A Conventional Boy

Laundry Files #13

by Charles Stross

In 1984, Derek Reilly was just another spotty teenage dungeon master growing up in middle England. But then a secret government agency tasked with suppressing magical intrusions received a tip-off – and one midnight raid later, his life was turned upside down by the Satanic D&D Panic.

Decades later Derek, now middle-aged and institutionalized, is a long-term inmate at Camp Sunshine, a center for deprogramming captured Elder God cultists. He’s considered safe enough to edit the camp newsletter, and he even has postal privileges – which he uses to run a play-by-mail game. After 25 years, Derek finally has reason to escape: a nearby D&D convention. While Derek’s D&D games were full of fictional elder gods and world-ending threats, a LARP game at the con is a dread ritual designed to summon a great evil into our world, and it’s up to Derek and his players to stop them.

The fate of the world may depend on the contents of Derek’s magic dice bag.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction, Supernatural, Audiobook

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 7, 2025

About the author

Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy.

Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.

SF Encyclopedia: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_...

Tor: http://us.macmillan.com/author/charle...

Reviews

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

We're back! Well, partially at least. Ever since the Black Pharaoh has taken over, I miss the actual Laundry (and Bob). Sadly, this was another book telling the story of some other character (like the last two installments did). Fortunately, it was still loads of fun.

Meet Derek. He was taken to a facility decades ago because he could have become one hell of a magic user with his D&D obsession (yes, we're finally getting the typical mix of math and magic in this again). He's adjusted quite well to "life on the inside". But one day, he reads about a game con taking place not far away and his "home" is gonna be closed (or at least relocated) soon anyway so he decides to quite cleverly break out.

Yes, this is mostly about the hell that can be D&D if it all turns into reality courtesy of some devious worshippers dragging innocent gamers into a summoning. And it'S about how much these gamers can kick ass.

The gaming here was real and it will come as no surprise to anyone who has read this book that the author is not only a real-life D&D fan but also created some races that are now used officially.

Oh and then there was the bonus content I had NOT seen coming but enjoyed all the more for it since it had Bob (gods, I miss him and "that" Laundry)!

So while this wasn't exactly the kind of book I had hoped for and I still don't know how the next one will be the last in the series, it was a wonderful entry in the series that had the original quirky feel to it. In short: WE'RE BACK, BABY!

And we might have a way to kick a certain Black Pharaoh's butt for what he did to Angleton. HELL YEAH!



P.S.: Big cats DO purr, Mr. Stross.

[Brok3n · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story for Laundry insiders

A Conventional Boy is a novella set in Charles Stross's LaundryVerse. The Laundry Files is my all-time favorite Science Fiction series. My opinion of the Laundry Files is not universally shared. They're targeted at a particular subculture, a subculture of which I am a charter member. To wit: I have degrees in Biochemistry and Mathematics, have been programming computers since I was knee-high to a grasshopper*, and was at one time an enthusiastic player of Text-based computer games. Humanities-oriented fans of F&SF tend to find the Laundry Files daunting.

A Conventional Boy is the story of Derek Reilly, who readers of the Laundry Files met (under the name Derek Blacker, and also the handle the DM = the Dungeon Master) in The Labyrinth Index. "Derek ... has spent his entire adult life in prison for playing Dungeons and Dragons. It's not his fault: it was 1984, the Satanic D&D panic was in full swing, and Mistakes Were Made (by the Laundry)." The prison is Camp Sunshine, which we previously heard of in The Delirium Brief. Derek still plays D&D -- he's a trusty at Camp Sunshine with the job of writing the camp newsletter, and has mail privileges, which he uses to run a Play By Mail D&D campaign. He also runs sandbox tabletop campaigns with inmates. Most inmates of Camp Sunshine are forbidden from communicating with the outside world in any way. Derek is not exactly lucky, but you will learn that the world tends to arrange itself improbably so that his plans work.

Derek has a set of D&D dice that he made himself from materials gathered around Camp Sunshine. Magic permeates Camp Sunshine, and Derek's dice are magic. They allow him to accomplish such feats as correctly guessing eight-digit serial numbers, and to design D&D campaigns whose backstories match highly classified Laundry codeword files. Using them he escapes Camp Sunshine and makes his way to a gaming convention, where he has adventures and comes to the more pointed attention of the Laundry, setting him up for his participation in The Nightmare Stacks and The Delirium Brief.

