The rhesus chartc ccee Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds Ken MacLeod Liz Williams and Richard Morgan SF Encyclopedia site_link site_link site_link Charles David George Charlie Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh Scotland His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy. The rhesus chart horror book trailer Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds Ken MacLeod Liz Williams and Richard Morgan SF Encyclopedia site_link site_link site_link site_link LONDON CAN DRAIN THE LIFE OUT OF YOU . Rhesusfactor zwangerschap Bob Howard is an intelligence agent working his way through the ranks of the top secret government agency known as the Laundry When occult powers threaten the realm they ll be there to clean up the mess and deal with the witnesses. EPub The Rhesus charter spectrum There s one kind of threat that the Laundry has never come across in its many decades and that s vampires Mention them to a seasoned agent and you ll be laughed out of the room. The Rhesus Chart crimea But when a small team of investment bankers at one of Canary Wharf s most distinguished financial institutions discovers an arcane algorithm that leaves them fearing daylight and craving O positive someone doesn t want the Laundry to know And Bob gets caught right in the middle. The rhesus chart horror book review The Rhesus Chart is a brand new supernatural thriller from Charles Stross and sees hacker turned spy Bob Howard take on the literal bloodsuckers running London s financial district The Rhesus Chart Laundry Files 5 Mysteriously this book never made it to my on line shelves the first time I read it. The rhesus chart book pdf Second time around it was fun enough but I found parts repetitive recapitulating the basic set up of the series once makes sense especially for people jumping on board at this late stage but four or times I lost count Also Stross appears to think his readers are stupid because it felt like the shenanigans of the plot are explained several times over too. The rhesus charte e There s something going on in this series that I m not sure I understand Each book I think it happens in all of them picks up some recent or long lasting trope of pop culture and uses it as a major plot or thematic element We ve had Occult Nazis James Bond Vampires and Superheroes that I can recall off hand Several of the books have a bizarre essay about the theme that makes like there s some profound examination of the reasons for the popularity of these themes going on it seems entirely absent from the actual novels though and it comes over as trying intellectualise something that is fundamentally silly Charles Stross Possibly the best of the Laundry Files novels Stross returns to the bureaucratic corporate IT satire that the series began with ruthlessly sending up managerial fads He takes the bankers vampires analogy beyond the obvious playing with the trope in a way that offers up some sharp social commentary along with the humor The plot is tight without being convoluted the pacing quick and carefully structured A lot happens for the overall series arc so than in previous volumes and definitely sets up a next volume that s going to have a lot to take on I don t usually think of Stross as being well competent with evoking emotion or handling relationships in an emotionally rich manner but here one Bob shows some striking insights about his own growth character and shortcomings and his marital problems with Mo which frame the story are surprisingly painful I understand the next book will be narrated from Mo s POV eagerly looking forward to that Charles Stross I didn t realize how much I needed The Rhesus Chart until I started reading it but almost from page one this was like a comforting cup of tea See I ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately nothing to do with the quality of my reading material just not being in the mood to read and actively finding reasons not to read which is so unlike me But The Rhesus Chart is the kind of urban fantasy candy novel that I can t put down I wanted to read this on break after work before bed I stayed up an hour past my bedtime to devour the last hundred pages of this thriller This is why I keep coming back to Charles Stross over and over. What are the rhesus blood group system In this latest instalment of The Laundry Files Bob Howard is in the middle of a mess that is somewhat of his own making See everyone knows that vampires don t exist So when an algorithm Bob has whipped up and runs against some test data from the NHS suggests an outbreak of vampirism well that s a problem It s even of a problem for the vampires in question who certainly don t exist And meanwhile Bob is struggling with his marriage He and Mo have been doing their jobs for the Laundry for a very long time now and it is taking its psychological toll. The rhesus chart horror book cast The Rhesus Chart references another long running urban fantasy series I enjoy The Dresden Files Much like that series I find it difficult to come up with extremely new takes on the Laundry Files sometimes Still there are some elements I ll highlight here to pique your interest. Crime the rhesus chart� First the vampire thing Stross handles this with his trademark combination of neurotic verisimilitude and British humour He starts from the premise of if vampires were real how would they actually function and goes from there and it s really fun to see it worked out Although some parts of the exposition get repeated a few times grr argh overall I like the pace with which he uncovers the backstory here I complained in my review of the previous book that the first act dragged That isn t a problem here the first act is intense as Bob is on the hunt for this possible nest of vampires who shouldn t exist leading all the way to a false climax that then tips us over into the second thing which is yet another brush with mind numbing bureaucracy This is a hallmark of this series of course so you shouldn t be surprised by this Don