The Concrete Jungle by Charles Stross

“The Concrete Jungle” is a 2004 science fiction novella by Charles Stross. It is about an agent who works for a secret British intelligence organization handling supernatural cases, and his discovery that someone has hacked into their deadly network.

Non-Spoiler Summary In A Nutshell:

Bob Howard, an agent for “The Laundry,” has just discovered that someone has hacked into his organization’s extremely deadly alien prevention network. As he re-traces the intruder’s steps he comes across more and more wild information regarding Gorgonism, secret Nazi experiments, the true reason for DRM, a camera network that can kill instantly and an internal coup involving bizarre agents of the underworld. He takes it all in stride though, and consistently performs his duties – but will his loyalties hold up in the end when innocent police detectives and several of his co-workers are involved in a deadly political power play? Hmm… a very good question indeed.

“Ground zero, range twenty metres. Subject is bovine, down, clearly terminal. Length is roughly three metres, breed . . . unidentifiable. The grass around it is charred but there’s no sign of secondary combustion.” I dry-swallow. “Thermal bloom from abdomen.” There’s a huge rip in its belly where the boiling intestinal fluids exploded, and the contents are probably still glowing red-hot inside.

My Two Cents:

• The good:

• Wow – this is one of the coolest and most unique ideas for a story I have come across in a long time! A very action packed combination of several seemingly unrelated concepts. Amazing!
• Personally I loved all the scientific analysis of Gorgonism. That whole part was a brilliant idea that made this story extremely intriguing.
• There were several humorous parts in “The Concrete Jungle” as well – like the conversations about why the Business Software Alliance is evil, and how DRM is really an excuse to get a software back-door into nationally controlled traffic cameras! I was laughing out loud at these clever parts!

• The bad:

• The is a LOT of very strong language in “The Concrete Jungle” – definitely not for kids or people who don’t like that kind of stuff.
• This is a very long story – in fact it took me a few days to read it. It is cool though – so maybe best to break it up into smaller chunks for reading.

Fact Sheet:
• Page Count: 59
• Word Count: 28,796
• “The Concrete Jungle” garnered the following awards:

• It won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Novella.
• It placed 2nd in the 2005 Locus Poll for Best Novella.

Where you can find “The Concrete Jungle”:

• This novella first appeared as one of the stories in the 2004 novel The Atrocity Archives
  - the other story in that book is also about Bob Howard!
• You can read a free HTML version of this story at the web site for Golden Gryphon Press.

Some Interesting Links:

• Did you know that Charles Stross, the author of this story, once wrote a monthly Linux column for Computer Shopper magazine? Yep. You can learn more about this amazing science fiction author on his web site.

Craving More Stories?
If you enjoyed this story then you might also like The Green Leopard Plague, about a genetically altered mermaid who is researching why the founder of her modern society went missing for three weeks, by Walter Jon Williams.

Subscribe to BestScienceFictionStories.com