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jsburbidge) wrote2016-07-15 09:16 pm
jsburbidge) wrote2016-07-15 09:16 pm
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The Nightmare Stacks
The Nightmare Stacks is, I think, best approached as a generalization of the previous Laundry Files novels. Although the novel is about Alex, it's not about his reactions in the same way that the early novels were about Bob's reactions (usually for humorous effects). This is about the role of the Laundry as a whole in a world shifting towards Nightmare.
Interestingly enough, the background suggests that the invasion is driven not by developments along our timeline, but by those along the elves' timeline. That they happen to erupt into an England shifting towards CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is just bad (or perhaps good) luck.
Thematically, Stross has moved on from looking at enforcement to the very image of authority[1] itself.
His elves have hierarchy to a degree no historical monarchy in human history has had: to get close, you have to cross the absolutism of Louis XIV and James II (see Steve Pincus' 1688 for a detailed discussion of James II and how new this model was) with the god-kings of some ancient cultures. Most human "monarchies" have tended to be oligarchies with a constrained leader: piss off enough of your nobility and you end up dead (William II, Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, Richard III) or embroiled in much civil strife (Stephen, John). (Charles I and James II fall into special classes of their own, facing a broader opposition in Parliament.) The elves have a strict hierarchy driven by absolute authority (and an almost Eddorian penchant for undermining each other).
For all that, they also stand for our past. Understanding not only social but natural order as hierarchical has a long history, and Ulysses' speech in Troilus and Cressida merely sets out a generally accepted commonplace. And if we're too dull to miss the point, we're given, late on, a Cabinet meeting where the PM makes all the same types of mistakes, on the same types of assumptions, that the Elvish All-Highest does.
Because one of the themes of the book is that top-down hierarchies don't work very well. Just about every single decision made by the elves is bad, because it prioritizes retaining or exerting power over seeing the world as it is and responding appropriately.
They would have lost, eventually, no matter what; if not in England then when they had to deal with the Black Chamber or BLUE HADES or were simply nuked from orbit. What the story tells is how, even with missteps, losses were minimized, partly by sheer luck (Cassie's personality, Alex's existence, itself improbable until very shortly before, accidents of timing).
With a realistic assessment of their opponents consider what they could have done - with excellent command and control, the ability to replace any non-Laundry person with someone disguised by glamour possessing all their memories, or coerce anyone not at, say, Alex's level of magical competence, they could have subverted or decapitated the whole top level of the UK's government and military before they were detected, except by divination. Instead they engage in the strategically useless steps of attacking airliners and invading Leeds. Leeds.
Another thing to think about is civilization. The elves are, in one sense, more "civilized" than we are: better aesthetics, more advanced in their technology than we are in ours. Their word for us, as Stross presents it, is the Tolkienian Elvish word for "orcs". (Some of this is not a new perception: both Chesterton and Lewis noted that a medieval perception of the modern world would be dominated by the word "drab" in a great many contexts.) But they are also destructive, violent, and brutal. So civilization has two senses which are here opposed.
I like the shift to Alex's viewpoint: aside from the way in which his lack of seniority is required for the mechanics of the plot to work, triangulation gives a better perspective.
In one sense, the action plot - lots of things that deliver an Earth-shattering kaboom - makes this an easily accessible book, and we do get a high-level overview of CASE NIGHTMARE RAINBOW, so it could be considered a reasonable point of entry into the series (especially as it calls for no back story re Bob and Mo), but I'm inclined to think that it gains more from knowledge of the already established context, so I would recommend beginning earlier and coming to this with that background under one's belt.
[1]A dog's obeyed in office.
Interestingly enough, the background suggests that the invasion is driven not by developments along our timeline, but by those along the elves' timeline. That they happen to erupt into an England shifting towards CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is just bad (or perhaps good) luck.
Thematically, Stross has moved on from looking at enforcement to the very image of authority[1] itself.
His elves have hierarchy to a degree no historical monarchy in human history has had: to get close, you have to cross the absolutism of Louis XIV and James II (see Steve Pincus' 1688 for a detailed discussion of James II and how new this model was) with the god-kings of some ancient cultures. Most human "monarchies" have tended to be oligarchies with a constrained leader: piss off enough of your nobility and you end up dead (William II, Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, Richard III) or embroiled in much civil strife (Stephen, John). (Charles I and James II fall into special classes of their own, facing a broader opposition in Parliament.) The elves have a strict hierarchy driven by absolute authority (and an almost Eddorian penchant for undermining each other).
For all that, they also stand for our past. Understanding not only social but natural order as hierarchical has a long history, and Ulysses' speech in Troilus and Cressida merely sets out a generally accepted commonplace. And if we're too dull to miss the point, we're given, late on, a Cabinet meeting where the PM makes all the same types of mistakes, on the same types of assumptions, that the Elvish All-Highest does.
Because one of the themes of the book is that top-down hierarchies don't work very well. Just about every single decision made by the elves is bad, because it prioritizes retaining or exerting power over seeing the world as it is and responding appropriately.
They would have lost, eventually, no matter what; if not in England then when they had to deal with the Black Chamber or BLUE HADES or were simply nuked from orbit. What the story tells is how, even with missteps, losses were minimized, partly by sheer luck (Cassie's personality, Alex's existence, itself improbable until very shortly before, accidents of timing).
With a realistic assessment of their opponents consider what they could have done - with excellent command and control, the ability to replace any non-Laundry person with someone disguised by glamour possessing all their memories, or coerce anyone not at, say, Alex's level of magical competence, they could have subverted or decapitated the whole top level of the UK's government and military before they were detected, except by divination. Instead they engage in the strategically useless steps of attacking airliners and invading Leeds. Leeds.
Another thing to think about is civilization. The elves are, in one sense, more "civilized" than we are: better aesthetics, more advanced in their technology than we are in ours. Their word for us, as Stross presents it, is the Tolkienian Elvish word for "orcs". (Some of this is not a new perception: both Chesterton and Lewis noted that a medieval perception of the modern world would be dominated by the word "drab" in a great many contexts.) But they are also destructive, violent, and brutal. So civilization has two senses which are here opposed.
I like the shift to Alex's viewpoint: aside from the way in which his lack of seniority is required for the mechanics of the plot to work, triangulation gives a better perspective.
In one sense, the action plot - lots of things that deliver an Earth-shattering kaboom - makes this an easily accessible book, and we do get a high-level overview of CASE NIGHTMARE RAINBOW, so it could be considered a reasonable point of entry into the series (especially as it calls for no back story re Bob and Mo), but I'm inclined to think that it gains more from knowledge of the already established context, so I would recommend beginning earlier and coming to this with that background under one's belt.
[1]A dog's obeyed in office.