t you worry Bob has his share of awkward committee meetings overbearing employees and insufferable twits On the surface this is about laughs of course but once Stross reveals the identity of the villain behind the scenes I m pleased to remark that I worked it out myself a few chapters ahead of time albeit perhaps not as soon as I might have this satire turns into social commentary Stross has than once commented that the combination of the Scottish referendum and Brexit kind of created a massive political singularity and throws a wrench into his plotting for these kinds of near future novels When your real life politicians are entirely human we suppose yet still monstrous the our leaders are monsters take might not seem so original What makes The Rhesus Chart interesting in my opinion is how Stross highlights how clever psychopaths vampiric or otherwise can manipulate the layers of bureaucracy to shroud themselves in a secrecy no less obscuring than actual fog. The rhesus chartc c++ I m also loving how Stross explores the stress that fighting the supernatural puts on Bob and Mo s relationships Lots of supernatural fiction explores this of course Not so much mired in it being an actual day job though Ending of the book s ramifications notwithstanding the whole idea that Mo is just feeling done with being the Laundry s wetwork asset is so palpable here I know the next book is actually from Mo s point of view so I m very excited for that Moreover the telltale scenes in which Angleton Lockhart and the Auditor discuss how they tiptoe around this issue are so interesting They remind us that when you reach a certain level in an organization like the Laundry sometimes you have to choose between what s best for your employee and what might be best for the world Something like Angleton might have no problem making that call But Bob Well we ll see. Ebook the rhesus chart for beginners The ending of The Rhesus Chart is properly explosive and dramatic It upends a lot of the status quo One of the constant themes of this series has been Bob s rise within the ranks of the Laundry Like many an urban fantasy series Dresden Files included power creep is an issue I suspect that s one reason why Stross is diversifying his narrators Nevertheless I am definitely I don t know if sad is the right word but I m moved by the departure of a few of the characters we ve come to know over previous books. The rhesus chartc ccee This is another fun entry in the series If you re new you could start here but I would recommend going back or at least tackle The Apocalypse Codex first But if you were ever curious about how Stross would deal with vampires in the context of the Laundry this book is for you. Horror the rhesus chart book That s a normal enough attitude for most people but when a super secret organization devoted to defending the world from the supernatural horrors that lie beyond the dimensional veil adopts the same attitude and vehemently so it ought to raise a few questions. The rhesus chartc d So it is in The Rhesus Chart the fifth in the Laundry Files series of sci fi spy mash ups by Charles Stross Agent Bob Howard the reluctant hero is once in the middle of everything whether he likes it or not. The blood group chart This time a group of finance wonks at a major London bank have inadvertently developed a complex computer program that in a world where magic and advanced math are one and the same results in an infection of sorts Said infection grants the afflicted heightened strength and awareness and advanced powers of persuasion as well as an extreme sensitivity to sunlight and a thirst for blood. Types of rhesus blood group But as Bob and his cohorts dig deeper it turns out that there s a vast conspiracy at work not only have vampires been around for hundreds of years but there may even be one or than one operating right under the Laundry s collective nose Before long everyone has been pulled into the midst of a centuries long enmity between warring factions that are than willing to do whatever it takes to come out on top. Horror the rhesus chart book What makes The Rhesus Chart and by extension all of the Laundry Files novels is their unique perspective Basically you start with an action thriller skeleton over which an Elder Gods Cthulhu mythos skin is stretched Then at its heart you put a dorky over his head glorified IT guy forced to confront a world where he is not only a spy but a spy tasked with preventing the world from being overrun by tentacle monstrosities from another universe All those wildly disparate flavors should come into conflict and yet they don t Somehow they come together in harmoniously entertaining readability You just have to tip your hat to Stross. Crime The Rhesus chart One of the biggest issues with open ended series is the evolution of their protagonists The tendency is to keep your characters the same It s understandable if it ain t broke don t fix it But a stagnant hero is a boring hero the reader needs to see a certain degree of growth to stay interested What Stross has done with Bob Howard is simply allow the character to change Not a lot he s still the same guy with the same sense of humor and the same beliefs. Ebook the rhesus chart free But at the same time Bob can t be an out of his depth bumbler forever his continued survival alone ensures that he s learning as he goes He s still making mistakes but they have to be different mistakes otherwise readers will simply get bored But as the series as a whole and this book in particular illustrates there is an endpoint to all of it and its approach grows ever rapid. The rhesus chartl ll There aren t many authors that produce quality work with the kind of consistency that Stross manages Of course it doesn t hurt that the basic concept British spy thriller set in a universe where Lovecraft was right is absolutely brilliant it s unique yet totally accessible Still an idea can only get you so far It is Stross s execution that truly elevates the series No one is better at making the impossible