Episode 0032: THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES by Charles Stross
That shrieking, agonizing wail you just heard was all the clocks at The Secret Lair springing forward. We are now free from the vile grip of Daylight Saving Time, but at what cost? All this bouncing around backward and forward in time takes a heavy toll on mind, body and soul. Not to mention minions. The clocks in the Lair are all perfectly synchronized, but synchronizing with an atomic clock is terribly pedestrian. Cesium atoms may have been fine for 1955 but this is the twenty-first century, and we have standards. We also have a tachyon transference array that may or may not be of extraterrestrial origin. This gives us heretofore-unprecedented chronometric accuracy…so long as you never change the clocks. And so, twice a year, we cross our fingers and hope that the temporal slingshot effect won’t send all or part of the Lair hurtling anywhere from a few seconds to a few thousand years past the mark as we spring forward and fall back. If you’re reading this in the spring of 2010, it means we’ve survived another time change more or less intact, and it’s time for another gripping and informative episode of The Secret Lair.
St Urho’s Day is a celebration of a fictional fellow who drove all of the grasshoppers out of Finland. From Wikipedia:
The legend of St. Urho was the invention of a Finnish-American named Richard Mattson, who worked at Ketola’s Department Store in Virginia, Minnesota in spring of 1956. Mattson later recounted that he invented St. Urho when he was questioned by coworker Gene McCavic about the Finns’ lack of a saint like the Irish St. Patrick, whose feat of casting the snakes out of Ireland is remembered on St. Patrick’s Day. In fact, the patron saint of Finland is Henry (Bishop of Finland).
Promo: The Command Line podcast.
Discussion: The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
The Atrocity Archives is the first book in Charles Stross’ Laundry series; it contains two stories: “The Atrocity Archive” and “The Concrete Jungle”. The second novel in the series is The Jennifer Morgue. The third novel, The Fuller Memorandum, will be released later this year.- Overlord Johnson really enjoyed Glasshouse and Saturn’s Children, but felt that The Atrocity Archives was essentially a pulp novel that explains too much.
- Overlord Miller recently reviewed Halting State and is currently reading Iron Sunrise. He classifies The Atrocity Archives as “hacker pulp”.
- Our friend Gus has a review of the audio edition of The Atrocity Archives on his blog.
- The Atrocity Archives may not be the best introduction to Stross; the Overlords recommended checking out some of his non-Laundry novels first.
Promo: Kronos by Jeremy Robinson.
Lairkeeping
- Our blog, you’re reading it.
- 140 characters? Try our StatusNet.
- More than 140 characters? Try our community site.
- Our next selection for The Secret Library is The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell.
- On our next episode: A special preview of Project Truth from Evil Overlord Games.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:55 — 28.3MB)
Uhm… not sure I’m understanding that correctly, but you are aware that DST is during the spring/summer/fall, right? We don’t care about saving time during the winter, apparently…
@Gaston — The fact that you’ve bought into the “official” explanation for when Daylight Saving Time really occurs is simply further evidence that the entire process needs to be eliminated. I’d go into detail here, but if I pull back the veil all at once your head will explode. Let me just say this: what you understand about Daylight Saving Time is a lie, and your buying into that lie means the Illuminati and their dark masters are winning.
I really enjoyed and heartily recommend “The Wordy Shipmates.” I kind of wish Sarah Vowell could be my son’s high school history teacher. Overlords, get on that, would you?