In one of my odder switches, I’m replacing You Can Do Anything, Daddy with The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross. From robot gorilla pirates from Mars to Cthulhu meets Bond meets the British civil service meets computer culture.
That’s a lot of meeting there, really.
You did read the first Bob Howard novel “The Atrocity Archives”? Otherwise, characters in this novels will make no sense as well as the ground rules of the game.
Somewhere around eight or nine times, although I certainly agree that people should read that book first. I *think* that people could get away with not reading it, but what the heck; it’s a great book, too.
I think even without reading the first book, what’s going on in this one will be horribly obvious to anyone even glancingly familiar with a certain famous series of spy movies, but even so Stross spins the tale really well so that you don’t see the denouement coming.