Book Review: City of Others by Jared Poon

Magic and bureaucracy in a supernatural Singapore

It seems like I enjoy a subgenre of urban fantasy that I am starting to think of as “books that involve the bureaucratization of magic,” where main characters working for government agencies try to tame the magical world with procedures, paperwork, and protocols. Examples might include Charlie Stross’s The Laundry Files, parts of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, and now, it seems, Jared Poon’s new DEUS series beginning with City of Others.

Our narrator is Ben, who works in middle management at DEUS, the Division for Engagement of Unusual Stakeholders, part of the Ministry of Community, that oversees the “Others”: people with magic or connections to the supernatural.

The book is set in a Singapore where magic is everywhere, but most people don’t notice it due to what the ministry refers to as “Deviant Occurrences Blind Eye Syndrome” (DOBES). But most of the Others just all it the “DKP effect,” for “Don’t kaypoh” (kaypoh is Singaporean slang for ‘busybody’).

Ben’s team of government bureaucrats works to help Others fit into the overall fabric of Singaporean society. The team features a psychic, a spell-slinging bomoh (Malay shaman), a half-jinn intern, and Ben, who is a “Gardener” with access to a large well of internal magic. The team is eventually joined by a ghost cat who can rescue objects from the immediate past, as well as by Ben’s boyfriend, Adam.

Ben and his team face a dual threat: first, a world-ending attack from an endlessly ravenous shoal of creatures swimming in from a parallel but connected dimension; second, the possibility that their boss, Rebecca, may catch them performing an exorcism without a risk management plan and filing for official clearances.

There's just something I find charming about the juxtaposition of civil servants and bureaucracy with snake gods and other supernatural magic. For example, at one point, when Ben is trying to figure out what's going wrong in a residential neighbourhood, he tells himself, "OAR—Observe. Analyze. Respond. That was the DEUS framework for field observations around deviant phenomena. There was even a very nice set of slides, featuring clip-art people rowing a kayak together, that showed how the OAR framework could help us navigate complex situations.” As he considers what he can remember from the slides, he ends up submerged and frozen in a parallel universe for a few moments.

The OAR framework helps Ben navigate the situation, but his reference to it (and other government protocols) makes the magic seem possible to tame, which perhaps helps the reader feel like it could be real. Rather than forcing the reader into a magical realm, it brings the magic into our mundane realm with its informational PowerPoints and mnemonics to remember protocols.

Further, just as even mundane employees sometimes face top-down policies that make their lives difficult, Ben must deal with the DEUS’s past policies, which focused more on controlling and policing the Others rather than helping them. In the past, DEUS even violently shut down locations where Others gathered, calling them “unhygienic” and “lawless." Due to this legacy, many powerful Others do not trust DEUS, and Ben must work to prove that the agency has changed.

The book is peppered with pop culture references, with a light and humorous tone.  For example, Ben quotes both Aladdin and Star Wars at his boyfriend and, at one point, in the midst of the battle against the shoal, his team needs to stop everything to participate in the Ministry of Community Sports Day to demonstrate their team spirit for their boss. But the book also has a deeper core, where characters cope with past grief and mistakes while learning to grow and work together. Ben begins the book unable to ask for help and feeling emotionally estranged from his father. By the end, he comes to better understand how his father shows care, and also learns to ask for help when he needs it.

I enjoyed that this book was set in Singapore. We get to hear about different forms of magical beings based in Asian folklore, such as the manananggal, a mythical creature from Filipino folklore, and Semar, a Javanese demigod. Poon also integrates aspects of Singaporean history into the book, such as in the fact that the category of “Other” for magical creatures comes from a post-colonial era racial classification that the Singaporean government used as an administrative tool. People were asked to self-identify as “Chinese, Malay, Indian, or Other.” This puts all the magic users together with racialized others: “We, of course, were in the last category, which included jiangshi [undead corpse creatures from Chinese folklore], diviners, and elves right alongside Eurasians, Filipinos, Arabs—all the ones who had to tick a special box and fill something in when they entered the National Service.”

City of Others is clearly the first in a series where we spend a lot of the book meeting new characters and being introduced to the larger context of magical Singapore. The city has several powerful factions of Others that vie for influence, and there’s even a shadowy private organization trying to build technology with magic taken from Others. Because we’re being introduced to so many new characters and settings, the narrative can feel a bit like it’s dragging at times. But it was an amusing first book, and I’ll be curious about how Poon continues to build out this world.

Highlights:

• Fun, magical Singapore
• Bureaucratization of magic
• Queer characters
• Ghost cat

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10. Definitely enjoyable, but you’ll notice that it’s setting up for a longer series.

Reference: Poon, Jared. City of Others [Orbit, 2026].

POSTED BY: Christine D. Baker, historian and lover of SFF and mysteries. You can find her also writing reviews at Ancillary Review of Books or podcasting about classic scifi/fantasy at Hugo History. Come chat books with her on Bluesky @klaxoncomms.com.

