2013 modern occult secret service novelette, between The Apocalypse
Codex and The Rhesus Chart in the Laundry Files series. Bob
Howard is sent to inspect a livery stables, because they're buying a
worrying amount of meat.
This story is about the life cycle of the unicorn. Which is
disgusting, and that's fair enough. The main narrative is interspersed
with pastiche letters from H. P. Lovecraft, which among other things
explain just why he was so uninterested in women…
…but this is the story where the Laundry series turns on its
progenitor, painting Lovecraft's work as the gushings of a wannabe
hipster that contain just enough incorrect detail to get the reader
into trouble. Given how much this series has relied on name-checking
Lovecraft from the beginning, it seems a perverse approach to take.
Anyway, apart from that, we have a few passing references to Cold
Comfort Farm (there is indeed something nasty in the woodshed), a very
brief mention of The Archers that seems to make no sense, a hint that
school stories exist, and then things end where they should have
started in large-scale destruction caused by the good guys before even
larger-scale destruction can be managed by the bad guys. In terms of
narrative structure, the setup comes about half-way through, and
everyone ignores the obvious explanation until things have got nearly
out of control.
The Archers and school stories could have been effectively parodied,
but this is written in the modern style which regards simply
mentioning something as sufficient to get the laugh.
But, you know, this story graphically depicts the mutilation, rape and
murder of a thirteen-year-old girl just to show us that the monster is
a bad thing.
Freely available at tor.com.
(This story won the 2014 Hugo for Best Novella.)
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