The Laundry Files is a series of novels by British writer Charles Stross. They mix the genres of Lovecraftian horror, spy thriller, science fiction, and workplace humour. Their main character for the first five novels is "Bob Howard" (a pseudonym taken for security purposes), a one-time I.T. consultant turned occult field agent. Howard is recruited to work for the Q-Division of SOE, otherwise known as "the Laundry", the British government agency which deals with occult threats. "Magic" is described as being a branch of applied computation (mathematics), therefore computers and equations are just as useful as, and perhaps more potent than, classical spellbooks, pentagrams, and sigils for the purpose of influencing ancient powers and opening gates to other dimensions. These occult struggles happen largely out of view of the public, as the Laundry seeks to keep the methods for contacting such powers under wraps. There are also elements of dry humour and satirisation of bureaucracy.

While the stories are partially inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos universe created by H. P. Lovecraft and others, they are not set in Lovecraft's universe. In Stross's world, the greatest magicians are the scientists who closely study the phenomena; it features a secret history of historical thinkers who also dabbled in or stumbled upon occult uses of their work.

The Concrete Jungle and Equoid both won the Hugo Award for Best Novella, and "Overtime" was a nominee for best novelette. The series as a whole was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2019 and 2024.

The Atrocity Archives

The Atrocity Archives is the first collection of Laundry stories by British author Charles Stross. It is set in 2002–03 and was published in 2004. It includes the short novel The Atrocity Archive (originally serialised in Spectrum SF, #7 November 2001) and The Concrete Jungle, which won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

The protagonist of both stories is computer expert Bob Howard, who re-discovers certain mathematical equations that contact other worlds. The Laundry detects the disturbance and swoops in to give him a mandatory job offer ("I thought I was just generating weird new fractals; they knew I was dangerously close to landscaping Wolverhampton with alien nightmares"

Publishers Weekly was somewhat mixed in their review saying that "though the characters all tend to sound the same, and Stross resorts to lengthy summary explanations to dispel confusion, the world he creates is wonderful fun". The Washington Post called it "a bizarre yet effective yoking of the spy and horror genres".

Stross states that his inspiration for the spy in these novels is closer to the out-of-place bureaucrats of Len Deighton than to the James Bond model. He also mentions that when he began writing the series in 1999, he chose as villains "an obscure but fanatical and unpleasant gang who might, conceivably, be planning an atrocity on American soil"; but that by the time the novel was to be published in late 2001, Al-Qaeda was no longer obscure, so he chose a different group to use in the novella.

In the afterword to the Science Fiction Book Club 2-in-1 edition of The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue, Stross notes that friends warned him against reading the novel Declare while he was working on The Atrocity Archives due to the strong parallels between the two works. Stross also mentioned the similarities between the novel and the Delta Green role-playing game, similarities referenced in the short story "Pimpf" included with The Jennifer Morgue; Delta Green is also about elite government conspiracies working against villains who attempt to wield power derived from the Mythos, as well as rival conspiracies.

The Jennifer Morgue

The Jennifer Morgue is the second collection of Laundry stories by British author Charles Stross. It is set in 2005 In-setting, the James Bond novels and films exist, allowing the characters to note the eerie and intentional resemblances afoot. The villain has set up a localized occult field that essentially makes it so that a Bond archetype has the best odds of defeating him and reality bends in Bond-film-like ways nearby, albeit with his own plan for escaping the inevitable doom of a Bond villain. Much of the Mythos relating to Deep Ones and Deep One – human hybrids originates from The Shadow over Innsmouth. The plotline with the Glomar Explorer refers to the real-life Project Azorian, named by the press as Project Jennifer, a 1975 CIA plan to raise a Soviet submarines which used billionaire Howard Hughes' eccentricity as a cover for why a recovery ship was performing operations in an area.

