Not my favourite Laundry-related book. A trip down the ghost roads to a version of the Village from The Prisoner that shouldn't exist, and there follows a magical/historical romp as told by a super-nerd with all the affected emphasis of a super-nerd narrated by someone doing a note-perfect super-nerd imitation and honestly it bashes all the irony that makes reading the Laundry books such fun out of the text when there's so much heavy emphasis and tonal hand-waving going on. There's some mighty clever stuff going on here, to be sure, but sometimes just sit back and let the reader apreciate the cleverness, don't go out of your way to actualise it as a reference/punchline. Still, solidly fun Stross.