Johannes Cabal The Necromancer

By: Jonathan L. Howard

Narrated by: Christopher Cazenove

Johannes Cabal, a brilliant scientist and notorious snob, is single-mindedly obsessed in heart and soul with raising the dead. Well, perhaps not soul . . . He hastily sold his years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. But now, tormented by a dark secret, he travels to the fiery pits of Hell to retrieve it. Satan, who is incredibly bored these days, proposes a little wager: Johannes has one year to persuade one hundred people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever.

To make the bet even more interesting, Satan throws in that diabolical engine of deceit, seduction, and corruption known as a “traveling circus” to aid in the evil bidding. What better place exists to rob poor sad saps of their souls than the traveling carnivals historically run by hucksters and legendary con men?

With little time to lose, Johannes raises a motley crew from the dead and enlists his brother, Horst, a charismatic vampire, to be the carnival’s barker. On the road through the pastoral English countryside, this team of reprobates wields their black magic with masterful ease, resulting in mayhem at every turn.©2009 Jonathan L. Howard; (P)2009 Random House

Absolutely wonderful narrator

The narrator was just the best that could be for this story. His accents were great, all of them. The story has a solid pace, somewhat like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, you either like it or you don't.The humour is as dry as an autumn leaf, and thinly served up, so as not to overwhelm. A very good listen.

Humorous Faustian Tale with Memorable Moments

Non-spoilery summary: A necromancer runs Satan's carnival to recover his soul.

This was a weird one for me. I can't say that I liked it, but I certainly liked parts of it. And, for what it's worth, I am tempted to read another one in the series.

As a horror book, it's undermined by some goofy humor and clunky Lovecraft references. As a humor book, it's undermined by playing it straight too often. And while some readers in our book club didn't mind the way the book played fast and loose with its setting (time and place), the numerous contradictions along that line really bothered me. But the characters are very interesting and there are a few passages that show real brilliance.

If you like tongue-in-cheek, gothic/weird horror, this might be one for you. It's definitely interesting. Because of its unevenness, however, I can't quite recommend it.

Mixed Feelings

I have mixed feelings about this book. Howard's sense of humor is similar to that of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams (two of my favorites), but it was combined with some very dark, and at times disturbing bits that didn't seem to mix right with the lighthearted humor that pervades the narrative. The biggest issue I had with it though, is that it seems to suffer from having too many main characters. I went into the book expecting the story to be about Johannes Cabal, yet it ends up being more about the carnival than about Cabal. The story is told from the points of view of a variety of characters, some of whom only appear in the story for a brief moment. These scenes didn't seem to add much to the story, and I found them to be too much of a distraction from the characters I really wanted to get to know - Cabal and his brother. There is also a side character who is introduced about 2/3rds of the way through the book whose point of view suddenly dominates the story. He becomes almost like a 3rd main character who you come to know almost better than the Cabal brothers, but who seems to have been introduced as an afterthought, or as a tool to get to the end of the plot. This book left me feeling as though I was only watching the story from the outside, not experiencing it the way I wanted to. In general, I think it had potential, but maybe suffered from a bit of "first book syndrome." I plan on reading the next one but will be looking for some significant improvement and hopefully a much deeper understanding of Johannes Cabal.

I read it once and listened twice so far!

This book is perfect, the narration is wonderful and absolutely makes this one of my all time favorites.

simply marvelous

A bit of the tale left open ended, but not obnoxiously so. Narration was fantastic.