seem not only possible but plausible The Rhesus Chart is a worthy addition to the Laundry Files it is fun and funny smart without being smug It s cleverness without condescension no easy feat to pull off Bob Howard is a character whose adventures warrant furthering now we just have to wait patiently to see what Stross has in store for him and for us next Charles Stross Could have used an editor It seemed like every chapter started by restating what had happened so far and I m sure I saw the same sentences used six times Charles Stross Bob vs vampires. The Rhesus Chart pdf As I ve said before these are fun and I read each of them hoping I can give it four stars but they always have too many problems that I can t ignore I ll run down what for me are the top four issues of the current entry. Book the rhesus charter school The book is structured as a 200 page prologue followed by a 150 page main plot This causes obvious pacing problems and the sad thing is it would be pretty straight forward to fix in at least two different way. PDF The Rhesus charter There is a hidden villain who turns out to be the minor character whose only role previously was to carry a sign saying I am most definitely not the hidden villain This is a minor person with no character development and no emotional connection I cannot fathom what the point was in keeping them hidden and then revealing them. Book the rhesus chart analysis There is another villain that chooses to commit suicide as the only way of avoiding being killed Since that it so obviously contradictory it saps all of the impact out of that section. Ebook the rhesus chart free Finally the narrator stops the book at multiple points to say hey reader here is what is going on here is what you should be paying attention to and please note these are the villains and boy are they scary I have said this before but it bears repeating when a character in the book speaks up and says there are problems with the book the author really really needs to respect that and look into fixing the problems. PDF The Rhesus chart Just so you know my current state of mind is such that I just sent the following tweet to the author This 5th book details how Bob is sent to check on health and safety violations leading him to the discovery that although vampires can t possibly be real well they are In the form of a nasty other dimensional parasite taking over The reason we don t know about it and indeed deny the possibility Because they are good at secrecy Guess what happens when you drag one of those secretive things into the light Right Nothing good. EPub The Rhesus charter spectrum I m used to Stross wonderful writing his down to earth characters that are all fully developed realistic I either love them or love to hate them if you know what I mean I m also used to action bureaucratic nightmares worse than any Eldrich Horror and the hilarity that ensues thus The problem with that The author has lured me into this false sense of security Yes we know Case Nightmare Green is imminent but we have Bob and Bob has Mo as well as Angleton and everything will be alright Right WRONG Here we re treated to the whole treatment of shock pain grief Seriously I ll send the author my therapist s bill There is loss and a lot of entanglements and emotions and a very tragic decision at the end And then the book just stops. The rhesus chartb bbc news Come to think of it I hope Stross cat will bite that toe OFF Now excuse me I have a date with a family sized box of tissues and need to apathetically rock back and forth on the couch Charles Stross I m having an increasingly love hate relationship with this series The early books in the series had enthralling build ups but very weak endings Stross seems to have overcome his problems building interesting exciting finales but the books themselves are getting and boring in the lead up. Rhesus c negatief And I m really beginning to loath Bob as a narrator It s getting to the point where I d be ok with Bob being eaten by some tentacle cosmic horror if I could just get his overly self aware self important not as funny as he thinks he is hipster meme dropping self to just shut up Really as an exercise in realistic creation of a semi autistic English IT nerd I have to admit it s pretty convincing but Bob is turning into one of those pathetic nerds that irritates even other nerds Sadly I m and convinced that the reason Bob s characterization is convincing is Bob is just Charles himself. PDF The Rhesus charter Backing up a bit my first encounter with Charles was through the 1981 edition of the Fiend Folio which was unique in being largely the creation of the UK branch of nerds rather than the Wisconsin clan One problem with this novel is if that if you don t understand what I just said you won t understand the novel either On some level as a geek I like that Stross doesn t bother to explain himself to the reader but if he s going to do that he should go full bore and stop putting full summaries of the setting and recaps of past events every 20 pages But even so I d just rather he stop trying to prove he s a real geek and just get on with the story telling Seriously at this point adding oblique references to Numenera and the hundreds of other geek bits of the moment is doing nothing to make this a better story It s all wink wink nudge nudge and let s see how many geek bonus XP we can earn if we reference some obscure element of the first episode of the original Star Trek etc But any way in Fiend Folio Charles came up with the idea of the Slaad Now the truth is that the Slaad were a mix of genius and epic fail They were genius enough to survive as beloved reoccurring content for a particular sort of geek and epic fail enough that everyone that has looked at them seriously has said to themselves This is almost totally wrong It s not that they weren t cool enough it s just that back in those days if something was supposed to be an embodiment of Chaos no one really thought very hard about what that meant and the resulting