On his blog Stross has stated that A Conventional Boy is a standalone novella and suggested it could be used as an entry to the series. I personally think this would be a bad idea. A Conventional Boy contains many references to other LaundryVerse stories, even the recent New Management series. I believe that anyone who attempts A Conventional Boy as a standalone will miss many important points and be confused by the LaundryVerse. Indeed, I would recommand reading A Conventional Boy only after the previous twelve novels.

That said, it was fun, and I enjoyed it. It is not my favorite of the LaundryVerse stories, or even of the novellas, but it was good.

Tor bulked out the novella with two previously published Laundry Files stories, Overtime and Down on the Farm, which I will review separately.

*Not literally true.

Blog review.

[Beth Cato · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a gratis copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

To my chagrin, I haven't read any of the previous Laundry Files books. As a testament to Stross's writing, I was able to immerse myself in the world right away and greatly enjoyed the ride. This book consists of a novella, "A Conventional Boy," which follows a forty-something autistic man who was wrongly imprisoned by the Laundry during the 1980s Satanic Panic. They thought his AD&D ways indicated the use of real magic, and by the time they realized their error, he was essentially lost in the system. But he now has a reason to escape: a nearby gaming convention. A convention that, unfortunately, hosts some nefarious folks who ARE delving into some nasty real magic.

I requested this book on NetGalley in part because, as a late-diagnosed autistic person, I wanted to see how Stross handled things. The representation was fantastic--not cliched at all, full of delightful nuance.

The book is rounded out by two short stories. "Overtime" is set at Christmas and is laugh out loud funny at times. The Laundry is such a brilliant lampoon of a particularly British bureaucracy. "Down on the Farm" delves into a mental institution for employees damaged by exposure to magic. The end had some fantastic twists.

Really, this book makes me want to read more in the series.

[Anna Quilter · Rating 3 out of 5]

feels like a hasty fill in....in the Laundry Files series.
Maybe it's the shorter length..backed by two even shorter stories?

[Janelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven’t read any of the other Laundry Files books that are about a top secret British spy network fighting supernatural threats. This book contains the title novella and two short stories. It’s a lot of fun. The novella is about Derek who was locked up as teenage D&D player during the satanic panic of the eighties and has been held in a camp ever since. Forty odd years later he escapes to attend a gaming conference being sponsored by an actual demon summoning cult. An enjoyable ride if you know a bit about dungeons and dragons etc!

[Nirkatze · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd like to know what Stross's logic was, lumping in new novella "A Conventional Boy" in with previously published Overtime and Down on the Farm. I can't seem to find a connecting theme or thread, other than the series itself. Why these three specifically--and they aren't even in chronological order--maybe reverse chronological? I suppose Overtime tenuously deals with the Forecasting department, and Down on the Farm touches on AI... but it's pretty loose. So as a whole, this collection doesn't make sense to me, even though the individual stories are a lot of fun.

Beth Cato's review mentions that "as a late-diagnosed autistic person, I wanted to see how Stross handled things." I hadn't realized that A Conventional Boy featured a late-diagnosed autistic person, and like Cato, I am in the same boat and was thus equally curious. I found Derek's portrayal to be subtle, spot on (at least to my experience), and not stereotypical--and the result made me feel seen. Who doesn't look for people like them when reading? TY Stross-sensei. I really enjoyed Derek's character, and his methodological approach to problem-solving. As for the story itself, I really liked the slice of the Laundry shown in this short, and the D&D winks and internal info (including the opposite, seeing non-players scramble to try to understand it from the outside) made my little nerd heart happy. I also enjoyed seeing Iris in action again--her POV slices were a nice contrast to Derek's.

As for Overtime and Down on the Farm, I think my favorite parts were seeing Bob's troubleshooting capabilities in a more condensed form, and the additional worldbuilding. Bob's sense of humor is always fun as well, and the office-twist to everything.

The chapter-length Afterword was also interesting, providing insight to connections I'd never dreamed on, going from tactical wargames to D&D to conspiracy theories dating from the dawn of Christianity up through QAnon witch-hunts. Quite the research paper.

[Ann Schwader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consisting of a novella, two novelettes, and a concluding Afterword, A Conventional Boy is a somewhat brief ( 211 pp. in my hardback) but highly entertaining series of sidetracks through the Laundry Files universe. The novella which gives the book its title details the adventures of Derek Reilly, a once-teenage Dungeon Master wrongly imprisoned by the Laundry a few decades back, during the Satanic D&D Panic. All Derek really wants to do is to escape for one weekend, to attend a local gaming convention . . . but it gets weirder than that, of course. A lot weirder. Derek's successful escape attempt brings him into the crosshairs of an actual group of cultists using the convention for their own eldritch purposes. This, in turn, brings in other members of the Laundry (some of whom sounded familiar to me), and chaos rolls on.

