Book Review: Equoid by Charles Stross

Equoid: A Laundry Files Novella by Charles Stross

Bob Howard works for the Laundry, a secret British government agency that defends against Lovecraftian nightmares. In this story, the nightmare is actually a mare. A rural constabulary's mounted division has requested some genetically-enhanced horses to improve working capacity, etc. The actual horses that show up are unicorns, but not the fluffy and fun My Little Pony sort. These are just like what H. P. Lovecraft faced as a young teen (at least, according to this story). The Laundry knows Lovecraft's history because they have some of his letters and have dealt with attempts every couple of decades to bring these horrors (called Equods in the book) out in the open.

The book is part Lovecraft horror and part bureaucratic comedy. Howard is more of a desk jockey who gets pulled onto field assignments, often through trickery by his boss. Most of the calls to investigate infernal manifestations are hoaxes or mistakes, but naturally this wouldn't be much of a story if this particular call was a boring fake. The horror is fairly full-on, making what would be an R-rated movie. In addition to gory corpses and oozing monstrosities, the Equods control virgin female humans, often using them to seduce men to their doom. One or two seductions get more detail than is comfortable, which is clearly intentional.

The comedy alleviates the horror quite a bit. Howard often calls in to a duty officer to report his progress or request assistance, sometimes immediate assistance. He has an ID badge that works like Doctor Who's psychic paper, i.e. it makes whoever see it think Howard can order them around. In a funny aside, the book explains that it doesn't work on employees at the Laundry, otherwise payroll would skyrocket out of control. The fake Lovecraft letters do a great job mimicking and mocking Lovecraft's florid writing style, and explaining the horrible history of Equods.

The book is just over 100 pages, so it reads easily, and was fun enough that I might try some of the other books about the Laundry Files.

Recommended.