<!--Stross also uses footnotes and narrative causality, two literary devices common in the novels of Terry Pratchett. Stross plays with expectations by having Ramona, one of H. P. Lovecraft's "Deep Ones", known as "Blue Hades" in Laundry speak, serve as the "bad" Bond girl, but Billington's identification of Bob with 007 proves to be wrong. Bob plays the "good" Bond girl's role until Mo intervenes as the real 007 character.-->

The Jennifer Morgue was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2007. One 2007 review called the book "rip-roaringly entertaining", and admired how the book mixed humor with gravitas (the characters treat Bond as a joke, but the threat of horrific undersea monsters with sincerity).

The Fuller Memorandum

The Fuller Memorandum is the third novel in the Laundry series of novels. It is set in 2008

The Rhesus Chart

The Rhesus Chart is the fifth novel in the Laundry series. It is set in spring 2013 and was also reviewed in Asimov's Science Fiction.

The Annihilation Score

The Annihilation Score is the sixth novel in the Laundry series. It is set in summer/autumn 2013 After the invasion of the Elves in which thousands of people perished, the existence of the Laundry has become public knowledge, and the agency faces a new threat, this time not supernatural but political; the Prime Minister uses the Laundry as a scapegoat and dissolves it, to be replaced with a public–private partnership. The mastermind behind this plan turns out to be an old antagonist from The Apocalypse Codex, Raymond Schiller, still trying to bring about the end of the world. The rump of the Laundry executes a coup in cooperation with the surviving cultists from The Fuller Memorandum, bringing Britain under the rule of Nyarlathotep as a lesser evil.

The Delirium Brief is published by Tor. According to Stross, the book was somewhat delayed due to the Brexit referendum, as the pro-Brexit result required a large rewrite to reconcile the politics portrayed in the book with the real-world developments.

The Labyrinth Index

The Labyrinth Index is the ninth book in the Laundry Files series. It is set in Winter 2014/early 2015

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Dead Lies Dreaming was marketed as the tenth book in the Laundry Files series but does not concern itself with the titular agency or its members apart from an occasional cameo. More accurately, it is the start of a separate trilogy set in the same world the author refers to as "Tales of the New Management". It is set in December 2016

The "Tales of the New Management" series jumps forward in time to depict the events under Prime Minister Fabian Everyman (an alias of the Elder God Nyarlathotep). Instead of The Laundry, the series explores the civilian side of this new United Kingdom, controlled by magic and superpowers. “Dead Lies Dreaming” features corrupt plutocrat Rupert Bigge and his executive assistant Evelyn Starkey. Rupert is covertly the high priest of another Elder God and is hunting for a magical book that gives its owner occult power. Evelyn is ordered to get it for him by any means necessary. To this end, she recruits her younger brother Imp and his street gang made up of Game Boy, Doc Depression and the Deliverator, which in turn attracts the attention of Wendy Deere, a corporate thieftaker. After adventures through Everyman's London and (via an extradimensional passage) past and mythical versions of the city, Evelyn acquires the book, Rupert is presumed lost, and the gang awaits their next adventure.

Quantum of Nightmares

Quantum of Nightmares is the second book in the "Tales of the New Management" trilogy, continuing the story of the main characters from Dead Lies Dreaming. It is set in December 2016

Escape from Yokai Land

Escape from Yokai Land (originally titled Escape from Puroland) is a novella in the Laundry Files series. It is set in March/April 2014

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Season of Skulls is the third book in the "Tales of the New Management" trilogy, continuing the story that began in Dead Lies Dreaming and Quantum of Nightmares. It is set in March 2017 (and the summer of 1816)

A Conventional Boy

A Conventional Boy is a novel in the Laundry Files series, released in January 2025.

Stross describes it as an "interstitial novel", filing in details about Derek Reilly (aka Derek the DM) and Iris Carpenter (specifically her prison sentence) between novels.