TV Review: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (opening episodes)

Gen Z’s Star Trek hits the sweet spot for youthful adventure mixed with Gen X cynicism

Star Trek has grown significantly from the original 1960s adventures of Captain Kirk and the crew of the starship Enterprise. Over the decades, new versions of Star Trek ranged from the bleakness of Enterprise, Picard, and Discovery to the optimism of the original series and Strange New Worlds, to the timely philosophical insights of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, to the very funny humor of Lower Decks.

In the background of the adventures, many of our favorite heroes gave passing references to where it all began, Starfleet Academy. But we seldom got a deep dive into life at the academy. Now, just in time for its sixtieth anniversary, Star Trek is going back to the beginning by showing us the start of the hero’s journey for the next generation of explorers in its latest offering, Starfleet Academy. On the Trek continuum from bleak to hilarious, Starfleet Academy is definitely on the optimistic and humorous end of the spectrum. Those who prefer their Star Trek rather serious will be disappointed, because Starfleet Academy feels much more like a live action version of the always humorous Lower Decks. If you haven’t seen Lower Decks, you should, because Lower Decks is funny, clever, and sharply witty in its references to core Star Trek themes and tropes. Starfleet Academy has a bit more seriousness than Lower Decks, but mostly retains a fun, playful tone that is still in touch with the traditional Trek values of diversity, loyalty, heroic empathy, and scientific curiosity.

[Mild spoilers for the first episode] Set centuries into the Star Trek future, Starfleet Academy begins as the story of a single child. Caleb Mir is six years old, living with his mother Anisha (Tatiana Maslany). In her struggle to find food, Anisha accepts aid from a man (Paul Giamatti), not realizing he is a pirate who ultimately killed a Federation officer. Although she cooperates with the Federation, the commander Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) gives her a cruel punishment, sentencing her to fifteen years in a hard labor camp and putting Caleb in state custody. Feeling betrayed as her son is torn away from her, she warns Caleb not to trust the Federation. As a result, the child tricks Ake and escapes, and grows up as a distrustful street urchin who tries in vain over the years to locate his mother. Meanwhile, Ake is devastated by losing the child she promised to care for, and to whom she promised to bring for visits to the betrayed Anisha. She resigns from Starfleet for fifteen years, but is eventually lured back to lead the newly reopened Starfleet Academy when the long lost Caleb (Sandro Rosta) is caught and incarcerated for stealing. Regretting what happened years ago, she urges Caleb to join the academy instead of being sentenced to prison. Caleb, who is a technology expert, reluctantly accepts enrollment in exchange for Ake’s promise to help locate his mother, who has disappeared from the Federation’s prison system.

Starfleet Academy is being reopened for the first time after a cataclysm known as the Burn. The new cadets will be the first class at the revived academy. Over the past years, officer training had been taken over by the War College, a conflict-focused institution that becomes a rival to the exploration-focused Starfleet Academy. At the academy, Caleb quickly falls in with an eclectic group of new cadets with their own interesting backstories, including Jay-Den (Karim Diané), a gentle-hearted Klingon; SAM (Kerrice Brooks), an earnest and nerdy photonic (hologram); Darem (George Hawkins), an egotistical shapeshifting Khionian; Genesis (Bella Shepard), a clever, success driven Dar-Sha strategist who is Darem’s rival; and later, Betazoid siblings Tarima (Zoë Steiner) and Ocam (Romeo Carere). The young people are supervised by academy instructors, including the eccentric Captain Ake. Ake is a half-Lanthanite who has been alive for centuries and has an attachment to quirky, ancient objects such as old-fashioned eyeglasses and hardback books. She often walks barefoot and helps the kids revenge-prank the neighboring school. Her cranky second in command is the part Klingon, part Jem-Hadar, Lura Thok (Gina Yashere). There is also the returned holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo) from Voyager, and the wise and cynical instructor Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) from the time-traveling Discovery. As the young people settle into the structure and adventure of life at the academy, an old villain returns to wreak havoc, and Caleb has to learn a quick lesson about working with his new allies.

Starfleet Academy does a good job of starting with only two perspectives: the young, rebellious Caleb and the ancient, quirky Ake. The story initially focuses on those points of view and then gradually adds new characters. This technique allows viewers to enjoy the dynamics of this new setting before adding too many new perspectives. If viewers don’t remember the Burn, its story starts in season 3 of Discovery [Editor’s Note: If you haven’t seen Discovery, the short version is that all the dilithium in the galaxy exploded and warp travel became impossible for a whole century]. Fortunately, knowledge of the event is not essential to enjoy Starfleet Academy. The series is set in the distant future, which allows lots of creative freedom regarding technical aspects of the traditional Trek lore. Therefore, a willing suspension of disbelief is helpful for enjoying the story. After the destruction from the Burn, the Federation largely fell apart, with many members abandoning the alliance. The reopening of Starfleet Academy offers opportunities to rebuild those connections with the help of the young cadets.