The two novelettes (at least one of which I've run into before in electronic form) are both Bob Howard adventures. Again, these are sidetracks rather than essential bits of the Laundry universe -- but regular readers will enjoy the extra details they offer. The Afterword is mainly an explanation of the D&D Satanic Panic of the 1980s, and how it happened to inspire this book. It's helpful to be familiar with tabletop role-playing games, though I suspect quite a lot of Stross readers (including myself) are.

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 5 out of 5]

A CONVENTIONAL BOY by Charls Stross is the thirteenth of the fourteen book LAUNDRY FILES series. The Laundry Files is a series based around an obscure British intelligence agency that deals with the monsters and horrors of a Cthulhu Mythos inspired world. Charles Stross' Laundry Files is somewhere between Pratchett, John Le Carre, and Lovecraft. The books swing wildly from hilarious send ups of more serious fiction and genuinely terrifying stories. They also bring up some fascinating concepts regarding math, politics, religion, and relationships where your partner's violin wants to kill you.

It is questionable whether the Laundry series qualifies as horror novels but I'd dare say they do and the most terrifying things about them are the realism-induced elements. The Apocalypse Codex, for example combines a Dominionist evangelist cult with Cthulhu but it is elements from real-life fundamentalism that are the most disturbing. A Conventional Boy's horror comes from its invocation of the actual Satanic Panic of the 1980s and how it's never really gone away.

Charles Stross gives an extended explanation of this in the Afterword and enough information in the book to understand it for those who blessedly never heard of it but the short version is in the Eighties that a lot of televangelists like Jerry Falwell decided to motivate their followers by claiming X thing was literally invoking Satanic forces. He only touches the tip of the ice berg but the ridiculous premise was that Dungeons and Dragons books allowed you to summon demons or be possessed by them. It'd be funny if not for the child abuse and witch hunts that ensued.

This is all a rather extensive opening to explain that Derek Reilly was an adolescent in 1984 when the actual occult authorities scooped him and his friends up before institutionalizing them as potential evil wizards. The others eventually were let go but Derek's autism and social awkwardness resulted in him being treated as a threat. This is particularly notable to me as I have had that kind of fear myself as a neurodivergent.

Derek ended up spending forty-years in a camp for deprogramming wizards and cultists with his only release being a literal play by mail game once his handlers realized he was harmless but knew too much. Now, with the camp about to be shut down, the nearly fifty Derek breaks out of his camp to go to a roleplaying game convention. A convention that is actually filled with cultists but ones that have wandered in from a much more likely source of Satanic power in the real world: corporate marketing culture.

I've read virtually the entirety of the Laundry Files and much of Charles Stross' other work but find that A Conventional Boy resonates me with more than any of the others. The sheer unfairness if Derek's life has immense pathos. Tabletop gaming has a special role in the minds of many divergents and the fact it was used to ruin his life is all too believable. Perhaps the story would not hit so hard if I didn't know fundamentalist families who forced their children to burn their tabletop game supplements.

I have a few minor issues with the story as it really ends a bit too happily given the circumstances. Also, I feel like the climatic final struggle against corporate RPG culture would have been better with a confrontation against the people who imprisoned Derek (and are depersonalized drones of bureaucracy versus someone specific who signed off on imprisoning him decades ago) but I still enjoyed the book. Very much so. There's a couple of bonus short stories as well.

A Conventional Boy is good, very good. It can also be read effectively as a standalone volume of the series or even introduction to The Laundry Files. You can start with Derek Reilly's story to see if the world is for you before trying The Atrocity Archives. I think it's a series well worth picking up and this is one of the best parts of it.

[Alex Sarll]

After the frustrating side-trip of the New Management books, Stross finally returns to the Laundry series proper, albeit with a prequel. This is the long-promised backstory of Derek the DM, the Forecasting Ops guy with the magic dice. Parts of which are very neat; if you were a roleplayer yourself in the eighties (and Stross was enough of a grognard to have created a now-canonical D&D race), and you write fiction about the British establishment's bureaucratic response to occult threats, then it makes perfect sense to ask how the Satanic Panic would have intersected with such an agency (short answer: not well). And now that RPGs have gone fairly mainstream, it's a great set-up for a character who's been institutionalised since gaming was still thoroughly spoddy to find himself at a modern convention – even if fitting the story into the series' established timeline means this has to take place back in 2010, when the process was definitely underway but had yet to be turbocharged by Stranger Things &c.

