The Annihilation Score
Written by Charles Stross
Narrated by Caroline Guthrie
4/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
NOBODY DOES IT BETTER . . .
Dr Mo O'Brien is an intelligence agent at the top-secret government agency known as 'the Laundry.' When occult powers threaten the realm, they'll be there to clean up the mess and deal with the witnesses.
But the Laundry is recovering from a devastating attack and when average citizens all over the country start to develop supernatural powers, the police are called in to help. Mo is appointed as official police liaison, but in between dealing with police bureaucracy, superpowered members of the public and disgruntled politicians, Mo discovers to her horror that she can no longer rely on her marriage, nor on the weapon that has been at her side for eight years of undercover work, the possessed violin known as 'Lecter.'
If this wasn't bad enough, a mysterious figure known as Dr Freudstein is committing heists and sending increasingly threatening messages to the police. Who is Freudstein and what is he planning?
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.
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Reviews for The Annihilation Score
229 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I probably shouldn't have jumped directly from the first book to the sixth, but it was on the shelf in the library and I was helpless.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I liked this, but then I am an unapologetic fanboy of the Laundry Files. This book has Mo as a narrator, and her voice is very different from Bobs, which may not appeal to others. The superhero plot is just a thin veneer over the heavy Lovercraftian ooze, which is the way things are meant to be in this series, but I could easily see a three volume spin-off series with the Stross/Laundry Files take on super-heroes.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slight spoilers
An interesting turn in the series, I loved seeing this from Mo's point of view. So glad I found this series. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It's Mo's turn to be the protagonist. Nice to have someone other than Bob's perspective (including on Bob), and more details about the white violin was interesting. The climax, while suitably dramatic, didn't deliver significant surprises.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5For this book we get almost no Bob since he is putting out fires from the conclusion of the previous book. This starts right at the end of the previous book with Mo being the POV character. And it is a nice change of pace. Mo works for the Laundry and has a cover as a music professor which is useful since she wields a demonic violin that is trying to take over her and kill Bob.
As things get closer to the end times there is an up swell in magic that causes people to believe they have superpowers. When Mo accidentally gets outed to the public on the news while trying to stop some new super villain she is put in charge of a new division in the government to recruit and train superheroes. And she is still working for the Laundry at the same time while still possibly trying to keep her marriage afloat with Bob.
The book ends in typical fashion for this series leaving wanting more. Mo as the central character was good and now I’m wondering if she will be continue to be the main focus or will it go back to Bob. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the first Laundry Files book told from Mo’s perspective, but Mo as presented by Stross is basically her husband with a greater focus on bureaucratic procedure. I’m not sure that the world needed a Lovecraft homage where essentially all the action involves forming a task force and engaging in bureaucratic infighting (as the stars get ever closer to coming right and the apocalypse draws nigh), but it’s kind of hilarious to have one exist. Definitely advances the plot a fair amount; I would have preferred it if Mo had a more distinctive voice, but I’m still interested to see what happens next.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If you have not read the the previous books in the series do not pass go, do not collect $200, and go back to the start.While the other reviews posted probably tell you all you need to know to me, in some ways, this is the real culminating point of "The Atrocity Archives." This is as Dominique O'Brien's relationship with the Laundry and the instrument she bears comes to a head and literally threatens to consume her, while it turns out that other British government agencies have their own concepts of how to face the coming paranormal apocalypse. That said I'm not sure the sense of this being a commentary on Bob Howard's inadequacies quite works out, in that for all the point that he is not as good a man as he thinks he is seems quite besides the point in the face of the emergency that Stross posits in this series; particularly when much of this book is about disaster ensuing because of people who have the exact wrong idea of how to proceed.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Still enjoyable, and the shift to Mo's viewpoint was an interesting change--but the superhero angle is almost completely obscured by the rest of the plot. Mix of humor and dread that characterized the early Laundry books a bit lacking.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really like Mo as a character, so it was exciting to get a book from her perspective, delving further into her world both violin-related and not. The plot twist at the end was totally unexpected, and I liked how it was resolved.