creatures aren t really actually very good at embodying chaos as a concept Instead they are a couple of good ideas married to a couple of bad ideas that basically makes them a kind of demon lite Mechanically they served a very important role in DD in that they were one of the few monsters that had actually been written to realistically provide a challenge to high level PCs Conceptually they may have been light weight demons but mechanically they were foes As a game token they worked really well As reification of some idea to toy with in your intellectual space they just didn t solid crunchy play things on one level and half baked never refined ideas on the other. The blood group chart That s largely what the Laundry stores have always been except that at least back in the day as he was with the Slaad Stross was a content provider In these latest works Stross seems less like a content provider and like a content aggregator that is half Google web crawler and half Will it Blend Every paragraph dumps 50 meme references so that I really think it would be possible to reconstruct Stross s browser history in detail by pulling apart the novel right down to which essays on The Guardian he read which reddit threads he browsed and on which days he visited DailyKos or DU to figure out what his colleagues across the pond were reading The result of this is that Bob is the only believable character in the series and only because Bob is Charles When Charles tries to give a voice to any other character in the series it just completely falls flat Now as a DM I ve encountered this sort of problem before In my experience 80% of RPers are only able to RP themselves But in a session of DD or WEG Star Wars or Delta Green it really doesn t matter if the player can only be themselves because its kind of cool to get answers to the question What would my friend do if he found himself in a burning building being overrun by 5th dimensional star vampires or If my friend was secret agent how would he handle a plot by occult shape changers to take over the government But it s a bit annoying in a novel particularly a novel with such an increasingly one dimensional Marty Stu as Bob is becoming. The rhesus chartl llp A bit of a spoiler here but on page 1 of the book I guessed that Stross was going to kill off Mo I d seen it coming for a couple of books now Mo is just getting in the way of Bob s increasingly sexy geek mojo For the last three or four books Bob would have been getting it on with a whole host of sexy eager girl super spies if it wasn t for that whiny weepy ball and chain he has to go back to and which is a continual drag on his libido and sense of cool It s clearly what Charles wanted to do even as he had his alter self scrupulously adhering faithfully to his marriage vows. Book The Rhesus chartway Although everything in the story went pretty much exactly how I expected in every plot point I guessed wrong about Mo and I haven t decided for myself whether I think my guessing wrong is the best thing about the story because it means Howard Stross has chosen the best angels of his nature or whether I find it lazy cowardice as an author because Howard Stross can now keep having his cake and eating it to. The rhesus chart crime pdf Lastly the story is no longer in the least bit scary Stross still has never once excelled in terms of fear that moment Howard is racing across an alien landscape in order to close a door before something too big to imagine eats his whole universe way back in the first book I hesitate to even classify this thin soup of totally scareless scenes as horror except that by convention stories about vampires are in the horror category and Stross keeps name dropping to increasingly little point the Lovecraftian mythos But when you are saving the Earth by sticking a sticker on it it s long left horror and entered the world of camp Charles Stross I tend to give Stross work 5 stars by default and then subtract from there The Rhesus Chart unfortunately is sufficiently uneven that the 4 stars I do give it is a little bit generous and subjective I love the book as I pretty much love everything Stross bothers putting to paper but objectively this is among his weaker efforts in pure technical terms. Book the rhesus chart pdf download Its weakest aspect is ironically the central storytelling conceit Bob Howard s narration Where this has been a strength in previous books Howard s quirky personality and outsider s perspective are what actually makes the Laundry universe work here Stross stumbles at times. Horror the rhesus chart book At several points principally where Stross narrator reaches for movie tropes and similar for summation the fourth wall is broken in a way that takes you out of the story even in first person prose if the narrator too directly addresses the audience it breaks the suspension of disbelief Worse still these instances tend to be points at which Stross for some reason feels the need to have Howard sum up the state of the story so far If these had been summations of the story from previous installments I might have understood it not enjoyed it perhaps but understood it but here he just sums up the previous chapter or two It comes across as either filler or a somewhat insulting assumption that his audience can t keep up with the plot developments they ve just been shown and have to be told what s going on. The rhesus chart book review The situation isn t exactly improved when what should by all rights be the climax of the story Stross narrator resorts to quoting a bureaucratic after action report Fair enough that Stross narrator is neither omniscient nor present at the events in question but this holds true as well for the first third or so of the book where Howard has no trouble dramatizing the events preceding the point where he first intersects the plot The net effect is that a development that should be the climactic scene in this book and fairly huge for the series and the Laundry universe as a whole reads drily and perfunctory This