Chances are, if you read my blog, you probably read John Scalzi's, but if you don't, you should know that he's just posted a terrific little interview with Charles Stross on his other blog, mostly about Stross's new novel, The Jennifer Morgue.

I just finished the novel this morning, after rereading The Atrocity Archives before Thanksgiving to get back up to speed. My brain's in my head a little sideways at the moment, in that I've been working on the bit in End of the Century about an operative of MI8, a British secret service who deals with matters beyond the ken of regular folks... which is an idea I introduced in a Bonaventure-Carmody story back in the old Clockwork Storybook days, around the same time that Atrocity Archives was being serialized in Spectrum SF, a few years before I had a chance to read it. Problem is, Stross is treading very similar ground to what I'd worked up, but does so in a way that makes me look like a piker.

Admittedly, it's an idea that others have used before -- Kim Newman's Diogenes Club stories spring to mind, and I suppose the BBC is getting some mileage out of it with Torchwood, as well -- but Stross's Laundry and my MI8 are pretty close neighbors, up to and including both having roots in the WWII-era doings of the Special Operations Executive.

I like my own little occult spies too much to cut them loose, though, so they stay in the picture. But I don't kid myself that they're anywhere near as clever as Bob Howard and his crew at the Laundry. I'm reminded of Thomas Pynchon including a note in Gravity's Rainbow exhorting readers to check out Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo if they want to learn about African-American secret societies. I don't think I'd go quite as far as to put a foot note in End of the Century, but trust me when I say that if you want to read about occult secret agents, Charles Stross is the guy to go to.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying, go check out the interview, already!