for the past three or so Laundry Files books. There's nothing new here character-wise, just more of the same, but in Japan.
But with it being essentially an OVA freebie, one cannot really expect more. If there is one thing to be said, it is that the novella reveals a promise to this premise, and I implore the eyeless gods that writhe about in the noosphere to contrive more stories in this vein, especially about the mysterious half-spirit character, Dr Suzuki.
I give this: 4 out of 5 spirit wards
It's a great short story that combines usual Laundry spook tropes with wild Shinto animist yokai legendaria - a mashup of non-adjacent vertices of the nerd n-polyhedron that simply screams with unrealized possibility.
The fact that a Scottish writer has written a story in Japan might raise questions of whether it escapes the curse of starry-eyed cultural appropriation that is often so endemic amongst third-wave cyberpunk authors of this stripe and generation (looking at you, Neal). But the Laundry's saving grace is that its appropriation of unfamiliar cultural property is often at the level of parody, and that takes much of the sting out such accusations (which are themselves often overblown) when the yokai in question is a possessed Hello Kitty cognate whose mouthlessness becomes transmuted into a symbol of eldritch horror.
But ultimately, the novella doesn't seem very satisfying because this is akin to a kind of long-past-due-date fanservice - just another day in the annals of a character who himself has not seen significant exposition for the past three or so Laundry Files books. There's nothing new here character-wise, just more of the same, but in Japan.
But with it being essentially an OVA freebie, one cannot really expect more. If there is one thing to be said, it is that the novella reveals a promise to this premise, and I implore the eyeless gods that writhe about in the noosphere to contrive more stories in this vein, especially about the mysterious half-spirit character, Dr Suzuki.
I give this: 4 out of 5 spirit wards
eol's review against another edition
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
orla_h's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
jrsnyderauthor's review against another edition
3.0
I should start the review by saying this is my first read from Charles Stross, so I might have rated it higher if I had understood the backstory more. That being said, this novella was pretty difficult for me to get through. For an 81 page story, the plot really only heats up in about the last 15 pages. Otherwise, there's a lot of story that felt like filler to me. Having not read any of the other stories, the magic system was really confusing for me—not necessarily the author's fault, but I was pretty lost most of the time.
The location and worldbuilding were really fun and I enjoyed the general vibe of the book. Just felt like it's not necessarily a series for me.
The location and worldbuilding were really fun and I enjoyed the general vibe of the book. Just felt like it's not necessarily a series for me.