Starfleet Academy is character-focused and youthfully Gen Z, with a healthy counterbalance of Gen X cynicism from the instructors. Ake refers to the cadets as “kids” despite the fact that many of them are adults by our contemporary standards. This is Star Trek for the Fourth Wing, TikTok, Instagram generation. It’s Trek’s addition to academia-based speculative fiction. Starfleet Academy leans into character tropes with a modern take on traditional group dynamics that have been showcased in pop culture since The Breakfast Club. At times, the clichés feel heavy-handed and a bit predictable, and if you’re not in the mood for hijinks, this may not be the best Trek experience. Even for those of us who are older, we probably still remember college days of cramped cozy dorm life, late night conversations, building lifelong relationships, and struggling with both schoolwork and family expectations. Starfleet Academy leans into those awkward dynamics while maintaining the steady leadership from the older generation. Some YA stories paint the adults as clueless or as adversaries, but here they are treated as smart, fully fleshed-out characters whose wisdom and cynicism are amusingly relatable.

Over the years, many Star Trek series have initially struggled to find their footing, including the ultimately beloved The Next Generation. The franchise suffers from the burden of expectations, and each new series feels the pressure of comparison while trying to do something new. Despite some predictable moments, abrupt character arcs, and outright silliness, the show delivers upbeat adventure and likeable characters who each have enough backstory and angst to let viewers know a reckoning is coming for each one as the series progresses. Additionally, the casting is superb with, Oscar Award powerhouses like Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti, as well as the amazing Tatiana Maslany, the nostalgic return of Robert Picardo as the holographic doctor, and Stephen Colbert as the deadpan funny dean heard over the academy’s public address system. But the most memorable character is Gina Yashere’s Lura Thok, who steals every scene she is in with her hilariously perpetually irritated attitude.

Despite the new generation vibe, Starfleet Academy is full of easter eggs and nods to both major and minor Trek elements. Long-time fans will catch the signage for Boothsby Park named for the former academy groundskeeper (seen in The Next Generation), the presence of a background character who appears to be a descendant of a species whose racism drove themselves into near-extinction in The Original Series episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” and the quietly funny presence of an exocomp during a conversation between Lura and Ake.

Starfleet Academy is clearly targeted to a new generation, but it has enough Gen X energy to provide a much needed counterbalance. Besides, the show is filled with many classic Trek references that will appeal to a range of viewers looking for something fun. The pilot episode is called “Kids These Days” and the following episode is called “Beta Test” (also a reference to the arriving Betazoids). Both of these signal that the Starfleet Academy story is a new concept that is just beginning a journey for both a new and older generation.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Highlights:

• A Gen Z adventure with nods to classic Trek
• Predictable tropes and clichés
• Enjoyably quirky characters and Oscar-caliber actors in a humorous context

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Film Review: Mercy

If you had to endure 90 minutes of this garbage, you’d legalize summary executions too

Timur Bekmambetov, who still hasn’t paid for his previous crimes against cinema, returns with another movie told almost entirely through computer screens. Contrary to appearance, this production wasn’t made during the coronavirus quarantine, which one would assume based on the gimmick of having an actor strapped to a chair for the entire movie. One thing about its marketing campaign does work successfully, though: when you leave the theater, all you can say in your dulled stupor is the movie’s title: Mercy. Mercy. Please, have some mercy.

Mercy is set in a near-future Los Angeles where a rising crime wave has prompted law enforcement to adopt the genius solution of simply killing suspects quicker. The “Mercy Capital Court” is a 3D VR room where you’re presumed guilty from the start (strike 1 against basic constitutional principles). The tool you’re given to try to prove your innocence is a digital cloud with records of everything that citizens of Los Angeles do online: chats, photos, emails, phone calls, restaurant reservations, credit card transactions, gambling, you name it. Nothing is safe from the system’s unblinking eye (strike 2). Whatever information you find needs to convince a digital judge to lower its probabilistic assessment of your guilt. The trial is closed to the public and doesn’t use a jury or a defense lawyer (strike 3, claim your Big Brother T-shirt at the lobby). At the end of the 90 minutes, you’re either set free or executed instantly.

I guarantee there’s going to be a million YouTube videos titled “Real Lawyer Dissects Mercy.”

At the level of craft, Mercy is painful to watch. If you thought shaky cam was a problem, get ready for shaky cam when looking at a computer. Presumably to immerse the audience in the suspect’s point of view, the camera hops between the digital judge’s face and assorted floating screenshots of folders or maps or phone screens or police records, without letting the eye find an anchor to focus on.

The disorientation gets worse when the suspect starts pulling up pieces of evidence from the city’s omnipresent surveillance cameras: janky, jarry, low-framerate, low-resolution snippets of chases and fights that add a redundant level of nausea to the movie’s already distasteful premise. For the most part, the only times we get to see actors act is through closeups of Chris Pratt playing the accused and looking either very confused or very tired, and Rebecca Ferguson playing the digital judge and nervously suppressing her smile because she wasn’t supposed to laugh at the script.

At the level of theme, Mercy is downright evil. Note how the opening narration describes the crime wave worsening in intensity, as if it were the rain or the flu, a natural phenomenon causally unrelated to human choices. This is classic Calvinist rhetoric: humans are naturally rotten, ergo crime isn’t preventable. All that society can do is brace against it and punch back harder. At no point does the script show any curiosity about what caused this crime wave, what institutional failures the unrest is a response to. In this (not too) fictional future, the government’s response is to cordon entire areas of Los Angeles and shrug them off as basket cases. Anyone accused of something is thrown at the “Mercy Capital Court.”

