I always knew math was evil. Especially Geometry with all of those arcane logic proofs. Bah.... Now here is *proof* that I was right!

The Atrocity Archives is set in modern day England and involves the adventures of a computer guy working for a super secret government agency referred to as "The Laundry". The Laundry was setup in the closing days of World War 2 when the Allied powers discovered the Germans had been involved with magic (successfully) and transported a number of German personnel and resources to an alternate dimension with the goal of returning one day and wreaking vengance on the world. The big powers set up their own organizations to deal with magic and in the course of all of this (I forget exactly at what period and could not find it again in the book) discover that mathematical therorums and advanced calculations will allow for interaction between these dimensions. In the words of the main character:

And in a vanishingly small number of the other universes there are things that listen, and talk back-see Al-Hazred, Neitzsche, Lovecraft, Poe, etcetera. The many-angled ones, as they say, live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set, except when a suitable incantation in the platonic realm of mathematics - computerised or otherwise - draws them forth. (And you thought running that fractal screen-saver was good for your computer?)

Oh, and did I mention that the inhabitants of those other universes don't play by our rule book?

I slink back to my office via the coffee maker, from which I remove a mug of a vile and turgid brew that coats my back teeth in slimy grit. There are three secret memos waiting in the locked pneumatic tube, one of which is about the abuse of governrnment-issue toothpaste.   

Throughout the book there are irreverent references to things like "total quality management" and ISO procedures and how the mundane is revised to deal with the new threat of interference from the occult. There are also cutting critiques concerning life in a bureaucracy - things such as timesheet nitnoids, paper clip inventories, the apparent inflexibility of bureaucrats at all levels, and the constant infighting between divisions in a contest for primacy.

The "real world" knows nothing about the world of magic. It is the job of the Laundry to keep the occult under control and limit its influence in our world. When someone (Britons in this case) inadvertently stumble over the existence of the math-magic relationship, they are "drafted" into the Laundry and placed under a geas to never divulge what they are doing to anyone outside the organization. The Laundry has its own Paramilitary arm composed of workers from the Laundry (Accountants and such!) On occasion, these paramilitary forces move beyond our dimension and into others.

Here's another sample of the author's style, again speaking as if he were the main character:

"I love surprises. Don't You?'"

Well, yes, otherwise I'd never have volunteered for active duty in the first place. Which is why, half an hour later, I find myself standing on a purple-painted hotel staircase beneath a portrait of Martin Heidegger, breathing through an oxygen mask and waiting to follow a dingy little tracked robot, half a platoon of territorial SAS, and an armed hydrogen bomb through a rip the space-time continuum.

The problem with a book review is that I can't go into much detail about the setting as it will give away too many plot lines. Suffice it to say that this is another good tickler for gamers' creative juices! 

(The Atrocity Archives is, in this dimension, a book of two inter-related stories. The first deals with WW2 and Nazi issues and is about 180 pages long. The second deals with... drat... there's that reader's geas preventing me from telling you....) Check this out of you really want to know who's face it is on the moon (not necessarily ours, BTW!)