Of course, in the very irresistibility of that scenario lies part of the problem. Perhaps it's just a generational thing, internalised nerd-bashing, but I have a level of reflex aversion to books that seem too eagerly engaged in tickling geek tummies with familiar references. And while A Conventional Boy certainly isn't anywhere near R**dy Pl*y*r *n* territory, I did occasionally find things getting a bit Scalzi. Worse, sometimes it gets the references wrong. If characters from something approximating the real world find themselves trapped inside an RPG, and one of said characters comments that they've fallen into a bad LitRPG, then you're already skirting the limits of acceptable meta. But the story is set a couple of years before that term was even born. Granted, Stross' afterword says that the Laundry world, even on the surface, started diverging from ours in the nineties – but that branch point is definitely too late to explain why snakebite and black is apparently just cider and black here. That, granted, is the sort of glitch which could well be fixed between my Netgalley ARC and the finished book, but there's a more general problem with inconsistencies in quite how institutionalised Derek is meant to be. We're told that the camp had TV, and he watches it, so surely he shouldn't be in quite such an eighties mindset as to wonder "What does the internet have to do with phones?" Although I did love his summary of modern cars as all looking slightly melted.
(There's also the question of the location explicitly being named as Scarfolk. Which I hope has been cleared better than in the previous Laundry book that was called Escape From Puroland when I read it, but not when it came out. Pissing off Sanrio is one thing, but I really wouldn't want Scarfolk Council on my tail)

Still, for all those little quibbles around the margins, there's never half the sense of the whole edifice being unsound that I got from the New Management books (which one amusing/apologetic subplot here implies could all have ended up that way due to a messy convention RPG session intersecting with Derek's unusual relationship to causality). Sure, as a reclamation of all the old scare stories about roleplayers thinking the games are real, it's not up there with Die. But for all that, it's a Laundry book, and it feels like one, exasperated bureaucrats and out-of-their-depth geeks up against cosmic horrors in authentically crappy British backwaters. And I've missed that.
(The book does also include two earlier Laundry stories, Down On The Farm and the festive Overtime, both of which I read and enjoyed when they were first posted on the Tor site)

[Evy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable! The story is pretty meta and you need to know the series fairly well to understand the plot of this one.

My ebook was supposed to be 500 pages but it turns out the story itself was only 350, then the rest of the page count was taken up by the "overtime" novella from the same series, which I'd already read in a different bundle. So that's a disappointing move by the publisher, but doesn't take away from the story itself.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm assuming you are familiar with the Laundry Files series, otherwise you wouldn't be here. So, here's where we pick up the story:

Waaaay back in the 1980s the Laundry encountered the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying game. They didn't really understand it but it was close enough to invoking spells that they scooped up what they considered some likely practitioners of the Dark Arts. Later, they let most of them go.

Except one person who was interred at age 14, who showed some real magical capability, but was forgotten by the bureaucracy until everyone involved in the original snatch was retired.

25 years later, Derek Reilly has earned some privileges at Camp Sunshine, the heavily warded institution for dangerous thaumaturgs. He reads a local newspaper notice about a nearby tabletop gaming convention. Oh, that sounds fun. All he has to do is get out of camp...

Of course he succeeds, gets to the convention where there is some seriously weird s*@^ going on, the authorities at the Laundry freak out when they find him gone, they call a Code Red, everyone converges on the convention (including Things From Beyond) and a real-life D&D episode unfolds.

It's all great fun in a snarky Charles Stross kind of way. Probably gamers will appreciate all the in-jokes, but all Laundry Files fans will enjoy the romp.

As a bonus, there are two Bob Howard stories from 15-16 years ago that flesh out the book.

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

File under: Interstitial.

The plot overview of this novella has been highly telegraphed (long-time detainee of the Laundry goes to a gaming convention and gets caught up in occult mayhem), so the real interest comes from the afterword, where Stross lays out his rationale for creating this story. I liked it, but it's only good "Laundry," not great "Laundry." As is reflected by the inclusion of the short story "Down on the Farm," which I had not read until this point, and is a good example of why people came to love this series.

Actual rating: More like 3.5.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The edition I got had the Conventional Boy novella (pretty sure it was a novella) plus two Bob shorts (one about Christmas, and one about The Farm) that I might have read before.