A comparison will be useful here. In 2002, the film Minority Report presented another futuristic justice system that aspired to complete control over crime, and the system’s inherent flaws proved unfixable. That’s not what Mercy does. In Mercy, the invasive web of total surveillance is shown to be flawed as well, but the way the script addresses this is by doubling down on more total surveillance. Just like in Minority Report, the unfairly accused protagonist ends up uncovering a conspiracy to trick the system, but whereas Minority Report concluded that a system that is vulnerable to being tricked cannot be trusted to judge and sentence people, Mercy goes in the other direction, solving the defects of an invasive all-seeing government by relying more heavily on the invasive all-seeing government.

As a vision of the near future, Mercy couldn’t have come at a worse time. There’s a literal Nazi in the White House, unaccountable government goons are murdering civilians in the streets, the private sector is pushing for citizens to surrender even more of their privacy and autonomy, and here comes this shameless piece of copaganda about an AI-based regime of total control that works, and when challenged for its errors, comes out vindicated. So congratulations, Timur Bekmambetov, you’ve earned our rarest score for the second time. Now go to the corner and think about what you’ve done.

Nerd Coefficient: 1/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Book Review: The Sleep of Empires by David Annandale

The first entry in the Book of the Null series takes a writer better known for Warhammer 40k and Doctor Doom and introduces us to an original fantasy universe of his own

Big things start from small beginnings. In a world in a very tenuous cold peace between various factions, several small events upset the balance of power and begin to change the face of a continent, and of a long history as well. David Annandale’s The Sleep of Empires, his first foray into an original universe for quite some time, starts us off small in a relatively typical fantasy mode. We have a student at a university who is seeking to steal an artifact. We have a star-crossed couple seeking a marriage that would end a family feud—except the would-be bride’s father has other marital plans for her. And the cut-out would-be suitor has a force at his back to help said father. But when the father sets the groom an impossible task, what is found is as equally dangerous as the artifact book…

And the result of all these actions is much more than a thief on the run, or a fractious family feud. Instead, the world, and even the gods, will have to take notice as unexpected consequences and long-held secrets come to light.

Our points of view are several. Latanna Forgrym and Alisteyr Huesland are the prospective couple. The feud between the Hafields and McCoys could be sealed with a marriage, and they do seem to love each other. At least, Alisteyr does. Latanna is a little more cagey about such things. The author drops some hints here and there right from the beginning that this relationship isn’t going to go as planned, even before her father objects.

Another point of view is Garwynn. He plays at being a magician, because magic doesn’t really exist anymore, or so people think. Tricks and sleight of hand is all that one can do… until his power manifests spectacularly and suddenly. That brings him to the attention of the authorities, and is a signpost that the world indeed is changing, and perhaps not for the better.

Annandale has nicely built in connections and history that link all these characters one way or another, so it does not feel like a set of random viewpoints. Garwynn, although living in “the big city,” is from the same area as Alisteyr and Latanna, and had unrequited feelings for Alisteyr, once upon a time.

Kansthun and Memory are mercenaries hired by Latanna and Alisteyr. Kansthun is a Kaul, of which we will talk more in a bit. Memory is aptly named, because he doesn’t talk and seems not to remember his past. And just what he is is not clear, even to himself. Memory is a real heart of this book in a sense that the others are not. It turns out Memory is much more than he appears, even to himself, and The Sleep of Empires is fundamentally about Memory starting to recover his legacy. It’s not a happy one.

If you have read Annandale’s work before, he writes in dark worlds and often features characters who are charitably called dark, and in many cases can be better classified as outright villains even if their sense of purpose obscures from them how they are perceived. Sometimes they come to the awareness they are considered villains and yet do what they will anyway. Annandale loves the “villain is a hero of their own story” trope and uses it here, and not just for Memory. There are multiple characters in this story who really could be considered villains in any sense of the world, or perhaps, at the very least, monsters.¹ The care and humanity that Annandale shows for characters like Corvus Rebine and Doctor Doom transfers very well to his characters here. The monsters and villains here are humanized, but what they do and what they are is not sugarcoated. And, in keeping with Davies’s book as footnoted above, the villains also have been painted by mythologized history and its sometimes deliberate rewriting.

Now let me talk about the worldbuildi|ng. Given the strength of Annadale’s work with villains and such characters, I wanted to save the world for after my discussion of same, so here we are. As mentioned above, this is an original world of his, one that has been gestating for quite some time. It’s a secondary world fantasy, dark in tone. We have some fractious (from within and without) human kingdoms and polities. These kingdoms have a cold peace with the nearby imperious and imperial elves, with designs of their own. And then there are the Kaul, from out east, skeletal, monstrous. If one wants to use a generic term for them, they are most definitely the “orcs” of the setting. This really puts, as noted about, Kansthun (and Memory as his partner) as real outsiders in the human and elven polities. Does all of this sound familiar (Elves, Humans, etc). Yes, although the use of gods, the theological history, helps stamp this into his own mold and makes it rise above a repeat of old tropes.

