The Delirium Brief

A Laundry Files Novel

by Charles Stross

digital, 368 pages

Published July 11, 2017 by Tor.com.

ISBN:: 978-0-7653-9467-5

(35 reviews)

Someone is dead set to air the spy agency's dirty laundry in The Delirium Brief , the next installment to Charles Stross' Hugo Award-winning comedic dark fantasy Laundry Files series! Bob Howard's career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond spacetime, has entailed high combat, brilliant hacking, ancient magic, and combat with indescribably repellent creatures of pure evil. It has also involved a wearying amount of paperwork and office politics, and his expense reports are still a mess. Now, following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness, the Laundry's existence has become public, and Bob is being trotted out on TV to answer pointed questions about elven asylum seekers. What neither Bob nor his managers have foreseen is that their organization has earned the attention of a horror far more terrifying than any demon: a …

4 editions

Kevin reviewed The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross

Forecast Ops as co-author

4 stars

I'm way behind in the Laundry Files series, but I love it because I'll go and check in every so often, picking up where I left off. So here we are, reading The Delerium Brief, published in 2018, in the first quarter of 2025.

And from this I know that Forecast Ops (the section of the Laundry that uses oracles to peer into the future and use eldritch probability theory to prognosticate what is going to happen) is real and the author is in direct contact with them.

You see, the premise is that these secret goverment agencies that protect us from unimaginable powers sleeping in the dark recesses of space or wherever are being defunded and agents of those powers plan to use regulatory capture to remove them from the board. Reading this in 2025, it feels all too real, sort of like trying to find humor in The Onion when there stories are the less bad version of reality. @cstross@wandering.shop uses his prescience to look 7 years into the future and the horrors lying just under the surface.

All in all, a great addition to the Laundry Files series.

Paul reviewed The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross

Review of 'The Delirium Brief' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

My biggest complaint is I want the next one now!

Jason Molenda reviewed The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross (The Laundry)

Review of 'The delirium brief' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

It was a good entry in this series of lovecraftian horror plus secret spy agency novels, but the start of the series had a lot more fun and whimsy in it. I think with the stakes being raised so much in this one, the tone is going to be more serious because of it. The way the heroes prevail and save the day sets up the next book where I'm genuinely curious to see how the author moves the world forward.

Daniel Andrlik reviewed The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross (The Laundry)

Review of 'The delirium brief' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This is easily my favorite book in the Laundry Files so far, which is interesting because in many ways it is very different from the preceding volumes. Bob Howard is back, and the Laundry faces its greatest threat yet: privatization of government services.

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