Quantum of Nightmares

Written by Charles Stross

Narrated by Gideon Emery

A unique blend of espionage thrills and Lovecraftian horror, Hugo Award–winning author Charles Stross's Laundry Files continues with Quantum of Nightmares.

It’s a brave new Britain under the New Management. The avuncular Prime Minister is an ancient eldritch god of unimaginable power. Crime is plummeting as almost every offense is punishable by death. And everywhere you look, there are
people with strange powers, some of which they can control, and some, not so much.

Hyperorganized and formidable, Eve Starkey defeated her boss, the louche magical adept and billionaire Rupert de Montfort Bigge, in a supernatural duel to the death. Now she’s in charge of the Bigge Corporation—just in time to discover the lethal trap Rupert set for her long ago.

Wendy Deere’s transhuman abilities have gotten her through many a scrape. Now she’s gainfully employed investigating unauthorized supernatural shenanigans. She swore to herself she wouldn’t again get entangled with Eve Starkey’s
bohemian brother Imp and his crew of transhuman misfits. Yeah, right.

Mary Macandless has powers of her own. Right now she’s pretending to be a nanny in order to kidnap the children of a pair of famous, Government-authorized superheroes. These children have powers of their own, and Mary Macandless is in way over her head.

Amanda Sullivan is the HR manager of a minor grocery chain, much oppressed by her glossy blonde boss—who is cooking up an appalling, extralegal scheme literally involving human flesh.

All of these stories will come together, with world-bending results …

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781705032350

Charles Stross

CHARLES STROSS (he/him) is a full-time science fiction writer and resident of Edinburgh, Scotland. He has won three Hugo Awards for Best Novella, including for the Laundry Files tale “Equoid.” His work has been translated into over twelve languages. His novels include the bestselling Merchant Princes series, the Laundry series (including Locus Award finalist The Dilirium Brief), and several stand-alones including Glasshouse, Accelerando, and Saturn's Children. Like many writers, Stross has had a variety of careers, occupations, and job-shaped catastrophes, from pharmacist (he quit after the second police stakeout) to first code monkey on the team of a successful dot-com startup (with brilliant timing, he tried to change employers just as the bubble burst) to technical writer and prolific journalist covering the IT industry. Along the way he collected degrees in pharmacy and computer science, making him the world’s first officially qualified cyberpunk writer.

Reviews for Quantum of Nightmares

[Rick Casady · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Up to Stross's usual standard mix of tech, lampooning of bureaucracies, clever plotting, and horror. A novel form of fleshly reanimation is introduced here, which is about as gross as one can imagine. Also, another blow is struck for vegetarianism.

[yarmando_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like "Dead Lies Dreaming," another children's lit-framed story branching off "The Laundry Files" since the New Management, Nyarlathotep, assumed control of UK government. Mary (not Poppins) steps in as nanny for the four Banks children (not Jane and Michael, but yes to the twins) who, like their parents, turn out to have metahuman abilities. Meanwhile, Wendy and the Lost Boys are on the case of cultists who have taken over a supermarket which is industrializing human sacrifice.Why I picked it up: I like the series enough to keep going, although I liked it better when it was just bureaucrats and hackers against the Lovecraftian meltdown.Why I finished it: Gideon Emery is a great reader. Bonus points for pronouncing geas correctly. I'd give it to: Someone already invested in the series; I'm not sure this holds up as a standalone.

[glennis.leblanc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the second book of the spinoff series, and it picks up right after the end of the previous book. There is some backstory given but you will miss some backstory on the minor characters in this book. There are two storylines that intersect by the end of the book. The first is Eve dealing with a poison pill that her missing boss put in her new hire paperwork. The second has the four children of two superheroes being kidnapped and the kidnapper finding out that the kids have powers as well. I won’t say how the two storylines meet by the end, but it does make sense.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

[macha_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3 and a half, but reluctantly. this second book in the spinoff Tales of the New Management series was livelier than the first (Dead Lies Dreaming), and more firmly connected to the larger Laundry Files series. but the subject matter made it seriously gross to read. suffice it to say that in describing the horrors of very late capitalism Stross leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. it all reads true enough, but perhaps in the middle of a pandemic it is not quite what i'm looking to have those images in my head forever. i was no more taken with the Mary Poppins frame than i was with the Peter Pan frame of the previous book, but although there was some frantic slapstick in the subplot about babysitting the metahuman children, there was no humor at all in the bureaucratic wasteland of the supermarket plot. and so, sadly, i am left thinking this is perhaps Enough of That.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A nanny with a magical handbag (Mary, but not Mary Poppins) kidnaps four superpowered kids at the behest of her boss; a supermarket prepares for a takeover while experimenting with its equivalent of Residual Human Resources (there are many Sweeney Todd references); and Eve Starkey struggles to root out the cultists from her new commercial empire, which turns out to involve owning an island where her late unlamented boss was absolute ruler. I still miss Bob, but things under the New Management are not boring.