So there is that theological history. Long ago, apparently there was a war against a Morgoth-like figure ruling a land called Voran. Humans, elves, dwarves and gods marched against this figure and destroyed the land and dealt with the God of Evil. Just how and what happened to him, is a case of “history became legend, legend became myth.” Voran is just a word to the humans, even as both they and the elves keep watch over the destroyed area just in case. That sort of fantastical watch over things of Voran and the Void extend even to mathematics. For, you see, the “Book of the Null” refers to one of the most useful (but in this world, dangerous) concepts that exist: the number zero.

So who is the ideal reader for this book? I think this is a case where a book is not going to have universal appeal. If you like dark fantasy worlds², this is the place for you. If you are a fan of Annandale’s previous and want to see what he can and does do in an original setting, this book is absolutely for you. In a darker tone, this book makes me think of Jacqueline Carey’s Banewrecker or other recent novels that have a villain protagonist, like, say, Cameron Johnston’s The Maleficent Seven (although tonally it reads very differently) or Ari Marmell’s The Conqueror’s Shadow.

The book ends with some revelations and an unveiling of what the conflict for the rest of the series is going to be about. I’m very interested in seeing how, now with more cards face up, Annandale shows off his main characters (especially the villains) and how the shattering conflict he has brewed up unfolds.

--

Highlights:

• First original universe in a long time a from long-established author of Warhammer 40k and much more
• Villains: monsters and misunderstood
• Rich and deep fantasy world

References: Annandale, David, The Sleep of Empires Book of the Null, Nightshade Books, 2025.

¹ See my review of Surekha Davies’s: Humans A Monstrous History: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2025/05/book-review-humans-monstrous-history.html

² Is this “grimdark”? Well, Warhammer 40k is one of the originators of the idea of grimdark. Annandale’s fiction is dark, and there are characters doing questionable things,but it is not a morosely and complete shades of dark grey and black world like you find in a grimdark setting of the first water. But I could see someone wanting to slot it in that category.

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Book Review: The Regicide Report by Charlie Stross

 Regicide? Schmegicide!

UK Cover art: Creative Crush

Charlie Stross has been dealing in the bureaucracy of the Laundry since 2010 and this is likely the last of them, not just the fourteenth Laundry Files novel. At the risk of assuming not everyone reading this will have read the previous thirteen, the Laundry Files is what happens when you cross James Bond with Cosmic Horror if 007 was a mid-ranking civil servant in an underfunded post-colonial kinda way. Imagine if your doctor’s receptionist was in charge of the nation’s defence.

 

Stross has always captured the sense of sclerotic ‘computer says no’ horror that we’re all familiar with really well. And while the Laundry Files is definitely blackly humorous by design it’s also locked in on the horror elements too. That it’s reached fourteen in the series tells you just how popular it’s been. 

 

Having said that the series has most definitely come in two parts – the first being a focus on Bob, a talented agent masquerading as a bland man who carries the narration with a very dry sense of humour and a knowing resignation at how despairing hide bound bureaucracy can make you feel. 

Bob Howard carried the first nine of the series. After this events in the Laundry world meant we got a second mini-series called ‘The New Management’ which focused on different characters. 

 

Book 13 was a prequel of sorts and that brings us to this, The Regicide Report which is, by Stross’ own words, the last one. 

 

I cover the history because it’s been going a long time but also because it will be relevant to what I want to say both about The Regicide Report as a novel in its own right but as a book which shuts the door on a long running series. For the interests of disclosure I should say I loved the original run of nine books – they ended on a spectacular cliffhanger that hinted at bigger things to come, perhaps even truly cosmic stakes.

 

I then fell out of love with The New Management for a simple reason – it was too bleak for me. Perhaps it was the perils of creating a world in which the cultists won. It may also be that with Brexit and Trump were ascendent, it couldn't compete with the unfunny horrors of the real world where it’s not bureaucracy that’s the enemy but is, rather, a longed for but definitively departed relative.

 

The Regicide Report seeks to bring all of this together and tie up as many dangling threads as possible and it does so by refocusing on Bob. We learn in the first chapter that the entire book is written as a case report (which was the original framing device) but it tantalisingly leaves out any news except that Bob remains active and capable of writing a report. 

The story, ostensibly about an assassination attempt on Queen Elizabeth II, has more moving parts than a room sized computer from the 1970s and brings to a crescendo the long running arc of Case Nightmare Green – which asks what if a cosmic horror arrived and decided to make itself at home here in our world. 

 

Stross is a great writer but I think there are some significant problems with the novel. The issues I faced reading it fall under a couple of headings. The first is one common to many long running stories that come to an end – the plethora of plots, stories, characters and events that need to be referenced, kept in mind and managed as a narrative is concluded. In the case of The Regicide Report the story itself has a throughline but it’s inevitably confused by references to all manner of historic events that happen elsewhere. 

 

It's not a bad thing to be consistent; the book simply struggles under the weight of the previous thirteen novels and the world Stross has built. Because this series isn’t epic fantasy where the singular hero saves the world Stross gives himself a much tougher challenge – how to end a story which has had multiple main characters telling multiple stories. Stross does have a singular hero in this novel though – Bob Howard – and Bob is a superpower whose abilities are a little fuzzy because the plot requires him to be outmatched at critical moments. The weakness of plot armour is never more apparent than when you’re trying to manoeuvre people towards their final confrontation and when that confrontation comes at the end of book 14 it’s really challenging to get it right. 