should have been swimming in pathos and instead it barely managed to rise to the level of holding my interest. The Rhesus Chart Science Fiction fantasy 5 This of course compounds the fact that what is then left as the actual climax of the story not least because this is the event which our narrator Howard is directly involved in is written as the penultimate challenge the final set of minions before the boss fight The combined effect is one of anti climax and skews dangerously close to bathos when it comes time to exhibit the consequences. The rhesus chart book summary There are also some annoying plot holes the worst for me being that directly contradictory information is given about the state of a major character s fate in a way that undermines the tension that either possible outcome would have provided These are annoying but I suspect mostly reflect too much hurry during the writing and editing and are overall minor sins for instance a commenter on Stross blog pointed out that the timeline currently leads to a minor character being pregnant for 11 months. The Rhesus Chart crimea Overall I m left with a suspicion that here we see the scaffolding poking through I wouldn t be at all surprised if I were to learn that Stross signed a deal for a number of new books in the series of which this was the first or that someone his agent publisher or his own commercial acumen pressured him to make this a good jumping on point for new readers which if nothing else would explain the incessant summation It also seems obvious to me which is usually the surest sign that I m wrong but still that Stross is here attempting a pivot see what I did there of sorts for the series Everywhere the plot felt disjointed could be easily explained by Stross hand trying to retcon and shift his characters and the universe into a subtly different direction to fit with his plans for the next three books There are developments in Howard s personal life telegraphed early in the book that make sense mostly to supply a source of tension for future books A character is introduced possibly intended as a deliberate red herring that probably will play no role for several books but which take up disproportionate space in this book for no good reason Another character is reintroduced with a completely different personality than previously and then goes on to exhibit such markedly divergent traits as to leave the overall impression as pure schizophrenia and to be clear I m implying that Stross either failed to reconcile different sides to this character or simply changed his mind while writing and insufficiently corrected previous prose Who exactly constitutes the main villain isn t exactly clear there are several of them and despite enormous buildup by the end of the book you can t help but feel they re actually all kinda pathetic. The rhesus chart science fiction fantasy pdf Now apparently the next book in the series will be narrated by Mo and will overlap with The Rhesus Chart so possibly Stross had half an eye on that and the further books but overall I m just plain disappointed by this showing There s no doubt Stross is a better author than what s on show here and I had so been looking forward to that book. The rhesus chartb bb That all being said even Stross half assing it and phoning it in is better than most of his peers on their best showing While the scaffolding may show through the remodel Stross seems to be attempting here is both necessary timely and makes me excited for future books in the Laundry universe The plot may be a bit thin and strained at times but Howard as a narrator is amusing as hell and draws you safely by thrills and horrors both And ultimately of Stross unique vision and imagination is worthwhile no matter its wrapping. Types of rhesus blood group I love Stross writing in general and especially The Laundry Files and that includes this particular ugly duckling Not contrary to apparent intent the best place for new readers to get onboard I still recommend The Atrocity Archive for that but for existing followers of Agent HOWARD s exploits Laundry can only be a good thing Charles Stross Re read 5 21 18 My god this series only gets better as it goes along I thought this was a somewhat weak novel in the whole mix but I was definitely mistaken Knowing what comes later influences my decision Easy. The rhesus chart book online This is however a pretty big turning point for both Bob and the Laundry His personal life suffers by way of the events that eventually occur but the Laundry suffers It s invasion time By bloodsuckers And there a LOT of casualties. The Rhesus Chart Science Fiction fantasy 5 But yeah I laughed my ass off about the vampires For most of the novel It was gorgeous and satirical and clever as hell If only the end hadn t been so dark And yet that darkness really hit me in the gut That last bit makes me stay around This is totally cool Original review Watching Bob become beast couldn t be fun and the workplace drama whether it is the Laundry or cutthroat banking is always humorous Not too much was on the plate for this novel but in my opinion that was just fine It allowed me to focus tightly on the interpersonal relations and for good reason The ending was a real zinger The novels are only getting better as time goes on Charles Stross

The rhesus chart book review

Charles David George Charlie Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh Scotland His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy. Ebook the rhesus chart pdf My reviews of The Laundry Files The Apocalypse Codex Charles Stross don t exist. The rhesus chart book free download But again according to company policy there s no such thing as vampires. Can rhesus negative marry rhesus positive So in summary just like the others in the series A fun book that could be much better Charles Stross No no no no no no no. Crime The Rhesus chart Of course that means a general org chart rearrangement and no manner of funny and light built up in this novel will erase the fundamental tragedy