The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. - RANDOM RAMONA
Chapter 2. - GOING DOWN TO DUNWICH
Chapter 3. - TANGLED UP IN GRUE
Chapter 4. - YOU’RE IN THE JET SET NOW
Chapter 5. - HIGH SOCIETY
Chapter 6. - CHARLIE VICTOR
Chapter 7. - NIGHTMARE BEACH
Chapter 8. - WHITE HAT/BLACK HAT
Chapter 9. - SKIN DIVING
Chapter 10. - DEAD LUCKY
Chapter 11. - DESTINY ENTANGLED
Chapter 12. - POWER BREAKFAST
Chapter 13. - FIDDLER HITS THE ROOF
Chapter 14. - JENNIFER MORGUE
Chapter 15. - SCUTTLE TO COVER
Chapter 16. - REFLEX DECISION
Epilogue - THREE’S COMPANY
PIMPF
Afterword - THE GOLDEN AGE OF SPYING
GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS, ACRONYMS, AND ORGANIZATIONS
“Stross packs this new novel full of hilarious in-jokes and frenetic set pieces, from underwater fight scenes that top anything in Ian Fleming’s Thunderball to a villain who makes Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Thunderball’s villain, look like the voice of sanity.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“[Stross has] raised the stakes, taking his story well beyond any kind of ‘gag,’ both incorporating and transcending his material, in one of the most enjoyable novels I expect to read for a while.”
—Jonathan Strahan, editor of the annual Best Short Novels anthology series
“Charles Stross is a versatile writer . . . He is at his best when indulging [Lovecraftian horror laced with Cold War and contemporary high-tech espionage], where Arkham meets MI6. The resulting combination of chilling Cthulhoid monstrosities, Kafka-inspired spy-agency bureaucracy, and flippant hacker humor is irresistible, Lovecraft’s Mythos filtered through rambunctious gonzo language and plotting that is edge-of-the-seat and slapstick-intensive all at once. Expect to be entertained, extremely, brilliantly . . . [The Jennifer Morgue is] a pop-lit send-up of unique ingenuity and force . . . The revisionist climax is superbly choreographed, parody blurring into seriousness at just the right moments, and the customary Bondian closing segment, a last gasp by the villains, achieves surprising psychological depth. The Jennifer Morgue is Stross’s most entertaining novel to date and a metafiction of distinction ... astonishing.” —Locus
“The Jennifer Morgue continues Stross’s delightful style from the first book, blending elements of Neal Stephenson’s references to hacker culture, Lovecraftian eldritch horrors, and Tom Clancy’s spy thrillers . . . The plot of the book is genuinely intriguing—I read the book straight through in one sitting . . . There is fast-paced spy action with a generous measure of humor (much of it sidesplittingly hilarious) . . . The plot has some interesting twists and turns, and the book never takes itself too seriously . . . It’s a treasure trove of humorous quotes . . . [The Jennifer Morgue] may be the most fun book you’ve read in a long time—it certainly was for me.” —MIT Science Fiction Society
“Since Archives was great fun, I was happy to see The Jennifer Morgue.” —Analog
“Alternately chilling and hilarious . . . Stross has a marvelous time making eldritch horror appear commonplace in the face of bureaucracy.” —Publishers Weekly
“[A] gripping saga . . . perfect for avid fans of the genre.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Stross has created a story [that] uses the meta-Bond plot as a commentary on both its absurdity and its power. By doing so right out in the open, he’s masterfully concealing his actual moves. The Jennifer Morgue is a high watermark in whatever genre you want to assign it, and a lot of fun besides.” —SFRevu
“The Jennifer Morgue quite deliberately, and elaborately, draws upon the resonance of the James Bond mythos, infusing it with a Lovecraftian paranoia and a metatextual brilliance . . . a fascinatingly strange, rip-roaring adventure . . . [It] is definitely a different offering from the norm. It’s perfect for those who are always looking for cutting-edge fiction and boundary-stretching ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even when I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on beneath the surface. Give it a shot if you’re in the mood for something