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The Regicide Report is a novel in the Laundry Files series, released in January 2026. It is set around March-May 2015 or February-May 2015

The book is dominated by the plans of two characters, although this does not become apparent until the end

  • Fabian Everyman is not human. He is the earthly avatar of the Elder God Nyarlathotep, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He wants to unite totally with Nyarlathotep and secure his position as PM. He intends to do this by poisoning Queen Elizabeth II, forcing her suspension and vampirization, and inserting Nyarlathotep acolytes (including the coterie of the Queen's physician Dr Phibes) into the ceremony to use the mana harvested to summon and unite him totally with Nyarlathotep.
  • Michael Armstrong is human. He is the Senior Auditor of the Laundry and its continuity. He installed Everyman as PM in earlier novels to avert a greater evil, but Everyman has proven remarkably competent, winning a General Election to legitimise his position and cannot be easily dislodged. Armstrong is aware of Everyman's plan and subverts it by inserting other acolytes (including the sentient violin known as "Lecter") into the plan to instead summon another god, the King in Yellow. He hopes that Everyman will expend the mana whilst battling the King in Yellow and so fail in his own union.

The book takes place as these plans interact. Laundry operatives Bob Howard and his wife Dominique "Mo" O'Brien investigate the Queen's poisoning, interact with many characters from previous books (Iris, Mhairi, Pete, and others), get caught in the backwash from the plans such as a Gashadokuro made from former monarchs, come to terms with the effects the previous books have had on them (Bob accepts that he did not survive the events of The Fuller Memorandum and is instead the Eater of Souls cosplaying him), and as the bodycount rises, both take part in the climax in the temple of the Sleeper.

Armstrong's plan wins. Everyman defeats the King in Yellow but in the process cannot complete his own union. In revenge he kills and dismembers Armstrong, displaying his bodyparts in various sites around London. The Queen is in suspended animation, Everyman is secure as PM, and the UK accepts the New Management and the stability it offers. The Laundry operatives are enfolded into a new department, the Department of Existential Anthropic Threats (DEAT) and SOE Q-division, informally known as "The Laundry", no longer exists.

The book ends in an afterword from the author Charles Stross, recognising The Regicide Report as the capstone to the twenty-five year project that was the book series "The Laundry Files", and brings the series itself to an end.

Stross' short stories "Down on the Farm", "Overtime", and "Equoid" are within the same Laundry continuity. "Down on the Farm" and "Equoid" both take place between the second and third novels (2007 in the setting); "Overtime" takes place between the third and fourth novels (2009 in setting). "Equoid" won the 2014 Hugo Award for best novella, and "Overtime" was a shortlist nominee for the 2010 Hugo Award for best novelette.

Stross's 2000 short story "A Colder War" also mixes elements of Lovecraft and espionage, and is perhaps a precursor to the Laundry stories; however, the fictional background and assumptions are different, and it is its own distinct setting (as the world is destroyed at the end of it, the Laundry series is clearly not a sequel).

Cubicle 7 published The Laundry, a role-playing game based on the Laundry stories in July 2010. On June 21, 2024 a successful Kickstarter was completed on a second edition of the game to be released in early 2025.

Stross published a short non-canonical work set in the Laundry Files universe on a fanfiction website, "The Howard/O'Brien Relate Counseling Session Transcripts – Part 1".

Audiobook versions

Audiobook versions of the novels in the Laundry Files series have been narrated by Gideon Emery, Elle Newlands, Jack Hawkins, Caroline Guthrie, and Bianca Amato.

See also

  • Declare, by Tim Powers
  • The Spiraling Worm, by David Conyers and John Sunseri
  • Delta Green role-playing game
  • The Laundry role-playing game

References

  • The Laundry Files series timeline:
  • Version of 2016/04,
  • Version of 2020/10,
  • Version of 2025/01
  • James Bond Vs. Cthulhu
  • "Crib Sheet: The Fuller Memorandum", an essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: The Apocalypse Codex", an essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: The Rhesus Chart", essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: The Annihilation Score", essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: The Nightmare Stacks", essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: The Delirium Brief", essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: The Labyrinth Index", essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: Quantum of Nightmares", essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: Dead Lies Dreaming", essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: Escape From Yokai Land", essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls", essay by Charles Stross
  • "Crib Sheet: A Conventional Boy", essay by Charles Stross
  • Down on the Farm, a 2008 short fiction work in the series, free with full content online
  • Overtime, a 2009 short fiction work in the series, free with full content online
  • Equoid, a 2013 short fiction work in the series, free with full content online