jsburbidge (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jsburbidge) wrote2012-07-09 11:58 am
jsburbidge) wrote2012-07-09 11:58 am
Entry tags:
Laundry stories, and shifting tropes
Not a review of The Apocalypse Codex, but contains series arc spoilers:
Up to the end of TAC, the Laundry stories have been driven by merging three differently-sourced patterns into one tapestry: a Lovecraftian universe; a geek/hacker sensibility, replete with in-jokes, which is a cousin of the Jargon File; and a satire of civil service bureaucracy of the type which barely has to go beyond reality to be both funny and appalling -- a sort of government Dilbert theme.
That mix, though, looks as though it's going to change. Radically.
The Lovecraftian universe remains, admittedly, but given the revelations about Mahogany Row and given Bob's transfer there, the two latter sets of tropes are going to be much attenuated. We're now seeing more of personal adepts as opposed to computational demonologists; or at least people who make use of computational demonology but are also adepts. Bob's own little soul-eating skills fit into that mode. And although Mahogany Row is still under the oversight of the Auditors, it's clear that the bureaucratic constraints are so much relaxed that the Dilbertish lode of humour is also going to be much relaxed. (Stross may still get in a relative of both sets of tropes by treating MR as a variant of the skunkworks model from the technology world.)
Stross is, however, invoking a classic trope from occult/conspiracy novels -- the revelation of a succession of inner circles which are hidden from their respective outsides. The Laundry is already an example of this, a civil service department which doesn't exist; the "career path" of Mahogany Row, hidden from the rest of the Laundry, and with a different (and older) esoteric history carries this one step further. (The trope can be and is used iteratively, the classic carry-it-to-extremes instance being the Illuminatus! trilogy (which is equally played for laughs in a Lovecraftian world).)
All this means that the series looks likely to get much darker -- not just with the approach of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, but also with the removal of much of the palliative humour. We're going to be seeing a cadre of specialists who are working under the gun and against time to deal with really serious issues, without the buffering that the civil service bureaucracy provides, and in a way more thoroughly hands-on (and with very direct and immediate trade-offs -- consider the "losing a year of life" aspect of some incantations).
Up to the end of TAC, the Laundry stories have been driven by merging three differently-sourced patterns into one tapestry: a Lovecraftian universe; a geek/hacker sensibility, replete with in-jokes, which is a cousin of the Jargon File; and a satire of civil service bureaucracy of the type which barely has to go beyond reality to be both funny and appalling -- a sort of government Dilbert theme.
That mix, though, looks as though it's going to change. Radically.
The Lovecraftian universe remains, admittedly, but given the revelations about Mahogany Row and given Bob's transfer there, the two latter sets of tropes are going to be much attenuated. We're now seeing more of personal adepts as opposed to computational demonologists; or at least people who make use of computational demonology but are also adepts. Bob's own little soul-eating skills fit into that mode. And although Mahogany Row is still under the oversight of the Auditors, it's clear that the bureaucratic constraints are so much relaxed that the Dilbertish lode of humour is also going to be much relaxed. (Stross may still get in a relative of both sets of tropes by treating MR as a variant of the skunkworks model from the technology world.)
Stross is, however, invoking a classic trope from occult/conspiracy novels -- the revelation of a succession of inner circles which are hidden from their respective outsides. The Laundry is already an example of this, a civil service department which doesn't exist; the "career path" of Mahogany Row, hidden from the rest of the Laundry, and with a different (and older) esoteric history carries this one step further. (The trope can be and is used iteratively, the classic carry-it-to-extremes instance being the Illuminatus! trilogy (which is equally played for laughs in a Lovecraftian world).)
All this means that the series looks likely to get much darker -- not just with the approach of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, but also with the removal of much of the palliative humour. We're going to be seeing a cadre of specialists who are working under the gun and against time to deal with really serious issues, without the buffering that the civil service bureaucracy provides, and in a way more thoroughly hands-on (and with very direct and immediate trade-offs -- consider the "losing a year of life" aspect of some incantations).