{"id":26711,"date":"2014-07-07T07:32:14","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T12:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=26711"},"modified":"2014-07-07T07:32:14","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T12:32:14","slug":"the-rhesus-chart-by-charles-stross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/the-rhesus-chart-by-charles-stross\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rhesus Chart<\/em> by Charles Stross"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Edinburgh Reporter<\/em>, Rosemary Kaye<\/a> gives us a quick introduction to “the Laundry” and how the next book in the series gets underway:<\/p>\n

Bob is a civil servant. Not any old civil servant though: Bob works for The Laundry, a secret department set up to protect the population from occult powers. In a Google-esque attempt to raise morale he and his colleagues have been told to devote 10% of their time to following their own \u2018creative, innovative research ideas\u2019 \u2013 but they\u2019re far too busy to find space in their working days to regain their va-va-voom, so they have to develop their projects at night.<\/p>\n

One night Bob returns to his office to find a colleague, Andy, conducting a \u2018hello spirit world\u2019 experiment. He\u2019s intending to summon a demon, a \u2018class one manifestation\u2019, but whatever he\u2019s called up, it\u2019s not that. Everything is feeling rather cold. Bob drags Andy from the room and shuts the door, but soon realises that;<\/p>\n

\u2018elephant size termites appear to be chewing on the edges of reality.\u2019<\/p>\n

Andy has used his own code instead of the regulation issue;<\/p>\n

\u2018there\u2019s nothing worse than an IT manager who\u2019s getting creative\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Bob\u2019s boss Angleton is soon on the scene; an old school presence \u2018as chilly and powerful as the thing behind the door\u2019, he instructs Bob to call the Night Watch. The Night Watch appears \u2018in classic Bela Lugosi style\u2019, its members being zombies or, as the civil service now requires them to be designed, \u2018Residual Human Resources.\u2019 It becomes clear to a horrified Bob that Angleton\u2019s intention is to send one of them into the room;<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve gotten used to dealing with the metabolically challenged, but \u2026\u2026.you can\u2019t just go using the Night Watch as meat probes\u2019<\/p>\n

Bob sees that even the zombies are uneasy about this one, but Angleton is determined. The poor zombie\u2019s bony hand ends up frozen to the door knob, but eventually the door is opened, to reveal;<\/p>\n

\u2018tentacles and lobster claws, eyes the size of my head\u2026..total sensory overload\u2026voices like telemarketers in hell\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

And to find out what happens next, you need to buy the book \u2013 which many of the audience already have.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Edinburgh Reporter, Rosemary Kaye gives us a quick introduction to “the Laundry” and how the next book in the series gets underway: Bob is a civil servant. Not any old civil servant though: Bob works for The Laundry, a secret department set up to protect the population from occult powers. In a Google-esque […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4,28],"tags":[970,85],"class_list":["post-26711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-britain","category-media","tag-occult","tag-sf"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6WP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26712,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26711\/revisions\/26712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}