 

Stross gets it right but within the context of trying to smash everything in that needs some commentary before you close the final page. As a result it’s a bit messy, bulging with side notes and moments that serve to answer questions not set up by the premise of the book but instead by the legacy of the series. I’m not sure there’s a better way to do it especially as I don’t think this was a planned ending that Stross has been working towards since day 1. 

 

The second challenge is more personal and it’s that after the ‘bad guys’ won earlier in the series and we entered the time of The New Management what had been a darkly humorous tale shifted into one of being absurdly dark and less funny as a result. That lack of humour in the face of horror meant the tone became much bleaker with no one able to ever, really, secure a win. The problem for me is that in the face of bleakness the absurdity runs the risk of doubling down on the hopelessness because erratic can veer into the nastily capricious pretty easily when we’re not allowed good things.

 

Stross appears to be aware of this, at least that’s my take on his writing, because the characters themselves wrestle with just this set of feelings and whether what they do means anything when the cosmic horror who also happens to be your boss is more heads on sticks fascist horror than well-meaning but monstrous patriarch. Coming as it does at a time when the world I live in seems as if it’s on the verge of existential disaster it makes it particularly tough to read about well-meaning people losing at every step along the way.

 

This need for absurdity to supplement humour feeds into my final challenge with the novel – the presence of characters from a set of horror movies from the 1970s. At first I thought it was a nod to these characters, who appear in a couple of movies that I saw when I was definitely too young. However, the characters from these movies are a central part of The Regicide Report even down to the point that Bob and his allies realise there were movies made about these characters who have now pitched up as real in the world of the Laundry Files. Yes it’s archly meta and yes it’s deeply absurd and yes the characters come from movies that were definitely humorous horror and so, on paper, fit in completely with the tone of the Laundry Files. 

 

But they don’t work. I see why they’re there – because the other major antagonists are, technically, on the same side as Bob and so apart from writing to HR he can’t do much about them. In other words, there’s a big gap for Bob where his agency should be that can only be filled by adding in an independent party who he can wrestle against and whose actions can bring into relief the actions of the bigger bads who Bob will eventually need to face. I think that’s why it doesn’t work for me. It could be refreshing, wry and smartly ironic to have these weirdos arrive from the 1970s to provide traction for Bob to progress the story. Instead they become this odd narrative lacuna that doesn’t build character or a sense of urgency but really represent busy work for the main characters until it’s time to end the story. 

 

All of this adds up to a novel that works in parts but which also struggles to find its way. It’s both tightly written (Stross always writes engagingly and the dryness of the text remains enjoyable both in tone and in structure) but far too busy at the same time. It’s that busyness which creates the narrative problems and it’s the world that Stross has built across the series which creates its structural problems. When you’ve established an all-powerful horror who’s penned in the heroes on every side it’s pretty tough to give anyone anything meaningful to do.

 

And so the Laundry Files end with everyone effectively neutered but still in the same places as they’ve been since book 9. With no one winning the only beneficiaries are the bad guys who remain in charge of the world and are free to serve their own needs. Bob presents this to us as the best possible outcome and, frankly, I look out the window and can’t help but feel a bit depressed at what that says about the world we face.

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Highlights:

• Bob Howard
• Cults, Mana Batteries and cosmic horror

Nerd coefficient: 5/10, a fine example of The Laundry Files and an adequate ending to the series but far too busy and a prisoner of its own narrative chains.

References: Stross, Charlie., The Regicide Report. [Orbit, 2026].

STEWART HOTSTON is an author of all kinds of science fiction and fantasy. He's also a keen Larper (he owns the UK Fest system, Curious Pastimes). He's a sometime physicist and currently a banker in the City of London. A Subjective Chaos and BFA finalist he's also Chair of the British Science Fiction Association and Treasurer for the British Fantasy Society. He is on bluesky at: @stewarthotston.com.

Book Review: ECO 24 edited by Marissa Van Uden

A speculative fiction anthology devoted to ecological fiction.

Whether you call it ecofiction, cli-fi, climate fiction or any other of a number of terms, ecological fiction is something that, as editor Marissa Van Uden points out, a type of story that humanity has been told for as long as we’ve been telling stories. From the Bible’s story of the flood, to the Sumerian myth of Utnapishtim, we’ve had stories of flood. The story of Persephone, Hades and Demeter has Demeter make the earth barren in anger and sorry for her lost daughter. While ecological fiction may not have had a name until the 1970’s, these stories have carried from human’s beginnings to Watership Down, to Daphne du Maurier (adapted into the film by Alfred Hitchhock), to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and to Kim Stanley Robinson and other contemporary authors.

Marissa Van Uden brings a selection of ecological fiction stories to her anthology, ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction from Violet Lichen Press. All of the stories are reprints and represent what are, to Van Uden, the best of the field. Van Uden’s interest in ecological fiction and nature are formative in what made her an editor in the first place, and so that passion comes through in her editorial role in the selection of the stories. Since Violet Lichen is a small press (and sister press to the better known Apex), there is a real handcrafted feel to Van Uden’s curation. Also, the mission of Violet Lichen press, as they describe themselves is, “Inspired by the mysterious beauty of lichens growing in shadowy woods and the surreal drama of violet shades in nature, Violet Lichen fully embraces the weird, strange, and uncanny. It aims to leave readers feeling a little changed and disquieted, as if they have just emerged from under a strange spell.”

