Review: "A Colder War" by Charlie Stross (2000)
Posted on February 25th, 2008
“A Colder War” is an alternate history novelette that places the Iran-Contra Affair square within the Cthulhu Mythos.
Roger Jourgensen is first a CIA analyst, then a field spook/lackey who is privy to the biggest secret in the world: that shoggoths, Cthulhu, and Lovecraft’s other horrible weak-godlike agencies exist and are kept under wraps only through an international secret treaty known as the Dresden Agreement.
If you know a little Cold War history and have read H. P. Lovercraft’s “Mountains of Madness,” you will be impressed by the numerous, but natural, references to both in this story. Jourgensen is tapped by Ollie North for a super-secret special group doing covert work smuggling heroin through the temples of the Elder Gods. The group is also trying, but failing, to contain the proliferation of these weapons of universal destruction.
The shoggoth balloon goes up and Jourgensen is evacuated through a portal to another world along with some bigwigs as they attempt to figure out if the world can still be salvaged.
Stross’ characteristic humor is present in spots, and of course the satirical alternate history itself is humorous at times. Stross reaches for, but does not grasp, Lovecraft’s sense of nameless dread even though some of the plot turns here are more explicitly harrowing than much Lovecraft tended to write. Instead Jourgensen generally comes across as either worried-but-resigned, or just plain resigned.
As an aside, this is a separate storyline to the future of Stross’ Atrocity Archives, although both mix Lovecraft and espionage.
You can read it online here at Infinity Plus, but you might want to copy and paste it into a word processor because, while it has good contrast, there was something about the blue-on-blue on that page that got to me.
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Audiobook Review: "Trunk and Disorderly" by Charlie Stross (2007)
Posted on February 22nd, 2008
Charlie Stross, perhaps the most entertaining science fiction author writing today, is known for his ability to cross genres. He puts that ability to good use in this novelette by dropping P.G. Wodehouse characters into an early-but-updated science fiction adventure.
Ralph is the main character, a Bertie Wooster of the future: he lives off his aristocratic family, is a faithful club member, drinks as if alcohol contained vital nutrients necessary to his daily survival, is infatuated with his on-again-off-again robot girlfriend Laura, and relies almost utterly upon his butler for everything.
Miss Feng is the Jeeves-ian hyper-capable butler who deals with all the unpleasantness in Ralph’s life as well as feeds him reminders, minds his actions, and generally plays nursemaid to the spoiled but eminently likeable Ralph.
The tale begins as Laura leaves Ralph as he prepares to do some Martian sky surfing, an occurrence dashedly inconvenient to Ralph as the danger always left Laura in the mood for love.
Ralph is then invited to a birthday party by the younger brother of the Emir of Mars held at the Emir’s stronghold. Lots of food and drink, and a contest for the selection of the Emir’s concubine, although it turns out that the losers tend to lose their heads, and not in the figurative sense.
Laura, of course, has somehow been added to the list of the contestants and Ralph sees that he will have to save Laura, save the Emir from the evil eunuch Vizier, and escape the impregnable fortress. Then it will be cocktails all around, what?
Stross has again penned a delightfully funny tale and the narrator does a tremendous job- I don’t know if I could have handled all the “what?”, ‘jolly good” and “dash it” talk if it were not for the narrator blurting them out in his English accent.
Excellent/Highly Recommended. You can download it or listen to it online here.
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