I thought this book had a lot of cheeky laughs if you are familiar with the series. If you aren't - I wouldn't start here! I could tell that Stross is getting ready to kind of wrap up the Laundry Files and move onto other pastures. This is the backstory of "Derek the DM" who was featured in some other books. I think he was an interesting character and I enjoyed his adventure.

[Chris Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you love The Laundry Files, you'll skip this one

Two Bob Howard short stories rescue thus front disposal but the main piece is a boring rehash of old material all centered around a... game. It sounds Lili e Strauss is a gamer and that's too bad.

I hope this is just a glitch.

[Jason Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this, possibly because I am very much into role playing games and Derek was such a good protagonist.

[MizzyRed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Laundry Files kept popping up as a series that I wanted to read one day because it sounded so entertaining. But it wasn't till now, when I got the chance to read the Conventional Boy that I got to see what it was about, and I will say, this book was so entertaining with a very likable guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when people freaked out about Dungeons and Dragons (thinking that he was summoning and not just playing a game) and he got to spend years at Camp Sunshine due to paperwork errors. Derek is so sweet and innocent yet so knowing about the real magic now and what does he do? He uses paperwork to break out to go to a convention. I must say it must have been fate cause it certainly gets crazy at the convention and Derek is just the man for the job! This was a great introduction to that world and I also enjoyed the two short stories with Bob Howard and I will definitely be going back to read the Laundry Files finally! Cool world, a bit scary because the things that go bump in the night are most likely interdimensional horrors bent on eating your soul but I wouldn't mind have those dice that Derek made. They would be so useful for deciding things and figuring out what is the best path!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read this advance book and introduce me to a wonderfully entertaining series!

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy of a prequel to a long running series, that highlights the life and times of an important member, one whose life was changed rolling dice, a skill that he would later use to save the world.

I started playing Dungeons & Dragons about a year before a movie featuring Tom Hanks playing a role player came out, and shocked a nation. In the movie Tom Hanks was made so crazed by his role playing lifestyle that he hung out in a steam tunnel and threw himself off a building. At least this is how I remember it, I watched the movie once, thought the story was stupid, and the character had bigger problems than thinking he was a half elf fighter/magic user, or whatever. This movie though, came at a time when Satan was corrupting the morals of children all over America, with albums playing Satan's words of suicide solution backwards, demonic day cares and more. Satanic Panic made a few of my friends lay down the dice, and even got us a strong talking to by our priest, who a year later left the priesthood and got married. Anyway my parents thought it was dumb, and let me play. When my Aunt complained to her, my Mom said, "He and his friends have fun, use their imaginations and even better use math. Please tell me what is wrong with that." It turns out my Mom was wrong, at least in the world the Laundry Files takes place. Role playing games involve math, which can open up portals, portals that anything can enter into. And only a fugitive dungeon master might be able to save the day. A Conventional Boy: A Laundry Files Novel by Charles Stross, is the thirteenth book in this popular series, and acts as a prologue, while investigating the past of one of their more popular characters.

Derek Reilly was a young man in 1984, with a few friends that all shared an interest in Role playing games. This interest caught the attention of a teacher, who feared for their souls, and so made a call. Derek and his friends were imprisoned by a secret government group that investigates and protects from occult shenanigans, and the attacks from elder gods. All of which can be aided in this world in role playing games. Derek was soon found to be innocent of nothing but a great imagination, however Derek was deemed to now know too much, and hence could never be let out. Derek was sent to Camp Sunshine the Guantanamo for cultists, sacrificers, and other people of occult interest. And basically forgotten. In that time Derek has found a way to share role playing adventures by mail, and when a convention comes close to his camp, Derek takes a chace and skips out. However what he finds at the convention is a lot more than he expected even after 30 years, and he is going to have to roll a saving throws to get out of this mess.

This is the first book that I have read by Charles Stross and I really am annoyed that it took me this long to catch up on this series. Not only a fun adventure, not only a coll flashback to the days I spent flinging dice and making up scenarios to kill my friends, but some really great writing. Stross knows his stuff, and more importantly can write what it is like to play an adventure and capture the feeling, and leave the reader wanting more. The world is interesting and I want to know more. The characters were all new to me, but I had no problem following along, nor figuring out what was going on, or how things worked. This is more of a novella, but it does have two other stories, featuring the main protagonist, Bob Howard, and a few words from the author about the story and where it might be going. A whole lot of fun, both humorous, a little sad, and with characters one really cares about.

A good place to jump on. I had no idea what the world was about, but I enjoyed it and really want to know more. For fans of occult stories, alternate universe tales, and role playing games. And people who like stories that are fun.

