The novel “Dead Lies Dreaming” by Charles Stross was published for the first time in 2020. It’s part of the Laundry series and within it is the first book of the Tales of the New Management.
Rupert de Montfort Bigge is a billionaire who has adapted well to the New Management. An opportunity comes for him when he learns that the Necronomicon is being auctioned off in an underground auction. It’s perhaps the only existing copy of the real legendary Necronomicon. Eve Starkey is his special agent whose goal is to get it, at all costs.
Getting your hands on a book as unique and dangerous as the Necronomicon is difficult, yet there are various people ready for anything with many resources at their disposal. Eve hires her brother Jeremy “Imp” and his group of Lost Boys to help her with their powers but their paths cross with that of Wendy Deere adding complications together with the discreet but constant presence of the Bond.
For several years, Charles Stross wrote novels, and occasionally short fiction, part of the series of the Laundry, the secret British organization that deals with occult threats. Most of these stories feature Agent Bob Howard but “The Labyrinth Index” marked a big shift mirroring Brexit.
The return of the Great Old Ones posed one of the greatest dangers to humanity and the fact that one of them became the British Prime Minister was nothing short of an amazing development. “Dead Lies Dreaming” shows the consequences of this New Management and does so by following new characters leaving Bob Howard and the Laundry aside at least for the moment. In essence, this novel belongs to the Laundry series because it’s set in the same fictional universe but within it constitutes an autonomous spinoff. For this reason, it’s possible to read it without knowing the previous stories but it is better to be familiar at least with the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
The Laundry series has been a mix of various genres and sub-genres from the beginning. “Dead Lies Dreaming” tends more than others to dark fantasy in its Lovecraftian elements and Peter Pan inspiration while sci-fi elements were limited. Without Bob Howard, the geeky parts practically disappeared even if some consequences remain of the fact that demonology is a branch of mathematics. After all, accounting is math.
In New Management’s context, Rupert de Montfort Bigge is an unscrupulous opportunist ready to exploit everything and everyone to increase wealth and power. In “Dead Lies Dreaming” his goal is to obtain the Necronomicon but his style mirrors that of real people because satire is also included in the Laundry cycle.
Honestly, in “Dead Lies Dreaming”, Charles Stross is also at his worst with a convoluted plot and many new characters who, for the most part, have too little room for decent development. On the other hand, it’s impossible to switch easily from a protagonist such as Bob Howard to newcomers. I think readers’ reactions to this novel depend a lot on how well they manage to follow this transition.
The worst of Charles Stross is better than what so many other authors can offer. If you don’t get lost in the various parts of the plot of “Dead Lies Dreaming” you can enjoy the fantasy that the author put into including Lovecraftian elements into the current British reality. Of course, for British readers, reading it could lead to bitter feelings. This novel begins a new subcycle but has an ending, so it doesn’t force the reader to continue with its sequels. I recommend it to readers who especially appreciated the Lovecraftian elements of the Laundry stories and don’t have problems with complex plots.
