Charles Stross Books in Order

This handbook explains how to plan, design and maintain professional websites using the tools of the early web. It covers hypertext organization, HTML, higher-level utilities and software engineering practices, reflecting web architecture in the mid-1990s.

This collection explores strange futures through stories of technological disruption, political danger and dark humor. Pieces including Antibodies, Bear Trap and A Colder War examine the unintended consequences of human ambition when discoveries or powerful systems escape their expected limits.

An alien information exchange floods a technologically repressive society with forbidden inventions, provoking revolutionary chaos. Engineer Martin Springfield and diplomat Rachel Mansour must contain the resulting military crisis before humanity's powerful artificial overseer intervenes on a galactic scale.

The destruction of Moscow's star triggers retaliatory missiles aimed at innocent New Dresden. Agent Rachel Mansour investigates the true attackers, while a troubled teenage survivor unknowingly holds crucial information that could prevent another catastrophe and expose the enemy.

Computer technician Bob Howard works for Britain's secret agency defending against supernatural threats. When he attracts official attention, routine data recovery gives way to fieldwork involving parallel worlds, terrorists and ancient horrors that require more than technical competence.

Journalist Miriam Beckstein receives a mysterious locket and discovers she can travel to a parallel Earth. Meeting her powerful birth family draws her into a world where medieval politics, criminal trade and modern technology create deadly entanglements.

Three generations of the Macx family navigate accelerating technological change as artificial intelligence, biotechnology and extraterrestrial contact transform civilization. Entrepreneur Manfred, spacefaring daughter Amber and grandson Sirhan struggle to preserve their futures in a rapidly evolving posthuman universe.

Miriam Beckstein finds herself entangled in the rivalries of wealthy families who trade between parallel worlds. Applying modern business methods offers possibilities for independence, but family obligations, concealed schemes and dangerous contraband threaten her survival and ambitions.

With most of his memories erased and an unknown pursuer threatening him, Robin joins an experiment simulating an earlier society. His new identity offers concealment, but the enclosed environment leaves him vulnerable to manipulation and hidden dangers.

During the Cold War, Earth's continents abruptly appear on an immense artificial disk under an unfamiliar sky. As scientists investigate the transformation, American and Soviet ambitions persist, turning the unexplored landscape into another arena for dangerous rivalry.

Miriam builds a legitimate business in a third timeline, hoping to escape her powerful family's control. But clan politics tighten around her, and a proposed royal marriage threatens to turn her independence into another tool of dynastic ambition.

Laundry operative Bob Howard must stop billionaire Ellis Billington from recovering an ancient supernatural horror from the ocean floor. Billington's ambitions threaten global disaster, drawing Bob's computational demonology skills into a dangerous mission against wealth and occult power.

Edinburgh police investigate an apparently impossible bank robbery inside an online fantasy game. Orcs and a dragon seem like unlikely suspects, but the theft threatens a real company's finances and exposes dangers extending beyond the virtual world.

Miriam Beckstein hides in another world after escaping an unwanted royal betrothal. Civil war engulfs the Clan's homeland, while rival factions pursue their interests and dangers she does not yet understand threaten her chances of remaining free.

Long after humanity's extinction, android Freya Nakamichi-47 accepts a delivery job from Mercury to Mars. The package makes her a target for powerful pursuers, forcing a machine built for obsolete human desires into an interplanetary struggle.

Civil war traps the Clan's army under siege across two universes, while its leader's stroke encourages political maneuvering. Miriam becomes the focus of a progressive faction's ambitions as an American technological breakthrough threatens to reshape the conflict.

These stories range from secret agent Bob Howard’s occult investigations to time travel on a vast scale. Palimpsest, Missile Gap and other pieces explore altered histories, dangerous technologies and the unpredictable ways humanity tries to manage its own future.

Laundry operative Bob Howard investigates unusual activity at an obscure government institution housing agents whose minds have broken. What appears to be another neglected bureaucratic facility draws him into the dangerous consequences of Britain's secret supernatural work.

Bob Howard travels into the English countryside to investigate an outbreak for Britain's secret occult security service. The threat involves unicorns, whose real nature proves far more dangerous than folklore suggests: ravenous creatures from beyond ordinary spacetime.

With the Laundry operating on minimal staffing over Christmas, one duty officer must respond when an otherworldly threat approaches. The Thing That Comes Down Chimneys turns an unappealing holiday shift into a battle to prevent humanity's destruction.

A classified dossier disappears from the Laundry archives along with Bob Howard's boss. Investigating the suspected theft brings Bob into conflict with Russian agents, ancient demons and a cult preparing to summon a monstrous undead entity.

