This is an excellent follow up to The Atrocity Archives.

On the plus side, Stross managed to tone down the technobabble from ridiculous to only mildly over the top. There’s still more than enough references to enjoy and enough neat world building on the (non Euclidean) edges between technology and demonology, but it’s not quite hitting you over the head like the first one did.

On the other hand, what he gave up in technobabble, he replaced with spybabble. There are are strong hints of spy novel trappings all over the book. Let’s just say though, they are there for a good reason.

One neat addition to this book (although I don’t know if she’ll be back) is the character of Ramona Random. She's not entirely human and has a succubus along for the ride (which leads to some more distinctly R rated scenes than the first book had), but I thought she was a really interesting character. Despite–or perhaps because of–her rather problematic backstory, I really started to root for her throughout the book.

Also Mo. She’s something of a badass now, taking on the bigwigs both in the Laundry and in the real world. Her violin is an especially interesting bit of world building. I especially love her part towards the end even if I’ll admit that I didn’t see the twist coming as soon as I could have. I do hope they do more with her in the latter books.