So when you combine ecological fiction with a small press sensibility and pair that with the weird, strange and uncanny, what Van Uden clearly is aiming for is a selection of stories that are ecological fiction, yes, but also all different, odd, unusual and strange. That’s a rather tall order. I know that ecological fiction has been having a moment as our own world’s environment continues to careen and become more unpredictable. However, I wondered, as I was reading the introduction to the book, whether or not there were enough stories to fill such a collection. It emerges that the editor’s plan is to do this sort of volume, yearly. And that, yes, even in a niche like this, there is a wealth of material to be found, curated and selected from.

In reviewing an anthology, particularly with a remit as unique as this one, I like to pay attention to not only what stories the editor has chosen, but particularly the first and last stories, since they open and anchor the collection.

For the opening, we have "In the Field" by Shelly Jones, originally published in The Future Fire. It is a potent, painful story of a researcher helping a very aging professor, a professor who hasn’t quite realized just how badly the world has changed after disaster. It’s a story of memory, and loss, and is poignant. The fact that the researcher is a droid, and the professor is truly alone of human company adds an extra dimension. I didn’t find this story strange and weird so much as somber.

But then that is a theme that goes throughout a number of stories of this collection. "The Water Runner" by Eugen Bacon is a world where the seas have dried up, and there is an almost mystical escape place, New Dodoma. Everyone, including our protagonists, want to get there, but it feels like a mirage, a delusion or a dream. Later in the collection, "Pig House" by Kay Vandal is a story where powered rebreathers are the only way to survive in a poisoned world. And a cross country trip to see what may be the last pig on Earth proves deadly. "The Plasticity of Being" by Renan Bernado is a story where a number of people are engineered in order to be able to eat plastic. It’s a story of exploitation of the poor by the rich, and by corporations, and how much the social cost of late state capitalist really is.

There are stories which are not so downbeat and lack an aura of doom. "Batter and Pearl" by Steph Kwiatkowski is a lovely little story of a really strange and weird world, where harvesting pearls of plastic in the ocean is a way to make a living. There is also a sense of “looking for the big score” to the story, which was totally unexpected and delightful. There is a strange darkness and verve to Jennifer Hudak’s "The Colonists". I could totally see this story in the light of 1950’s science fiction in terms of its theme and plot, but Hudak gives a very modern and literary feel to the story.

"Swarm X1048 - Ethological Field Report: Canis Lupus Familiaris", “6”" by F.E. Choe may be my favorite story. It is a moving story about alien xenobiologists studying the life and story of a dog. While many of the stories in the collection were moving, I was particularly touched by 6’s story and how 6 impacted the researchers who studied him. While many of the stories in this collection touched me, this one particularly resonated with me.

As far as the last story in the collection, we have "Mangrove Daughter" by E.M. Linden. This story to round out the collection has a second person point of view, and a strong sense of place, a slowly spreading grove of mangroves. Like the mangroves themselves are an inhabitant of a liminal space, between ocean and land, this story is a liminal one, using its point of view, and the theme of transformation into liminal space, particularly, to achieve that.

And aside those, there are many interesting and weird stories to read and enjoy. Not all of them are hits for me, even given the narrow and specialized remit of the anthology, the stories vary widely, even more than what I have described in the few I have talked about here. I think that the collection is a strong offering from Violet Lichen that helps showcase what the press and its mission is all about.

In the end, the editor’s hand in choosing and arranging these stories for maximum impact is noted and appreciated. ECO24 is, in essence, a collection that is more than the sum of its parts.

 
--

The Math

Highlights:

• Strong editorial hand from the editor
• Interesting and diverse set of stories
• Weird, unusual and strange, just as it said on the tin.

Reference: Van Uden, Marissa, ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction, (Violet Lichen Press, 2025)

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Anime Review: Spy x Family: Season 3

Spy x Family returns for a bold, emotional, and action packed season 3.

Anime seasons ebb and flow, with some seasons feeling slower and others being absolutely amazing. After an uneven second season, everyone’s favorite fake family has returned in fierce form for an action-filled and emotion packed Season 3. The latest stories of super-spy Loid, lethal assassin Yor, mind-reader Anya, (and clairvoyant dog Bond), are poignant, stressful, and very entertaining.

Spy x Family takes place in Ostania, a fictional 1960’s style country in a cold war with its enemy, the neighboring Westalis. To prevent another devastating war between the neighboring countries, a cynical Westalis super-spy (Agent Twilight) is ordered to spy on an extremely reclusive Ostanian political party leader. The only way to do this is to enroll a child in the elite Ostanian private school that the political leader’s son attends. To create the required fake family, the spy takes on the fabricated identity of psychiatrist Loid Forger and adopts young Anya from an orphanage but is unaware that the child is a telepath. He then meets Yor, a sweet and kind city hall clerk who needs a fake marriage to help with her own job security because, in Ostania, single women over a certain age are often suspected of being spies or insurgents. Unbeknownst to Loid, his new wife Yor is secretly an elite assassin. Yor is genuinely kind when she’s not killing people at her night job, but she is a little clueless when it comes to normal life and she is unaware that mild-mannered Loid is a super-spy. 