[Jacqie · Rating 3 out of 5]

What happens when a boy who was playing the wrong game at the wrong time during the Satanic Panic of the 80's ends up in magic jail, manages to continue gaming play-by-post for thirty years, stages a jailbreak after that thirty years passes to attend a gaming convention, and is accidentally in just the right position with just the right education in occultism from being in magic jail for thirty years to see that the new game being promoted at the convention is actually really occult and really scary and evil?

If you would like to know the answer to that question, read this book!

Poor Derek was just trying to run a D&D game for a couple of friends when some paranoid parents reported his doings to the wrong people (the Laundry). The Laundry, with its mission to keep amateur sorcerers from going pro on their own and maybe accidentally triggering an occult manifestation that could end the world, got a bit overzealous and dragged 14 year old Derek and his buddies off to a secure place that not everyone gets to come back from. Eventually Derek's friends were let go but Derek himself fell through some bureaucratic cracks which were not made better by the desire of the Laundry to avoid embarrassment, and before he knew it, he was a lifer in the holding system for dangerous magicians despite never having cast a spell in his life (except in D&D).

Derek sort of accepted his lot and made the best of a bad situation until motive means and opportunity came along in a perfect storm for him to be able to skedaddle and attend a gaming convention and maybe even play in person with the folks he'd been running a play by post game for from jail.

As a long-term gamer myself who also started during the Satanic Panic and whose parents thought I was endangering my soul, I could feel for poor Derek. He's just a basically nice guy who happens to have learned some really scary stuff from decades of being locked up with a bunch of dangerous wizards. Charles Stross was also around and a part of the very early parts of the advent of D&D and you can see his love of the game in this book. There's a lot of nostalgia, many Easter eggs, and that was a lot of fun.

I didn't rate the book higher because it's basically about the fantasy of "what if you turned into your DND character and had to survive an adventure somehow" and I think that the author was trying to avoid being too much indebted to D&D particulars. It's a difficult needle to thread. How do you engage readers who have never played and entertain them while also getting buy-in from those who know very,very well what you are talking about? In the end, the grind of the adventure felt like it got short-changed because of the necessity to do a lot of lead-up and exposition. I still had fun! It just didn't entirely scratch that very specific itch I have for the "drop into a D&D world" scenario.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

A Conventional Boy is the 13th Laundry Files novel by Charles Stross. Due out 7th Jan 2025 from Macmillan on their Tor imprint, it's 240 pages and will be available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. The book contains 3 works (the aforementioned titular novel, and 2 novella length works, Overtime and Down On the Farm), + an author's note.

Fans adore the sense of gonzo out-of-control wall-to-wall hysterical madness for which the Laundry Files are well known. For readers who adore paranormal bureaucratic fantasy, this is the top shelf good stuff. For fans of Aaronovitch, Doctorow, Simon Green, and the other boys in the band - this is not derivative at all, but ticks the same boxes as the aforementioned. It's funny, full on chaos, darkly humorous, and absolutely full of malicious compliance and government incompetence, with the added bonus of an eldritch horror or three, satanic panic D&D groups, and stopping the end of the world. There's deep nerdiness in the form of a math/physics/programming component to magic and that the agents are really smart (and very very nerdy). Stross has a talent for sarcastic/exasperated/desperate deadpan humour and this is a pretty strong entry in a very strong perennially entertaining series.

For readers who are not already invested in the series, it's convoluted, but this one does work moderately well as a standalone, since it is a prequel and gives readers the backstory for Derek the DM (forecasting ops guy). The series is up to 13 books plus tie ins in the form of the New Management series, a bunch of shorter fiction (stories and novellas) and uses a large ensemble cast of characters, so it's a great candidate for a very long binge/buddy read.

Four stars. Recommended unreservedly to humorous SF/UF fans.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Aidan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe it's the power of suggestion, maybe it's nominative determinism, but A Conventional Boy is pretty, well, uh, vanilla, at least as Laundry Files stories go. Not that there's anything wrong with that! It's a perfectly readable novella that hits all the tentacular Laundry beats with a little Aztec-D&D spin, and taken together with the two other stories in the volume it seems a good on-ramp to the rest of the series even if it doesn't break much fresh ground for veterans.