A rogue Clan faction launches nuclear attacks in America, leaving Miriam and her relatives facing annihilation across parallel worlds. Political conspiracies close off potential refuges, while New Britain's own upheavals make escape increasingly uncertain and dangerous.

Edinburgh detective Liz Kavanaugh monitors online criminal trends until murders of former spammers reveal an international pattern. Investigating the deaths raises a disturbing question about the killer's nature, while the threat risks spreading far beyond her jurisdiction.

Oshi Adjani carries out dangerous missions for a superintelligent artificial intelligence in a galaxy administered by machines. Sent toward a colony threatened by still more advanced intelligences, she must navigate chaos while her employer treats her as expendable.

Deception and engineering collide in an alternative-universe story centered on an improbable means of rocket propulsion. Stross combines technological speculation with an unusual scheme, exploring the possibilities opened by a machine that challenges familiar expectations about spaceflight.

Bob Howard joins the Laundry's External Assets division, overseeing freelance agents on sensitive assignments. When an American televangelist becomes close to Britain's prime minister, an infiltration of his ministry investigates the supernatural influence behind his political ambitions.

Metahuman Krina searches for her missing sister across interstellar space, carrying part of a valuable financial instrument. Pirates interrupt her journey, while an assassin pursues the secret whose reunited pieces could destabilize entire civilizations and their economies.

London bankers develop vampiric symptoms after encountering a dangerous occult parasite. Newly promoted Laundry manager Bob Howard investigates the outbreak despite institutional disbelief and bureaucratic delays, uncovering a conspiracy that links the financial world with supernatural predators.

Dominique O'Brien leads efforts to manage civilians developing supernatural abilities while her marriage to Bob Howard falters. Her dangerous bone violin complicates the assignment, invading her dreams and threatening the people she is supposed to protect.

Newly vampiric banker Alex Schwartz joins the Laundry and is sent to assess a Leeds bunker. Returning to his hometown creates family complications, while an attractive drama student conceals secrets that make his undead condition seem ordinary.

Across parallel timelines, intelligence chief Miriam Burgeson and her estranged daughter Rita serve opposing powers. As American technology reaches the Commonwealth, espionage agencies struggle to manage first contact without turning a dangerous confrontation into catastrophic nuclear war.

After an elven invasion exposes the Laundry's existence, Bob Howard must answer public questions about Britain's occult security agency. Political scrutiny brings a new threat: a government determined to privatize the service responsible for preventing supernatural catastrophe.

Two nuclear powers in parallel timelines approach confrontation as intelligence agencies maneuver through surveillance and political crises. Miriam's agents attempt a risky extraction, while a sleeper cell in her daughter Rita's world threatens an already fragile balance.

Serving Britain's new eldritch prime minister, Mhari Murphy leads former Laundry agents into America to investigate its missing president. Widespread supernatural interference obscures the truth, forcing her team to question its mission and the loyalties behind it.

In a Britain where magical powers are spreading, supernatural enforcement worker Wendy Deere pursues a gang of petty criminals. A billionaire's search for a forbidden book draws them into a dangerous heist involving corrupt power and occult threats.

Political turmoil and a cross-timeline arms race leave Miriam Burgeson vulnerable to rivals after her leader's death. Meanwhile, exploration by high-tech America awakens an alien threat that could force opposing human powers to confront a shared catastrophe.

Sent to Japan, Bob Howard works with the Miyamoto Group to inspect protections containing supernatural beings. The routine liaison assignment escalates as increasingly troublesome yokai culminate in a confrontation with a powerful pink entity offering a familiar greeting.

Eve Starkey inherits a corporation and a lethal trap, while Wendy Deere investigates unauthorized supernatural activity. Elsewhere, a disguised nanny and a grocery-chain manager face dangerous schemes, drawing their separate troubles together in Britain's increasingly magical society.

Eve Starkey believes she has defeated her dangerous billionaire employer, but an undisclosed marriage keeps her bound to him. Running his corporation offers little protection when Britain’s supernatural prime minister sends an emissary with an offer she cannot safely refuse.

Queen Elizabeth’s accumulated supernatural power makes her a threat to Britain’s eldritch prime minister and a target for a rebellious Laundry faction. Bob Howard and Mo O’Brien are drawn back into service to protect her from an occult assassin.

Imprisoned for decades after a government raid on his teenage role-playing game, Derek escapes to attend a convention. When a live-action game becomes a ritual summoning real evil, he and his fellow players must stop a threat beyond their imagined adventures.