Only telepathic Anya knows the truth about her adoptive parents’ true identities but, thanks to her obsession with violent crime tv shows, Anya finds Loid’s and Yor’s hidden occupations to be very exciting. After a wild adventure, the family adopts a clairvoyant dog they name Bond but only Anya can sense Bond’s premonitions about the future. Rounding out the cast are Anya’s grade school classmates, Damian, the political target’s young son, and Becky, a pampered but friendly heiress. We also meet Franky, the comic relief informant, and we meet Yor’s stressed out younger brother Yuri, whom she helped raise after their parents died. Unbeknownst to Yor, her brother is a member of the secret police who is suspicious of Loid. Because Loid, Yor, and Anya are all orphans, the show emphasizes the importance of both biological and chosen family ties. The balance of cuteness and violence is what sets the story apart, especially with a cast of funny supporting characters, all with 1960’s fashionable clothing and a cool retro setting. 

Season 3 has three primary story arcs. The first and strongest arc is the long awaited deep dive into Loid’s backstory. Throughout the series, we are reminded that “Loid” is a fake name for the spy “Twilight” which a fake name for a person whose true identity remains a mystery, even to viewers. Like Sai in Naruto Shippuden, Loid/Twilight has lost his original identity and takes on a new transient persona for every job. Also like Sai, Loid begins to change when he takes on a role in his new found family that reignites his long hidden emotions. But who was Loid before he accepted his life of deception? Other than a few fleeting flashes of a crying child, we know nothing about Loid other than that he suffered the devastation of war. Over a series of beautifully written episodes in Season 3, we learn about Loid’s creative childhood friends, his harsh father, his protective mother, and the idyllic town in which he was born. Without revealing his or his parents’ names, the story shows us how he went from being a playful imaginative boy to being a war orphan, then a jaded soldier (including a poignant early encounter with his current informant Franky), and eventually accepting recruitment into the spy program. After losing everything he loved, he learns to be distrustful of others and to use deceit to survive. However, despite the repeated negative impressions of the Ostonians who attacked his country, it is ironic to see how close and protective he has become of his make-believe Ostonian family. 

The second major story is a terrorist hijacking of Anya’s school bus. Conveniently for the plot, Loid and Yor are unavailable to help, which means this story is focused on Anya and her school crew who are on their own against a violent group of hostage takers. Unlike Loid’s backstory arc, the hijacking episodes have lots of traditional Spy x Family humor notwithstanding the tense premise. Despite the weapons pointed at her, Anya’s mindreading gives her an upper hand with the kidnappers as does Damian’s grumpy bravery and protectiveness, and Becky’s cleverness and loyalty. But the key to cracking the situation occurs when Anya discovers tragedy involving the main hijacker’s daughter and her involvement in a political protest. This gut-punch of sadness sits in sharp contrast to the primary humor and adventure tone of the story. 

The third major story is the spy conflict that ultimately pits Loid against his brother-in-law Yuri in a tense battle of wits and fists. Loid’s Westalis spy agency is betrayed by a double agent who steals their information and plans to sell that data, including the identity of their agents, to Ostania. Loid is ordered to stop the traitor before he makes it to his meeting with the Ostanian secret police. Unfortunately, Yor’s brother Yuri is part of the squad meeting the traitor and he is on the lookout for the famous spy Twilight to make his move. After much speculation throughout the series, we finally see Loid and Yuri facing each other in their true spy versus secret police personas. The result is intense and fast paced excitement with just enough family drama and irony to tie it together. 

A shorter but still funny mini-story is the introduction of Damian’s seemingly cheerful mother, Melinda whose encounter with Yor leads to a day of fun in which Yor repeatedly and inadvertently shows off her superhuman strength. However, in the hijacking arc we later find out that Melinda’s cheerful exterior hides disturbing thoughts and emotions towards her mostly neglected son. 

A common thread throughout the third season is the importance of family in all of its various forms. A second, less endearing theme, is the harm caused by authoritarian regimes and political machinations. Spy x Family’s premise is modeled on regimes that are politically repressive. Yor was originally willing to accept the fake marriage because being a single woman makes her look suspicious in their society. However, in Season 3 we truly get to see how repressive a society Ostania is. We also finally get to see Yor’s brother Yuri in action as an agent of the Ostanian Secret Police. His single-minded dedication to the government is unsettling, especially since it is the same government that puts people at risk just for being “different.” Overall, Season 3 of Spy x Family has the strongest storytelling thus far. It dives into difficult subjects and pauses the humor long enough to do those moments justice. But there are still moments of the traditional Spy x Family dark comedy, especially with Anya having to navigate a dangerous situation with the help of her elite school classmates instead of her super powered parents. This combination of intense storytelling and complex emotions make Season 3 of Spy x Family the strongest so far.

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The Math

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Highlights:

• Tragic and poignant backstory
• Big themes of family and political machinations
• Strongest storytelling so far

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.