That said, I'm confused what a story about the third-most interesting side character from the mainline books is doing stuck out here at the very end of the series. Is it lost? Does it need help? I'd speculate that somewhere amidst the TTRPG references and somewhat overfamiliar corporate-cultists-trying-to-summon-something-unspeakable plot there's an Important MacGuffin being set up for the finale, but there's otherwise little about this story that justifies why it needed to be told. It might be just fine, but there's nothing here to match the grim inventiveness of The Concrete Jungle, never mind the nightmares-for-weeks chills of Equoid.

Ironically, the most interesting bit of A Conventional Boy is its afterword, which starts as a simple history of TTRPGs but turns into a deep dive into Stross' thoughts on theme and setting. I particularly enjoyed Stross' observation that the 1980s D&D moral panic offers a way to understand why the Laundry Files has quite so many pesky cultist villains running about - they're just an outgrowth of the same Christian fundamentalist impulses that conflated D20s with demons forty years ago. This is clever, but it's a bit frustrating to get such a cool little grace note only well after finishing an otherwise middle-of-the-road story.

The New Management books still showed glimmers of the series' old fire, so I'm hoping Stross can make The Regicide Report sing, but all in all this bit of cute LitRPG isn't all that reassuring.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, a return to the Laundry Files! Or rather, to a novella about a minor character and his nefarious and evil backstory of loving D&D (1st edition!) back in the day.

Or rather, how the mix of math and magic will suck you right in and make you lose your freedom in way more than a few reasons. It's the chittering in the brain, I think. Or the fact that you become a sweet, sweet morsel for all those extradimensional elder gods and their tentacles.

Well, whatever. Derek the DM, who made a reputation for himself from, let's call it--a jail--as a one-of-a-kind game master has escaped.

No more spoilers. But omg I loved everything that happened. Classes, dice, magic, cultists, a great dungeon--it's everything a modern LitRPG fan might want, only flipped. It's the game mechanics thrown into the world of the Laundry Files, turning a rather meta look on Stross's own work and flipping it again to bring it full circle back to what Laundry is known for. Spy fiction with a great take on mathematical magical mayhem.


The other two stories are a bit more familiar. Bob, and wonderfully so. Very welcome, indeed.


One thing I should mention: Charlie knows his own D&D. Even better, he's the source of the original monsters and classes of Death Knights, Illithids, and Githyanki. And the Slaadi. Props are props. If you recall, Baldur's Gate 3 allows us to play as a Githyanki. This is real NERD CRED, ya'll.


If I would write a synesthesia review, it would have to be wood shavings. Specifically those after sharpening pencils. A lot of prep time has to go into a good TTRPG, after all. Such a familiar and pleasant smell.



Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to DM requests. I think it's about time I get some eyes on them.

Arctunn.com

[Viccy · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Derek Reilly was a teenager, back in the 80s, no one understood Dungeons and Dragons. The Laundry, a British super-secret organization developed to defend England against incursions from other dimensions, was afraid D&D would result in monsters being allowed into our space and time. Derek got swept up in the anti-D&D mentality and ended up spending his life at Camp Sunshine. Thoroughly institutionalized, Derek works in the office, filing and filling out forms, but maintains an ongoing D&D correspondence with several people outside the institution. When he discovers a D&D convention will be taking place nearby, he manufactures credentials and goes walkabout. It takes two days for Camp Sunshine to figure out he is missing. It takes less than that for Derek to figure out one of the companies participating in the convention is actually trying to conjure a minor god and bring it into this dimension. Mayhem results but The Laundry will prevail. I really enjoy this series with its sly British humor and mind-blowing ideas.

[Madison Pollard-Shore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not strictly a novel, and more a novella plus two short stories, this is 100% a book for the nerds out there.

A Conventional Boy follows Derek, a D&D Dungeon Master who escapes Camp Sunshine to attend a TTRPG convention, only to end up facing a cult determined to welcome thier God into our world. Whilst for me, it lacked a little of the classic Laundry charm, it is a fun story, and fills in some of the gaps about other characters, like what Iris Carpenter got up to.

The real strength of this book for me, and something that feels like a truly authentic return to the Laundry are the two short stories. Overtime shows us a glimpse into Bob's day to day, and finds a creepy way to answer the question 'What happens in the Laundry when everyone goes home for Christmas?'

Down on the farm looks at the risk that working for the Laundry, even when you aren't on the frontline poses to your health. What do you get when you mix unwell Laundry agents, secret geniuses, an overworked nurse and a computer that's been there since the 1960's? Nothing good, that's for sure!

[WorldconReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes! Another Laundry Files book!!! I absolutely recommend this to fans! I also recommend this to readers that enjoy dark humor, role playing games, and urban/occult fantasy. Just to be clear, I really liked this book.

