Season of Skulls (Laundry Files #12, New Management #3)

  • Author: Charles Stross
  • Page count: 376
  • Started on: 2024/12/08
  • Finished on: 2024/12/15
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    • ★★★★☆

Book cover for Season of Skulls by Charles Stross. The cover features the author's name in large tan letters at the top and the title in white capital letters at the bottom. Between them is an image of a dark, rocky cave with a tunnel leading outside, showing a barren landscape under a gray sky. A small overturned vehicle is in the cave. The cover also includes a label indicating it’s part of The Laundry Files series and a quote praising the book.

The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross blends elements of horror, espionage, and dark humor in a current/recent era world where math and computers allow magic, and open portals to other (not good) worlds.

The initial books explore the intersection of bureaucracy and the bizarre as protagonist Bob navigates a world filled with occult dangers and bureaucratic absurdities. The New Management subseries jumps forward a few years to when an Elder God is Brittain’s Prime Minister, and explores the civilian side of this new United Kingdom, controlled by magic and superpowers.

Season of Skulls continues to follow Eve Starkey as she navigates the potent dream world that her nemesis “fled” into at the end of book 2, and… finds love. I think…

It’s full of fascinating characters and plot twists as usual, and the (unusual) added romance angle works for me. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, but also to the series wrapping up. Each individual book is good, but the series feels a bit wandering at times (sorry Charles!)

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