04/13/04 TUE:
---Word from Golden Gryphon:
Greetings from the Gryphon:

THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES, by Charles Stross, is now available!

The Listener at the Gate . . .
In Charles Stross’s world of “The Atrocity Archive,” Alan Turing, the
Father of Modern Computer Science, did in fact complete his theorem on
“Phase Conjugate Grammars for Extra-dimensional Summoning.” Turing’s
work paved the way for esoteric mathematical computations that, when
carried out, had side effects that would leak through some kind of channel
underlying the structure of the Cosmos. And out there in the multiverse were
“listeners” – and sometimes these listeners could be coerced into opening
gates: Small gates through which minds could be transferred and, occasionally,
large gates through which objects could be moved.
In 1945, Nazi Germany’s Ahnenerbe-SS, in an attempt to escape the
Allied onslaught, performed just such a summoning on the souls of more than
six million. A gate was opened to an alternate universe through which the SS
moved men and matériel – to live to fight another day, as it were. But their
summoning brought forth more than the SS had bargained for – an Evil,
patiently waiting all this time while learning the ways of humans, now poised
to lunch on our galaxy, on our very own Earth.
Secret intelligence agencies, esoteric theorems, Lovecraftian horrors,
Mid East terrorist connections, a damsel in distress, and a final battle on the
surface of a dying planet – in “The Atrocity Archive,” Charles Stross has
written a high-octane thriller, and readers need to buckle up and hold on with
both hands!

“The Atrocity Archive” is a 78,000 word novel, previously serialized
in the U.K. magazine Spectrum SF, and now published for the first time in an
archival-quality hardcover. This volume also contains a new, previously
unpublished novella, “The Concrete Jungle,” that features the further
adventures of Bob Howard, the reluctant hero in “The Atrocity Archive” – a
wisecracking, occasionally insubordinate, computer-hacker desk jockey,
whose just itching for some field ops. Bob works for “The Laundry,” a British
ultra-secret intelligence organization – and in “The Concrete Jungle,” a power
struggle erupts between management, and Bob is unavoidably caught in the
middle.

With an Introduction by noted British SF author Ken MacLeod, and an
Afterword by Charles Stross in which he explores the distinction between the
spy thriller and the horror story.

The Atrocity Archives
by Charles Stross
cover art by Steve Montiglio
ISBN 1-930846-25-8 / $24.95 (Trade hardcover)
273 pages
---endqoute.

---I will have to check to make sure I have this pre-ordered. If so, it should be here in a week or so.