The Delirium Brief is yet another entry in the Laundry series by Charlie Stross, and with our first and favourite POV character Bob to boot! It features a culmination of a lot of characters, concepts and plot points introduced in previous parts of the series, which is nice in general – except that the first quarter of the book is exposition/reminder of the who’s who and what’s what of the Laundryverse, which felt very tedious.
Apart from that, everything’s great, though: People behave intelligently, but not perfectly (especially regarding interpersonal relationships. There’s a marriage on the line, y’all). Same goes, somewhat, for administration and Eldritch horrors. All things considered, The Delirium Brief talks about the dangers of privatisation, which is first fun, then terrifying, and then Terrifying, capital T. The ending is at least as strong as the beginning is weak, and I’m very happy to have read this book with the next one lined up. The cliffhanger is, well, planet-sized.
