The Rhesus Chart

May 26, 2014
Hugo winner Stross continues his Laundry Files series (The Apocalypse Codex) with another entertaining but occasionally repetitive tale of a British government agency fighting the supernatural. Some British investment bankers have accidentally stumbled on a formula that turns them into vampires, and they quickly apply their talents and learn how deadly they can be. Bob Howard, tech geek and occasional spy for the Laundry, gets caught up in an investigation that soon starts to have implications for the safety of the world and the future of Bob’s relationship with his wife, Mo. When one of the vamps, Mhari, turns out to be an ex-Laundry agent herself, things get even more convoluted and dangerous. Stross stumbles a bit at times—by this point in the series, the multipage jokes about British bureaucracy complicating things have gotten tired—but generally offers a meaty story. As the stakes get really serious, fans of the series will be particularly concerned about the fates of some favorite characters.