Dead Lies Dreaming by Charles Stross (2020 Orbit hardcover 379pp)
Published In 2020 Dead Lies Dreaming is the first book in Charles Stross’ New Management series, itself a spin-off from the 9 book strong Laundry Files sequence. The original books chronicled the adventures and misadventures of the UK’s “Laundry” agents tasked with defeating the rising threat from other worldly supernatural beings making incursions into our world. I hope its not too much of a spoiler to say the agents failed and Britain was taken over by an ancient evil god who became Prime Minister – the titular New Management. Dead Lies Dreaming kicks off some time after the takeover and things like magic and super-powered humans have apparently become commonplace to the wider public.
With the Laundry side-lined we are introduced to a whole new set of characters who, to be honest, all seem like cartoonish stereotypes. Our heroes are the Lost Boys (one of many Peter Pan quotes and references in the book) a gang of young people who all have special abilities and use them to commit audacious but amusing crimes. Then we meet Wendy Deere a similarly super-powered former police officer who now works for a private security firm and has been tasked with capturing the gang. The leader of the Lost Boys is Imp (real name Jeremy) who’s sister Eve (who also has super-powers) works for a big-time gangster called Rupert Bigge. This at first seems like a convenient coincidence but all is revealed later in the text as their family connections become more crucial to the plot.
I was going to bore you with a detailed synopsis but all it boils down to is a heist/caper. A certain powerful magic book (which is only a concordance for the even more powerful Necronomicon) is up for grabs and Mr. Bigge wants to own it. Eve is tasked with obtaining it and hires her brother and his friends to recover it. About ¾ of the book is set-up for the actual heist and the actual event is over in the last 70 or 80 pages.
I found it hard to tell some of the characters apart – there are three female characters who all seem to be variations on the same action movie “strong woman” stereotype. There are a pair of minor characters referred to as “The Bond” (i.e., James Bond) and “The Gammon” who might as well be the same person as they blasted their way through the story with all their kewl hardware. A rival gang of Russians (or something) also seeking the book MacGuffin are barely are given a motivation.
I think I’m still nostalgic for the early Laundry Files stories which were at least partially grounded in the real world the agents sought to protect. Dead Lies Dreaming seems to be somewhat heightened and exists in a more ‘anything goes’ universe. Of course, this could just be the author having fun and throwing off his shackles as he experiments with a something looser, I’m not so sure. It is entertaining reading but a little less than I’ve come to expect from the usually reliable Stross. Still, there are two more books in this series (so far) for him to change my mind with.
