Charles Stross' "Snowball’s Chance": A criminal cons the Devil

This is either a particularly bad piece by Stross, or he writes only for audiences that have English as their first language. How else can humor be such a tedious read, from one of the supposedly better modern authors of the genre?

Thing I found most irritating was dialogs that are phonetizations of some dialect of spoken English, rather than in normal English. And somewhat liberal use of less common words. While I could follow the gist of the story, there were portions that just went over my head.

You can download the full text of the story here.

Story summary.
Global warming has made life miserable at many places on earth. "collapse of the West Antarctic ice shelf" has sunk many former lands under the sea. But resulting changes to some ocean streams has made England a much colder country. US has deployed a large parasol in space to reduce some of the solar heat reaching earth.

Davy, a criminal, is visiting Deid Nurse, a bar, somewhere in Edinburgh, England. That is where he is visited by the Devil! Looks like Devil owes Davy a debt - because Davy's criminal activities would normally have been Devil's job. Devil grants Davy a boon.

After some negotiations, Davy demands removal of US parasol in sky - so his place will warm again. Granted. Devil has arranged a "rock about the size of this pub, traveling on a cometary orbit" in space, to hit the parasol & destroy it. Apparently, it will not actually come closer to earth to cause direct harm, because there is no further talk of it.

That is when Davy gives his nasty smile & demands further boons. Devil doesn't think any further boons are due. Until Davy reminds him that he got the first boon by making life miserable for only a few thousand people; how many billions' lives will be made miserable by destruction of the parasol?

Fact sheet.
"Snowball’s Chance", short story, review
First published: Subterranean, Summer 2007.
Rating: B