This is the first book I’ve read (well listened to) by Yahtzee, and it was an absolute delight. He’s well known as a comedy writer in the gaming industry, and I’d previously known him from his video reviews and play-throughs.
The text is very funny in itself, but Yahtzee’s reading also adds so much humor, I love the voices he does, it’s very easy to picture the characters. The story’s clever, a good satire of political correctness going a bit overboard, and a satisfying murder mystery with alien beings from other dimensions.
The story takes place in modern day England, where the Ministry of Occultism runs into a lot of trouble on account of the way they’ve been dealing with Shoggoths. This turns into a PR nightmare that the Ministry scrambles (and generally fails ) to fix. I really like the portrayal of government institutions making it up as they go along, jumping from one disaster to the next, all being handled by questionably competent, and definitely insane, people. It’s exactly how I imagine it goes in real life. I was happy with the plot, with a light comedy book I had my expectations pretty low, but I think it was all cleverly done, I was pleasantly surprised.
The characters were fun, I particularly liked Elisabeth, the one running most of the things in the Ministry, and (I’m sorry it’s only audiobook and I’m bad with names, the guy that handles PR,) that’s always angry and but well meaning and trying to fix things. There’s also the main character, Allison, that’s clever but ends up in way over her head, and a senior ministry agent that may or may not be completely mad. Shoggoths are lovely too, and some of the side characters, especially the ones out in the country with really funny accents.
Read this book if you like: comedy, satire, Douglas Adams, and maybe Rivers of London.
Avoid if: you want books that take themselves very seriously