Although this book does take place in the "Laundry Files" universe it is a standalone and could be a good introduction to the series which takes place on an Earth very much like ours with the exception that mathematics and computer technology can provide access to potentially very dangerous magical powers and beings. This book contains all the humor, adventure, excitement, danger, and blood that "Laundry Files" fans expect, along with a healthy dose of D&D and 80's nostalgia. "A Conventional Boy" introduces a new main character who is a skilled D&D Dungeon Master and adept at utilizing computational demonology, hence it is a good starting point for a newcomer to the series.

I thank Tor.com and Charles Stross for kindly providing an electronic review copy of this excellent book.

[Julian · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off, this is not really a new Laundry Files novel. It’s a novella occupying the first half of the book, the second half of which is the already-published short stories “Overtime” and “Down on the Farm.” The latter two are quite good, but if you’re a Laundry fan you’ve almost certainly already read them. It feels like they’re here as padding, so the rating here is primarily for the new story; add a star if you haven’t read the short stories.

The titular novella is a disappontingly flaccid waste of a strong premise: An origin story for the peripheral Laundry character Derek the DM set at a D&D convention where cultists are up to no good. It’s fine, but feels awfully threadbare and paint-by-numbers for the Laundry series at this point. You’ll get the sense you’ve read it before, and it was better the first time round. Hard to avoid the suspicion Stross phoned this one in to fill out a contractual obligation while he worked on the real next Laundry book.

[Timelord Iain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Standalone short novella in the Laundry Files universe. Includes Down on the Farm & Overtime as bonus material.

Takes place before The Rhesus Chart, but not safe to read until just before Season of Skulls, basically...

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating 4.5

Really enjoyed this novella/short story collection.
The two shorts I had read quite some years ago but they are fun to read again and are set in the Laundry that I prefer.
Tbh Didn’t really like the last three novels set in the New Management era.
The titular story I thought was very good and definitely up to the high standard and enjoyment levels of the initial novels in the series.
It was interesting in showing blind spots so to speak in the Laundry defences and intelligence gathering, if Derek hadn’t wanted to go to a convention the ending would have been quite different one supposes.

Rating was difficult as easily a 4 star if only for the new novella, the other stories were older and still worked for me.

Overall a solid return to classic Laundry territory I thought, well worth reading. One novel to go in the series now might start quick reread before it is published .

[Patrick Dewind · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is a novella with a couple short stories and an essay.

The eponymous novella, which has a delightfully punny name, delves into the world of tabletop gaming and live action roleplaying. I love it when a series has fleshed out the world to the point where it can bud off into other things, and the Laundry Files has done this with the New Managent and with a few other stories. I rather liked how this one went, and the protagonist was a seriously relatable old gaming nerd.

The short stories brought back Bob, which made me very happy. Much as I love the other characters he's what got me into the series, and he'll always have a special place in my heart.

In an afterward Stross goes into the history of the Satanic Panic of the 80's and its relationship to gaming. I remember those days rather well having been a young gamer and gotten to witness the hysteria surrounding my hobby. They made it sound WAY cooler than it was.

[Tim Hicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

dunno, it all felt a bit forced, as if the publisher demanded a book, Charlie was stuck until he saw a d20, and away we go, except there's only enough idea there to make a novella. So we get two previously-published items as filler in a book that's 39 bucks in Canada.

And this one gets off to a slow, slow start. That said, it's pedal to the metal after that, but of course we know Derek's going to get through it. Perhaps the book's a bit casual about real deaths in what started out as a game, but I suppose in the universe Stross has created it would be wrong to expect anything but a lot of deaths. most of them messy.

One could argue that we need a better explanation of how Derek's dice are so very useful, but I can see how an author could spend hours at that and fail, so let's just agree it was necessary and move on.

Let's just say I enjoyed this but I am glad I got it from the library. Ook.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a Welsh ‘Hi-di-Hi’ that Derek Reilly has been unable to escape from for 40 years. But he hasn’t really been bothered, he has had his postal Dungeons and Dragons to keep him busy. But then the camp being refurbished and an up coming D & G convention means escaping under the radar and grabbing a bus means he’s in his way. But this is the under-world of The Laundry Department, Occult and Elder Gods. Never was the throw of a multi-sided dice quite so terrifyingly life ending possibility. The book ends with three short stories, which while fun seem to be there just to pad out the word count. I was only disappointed that they didn’t include the characters from the main story. Thank you to Little, Brown Book Group Uk and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.