#17 – The Jennifer Morgue, by Charles Stross

If The Atrocity Archives was on the horror end of the spectrum of genres Charlie Stross has mashed together, then The Jennifer Morgue is pretty squarely on the spy thriller end. Bob Howard, agent of The Laundry, finds himself sent out on a mission to the Caribbean with the beautiful, seductive, and sexually predatory—literally, she’s being possessed by a succubus who kills the men she has sex with and eats their souls—Ramona, agent of the Black Chamber, the American version of The Laundry, with no idea what it is he must accomplish. He’s given a tuxedo, a bizarre array of gadgets, and instructions from Ramona to play some baccarat and get himself invited to the yacht of the millionaire (or is it billionaire?) industrialist with a fluffy white cat…

Are you rolling your eyes yet? The Jennifer Morgue is meant to be a pastiche of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, via a weird practical application of Terry Pratchett’s law of narrative causality (“if a story or legend is told often enough and believed by enough people, it becomes true”), but it’s actually a pastiche of the films. There’s an essay in the back of the book in which Stross explains the influence of Bond on the book, though his reading of the Bond mythos is both superficial and intensely flawed, with numerous factual errors conflating elements of the books and films (the gadget thing, for one, is a feature prominent in the films, but is something the Bond of the novels despises, the Bond of the novels being every bit a self-hating, self-destructive alcoholic as he is a misogynist—more perhaps, as his misogyny appears to be partly a symptom of his self-loathing—but anyway, I’m getting off track).

The Bond thing ruined it for me, really. The Jennifer Morgue was still kind of fun, especially with the introduction of Deep Ones at the bottom of the Pacific, introduced via a fictionalized account of Project Azorian (from which the novel takes its name), but the Bond elements were so schlocky, and handled so poorly, that what could have been an excellent parody was just a drag on the rest of the plot.

Ramona is kind of a problem. She’s one of those problems where it’s difficult to figure out where to start explaining why she’s a problem. So let’s start with sex. Ramona is… well, it would spoil it to tell you exactly what she is, but let’s just say she’s a person who has been drafted against her will to serve as an agent of the Black Chamber, an American Laundry-style agency so secret it doesn’t even have an official name (“the Black Chamber” is just a nickname based on the US’ cryptography unit during the Second World War), and she’s being kept under control by being sort of subconsciously possessed by a succubus. In Stross’ world, Succubi are creatures from another universe who take up residence in the skull of a living person, and have to have sex on a regular basis in order to kill and consume the souls of the people they are having sex with, otherwise they will eat the souls of their hosts. You would think, having been tied to something like this for quite a while before the novel opens, that Ramona would not really be all that into sex. She’d be having a lot of it, but probably not enjoying it all that much. And you’d be right, sort of. But only sort of. Ramona doesn’t appear to enjoy the act of feeding on men’s souls, but otherwise she revels in her sexuality. At least, that’s the impression I feel like I’m supposed to get. Ramona and Bob are tied together through some magical “destiny entanglement” thing, so they are getting closer and closer to becoming a single entity as the book goes on, but there are times, lots of times, when Ramona’s sexuality, and the whole conceit of the succubus, seem to exist only to a) tease, torture, or humiliate Bob, b) complicate Bob’s personal life with Mo, and c) provide the required sex scenes for the Bond pastiche. In other words, Ramona’s sexuality is all about Bob.

She, and a handful of other characters, go a long way in showing how tone-deaf Stross can be about some things. Ramona, among other characters in the novel, like Ellis Billington (the guy with the fluffy white cat) are supposed be, not just rich, but rich and elegant. Stross, coming from a computer science background, ought to, believe it or not, know what elegance is. It baffles me that a lot of techies don’t seem to be able to get a handle on elegance in other arenas, as “elegant” used to the be highest compliment one could give to code. Elegance is about beauty, sophistication, simplicity (yes, those can go hand in hand; sophistication is not the same as complexity), and understatement. Elegnant clothes are not elaborate and showy, not meant to be seen. They are meant to draw out the finest features of the wearer, make them appear as their best selves. The finest suit in the world is one that will never be noticed. Stross’ elegant characters do not have a clue what understatement is. They make menacing remarks, wear elaborate clothes (Ramona goes about her daily business, wearing gowns and “dripping with jewels”), and have basically the same sense of humour as Bob. There is absolutely zero subtlety in them. (Speaking of lacking subtlety, if you thought, like I did, that Mo was too perfect in The Atrocity Archives, wait until you see her in this.)

The Jennifer Morgue was fun, but not as fun as the first book, and I actually enjoyed the short story in the back (“Pimpf”) more than the novel itself. That, at least, had a little more humanity to it. Given how much of a fan I am of Stross’ blog, how clear-eyed he is, how willing to cut through the bullshit, I was very disappointed by how superficial this book could be, and how dramatically off and skin-deep his reading of the Bond mythos was. That being said, the world of the Laundry is still compelling, and several of Stross’ other projects look interesting as well. This will not be the last Charlie Stross book reviewed on vestige.org.

Next up is Neuromancer, by William Gibson.