Customer Reviews

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Johannes Cabal is not only a necromancer but a total jerk who suddenly finds giving up his soul to Satan has caused him a bit of a problem when it puts a stop to his research. In order to solve this he goes to Hell to meet with the Lord of Darkness in order to get his soul back. A wager of sorts is agreed upon with details set by Satan. The wager consists of bringing forth a dark carnival to help Cabal capture 100 souls in a year's time. If Cabal can accomplish this next to impossible task in the time allotted his soul will be returned to him. The Dark Carnival is of the of the soul-snatching kind, which apparently is not the only one Satan has in operation around the world. However, the one Cabal is given has to be totally reconstructed and revived. To accomplish the revival of the Dark Carnival Johannes enlists his estranged brother Horst, who is not very happy with him for reasons I won't mention here, but agrees to help him with a little arm twisting. Once Johannes resurrects his carnival workers and puts together some `freak show' entertainment he starts his journey to collect 100 souls.

Jonathan L. Howard's writing is outwardly humorous, dark, and brings to mind works by Terry Pratchett (`DiscWorld'), Douglas Adams (`Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'), and Christopher Moore (`Fool'). Sometimes the laughs are real `groaners' and the quirkiness leaves you feeling a little off center due to the rapid pace of the book. The unpredictability of one strange situation after another quickly building on each other is part of the charm of this book, so fasten your seat belt and give in to it to achieve maximum enjoyment.

Though I enjoyed the book I still felt there were portions of it that were hastily written. There are areas where it seems the author only gives the reader a glimpse of the surface when it feels like things should have dug a little bit deeper with the characters and how things impacted them. However, this is not to be considered a `deep' novel and Johannes Cabal doesn't even take his `badness' seriously as he somehow manages to show some emotional depth upon occasion. I enjoyed the laughs along with the light and easy writing style. If you enjoy reading Pratchett, Adams, and Moore you will enjoy `Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer'. Author Jonathan L. Howard has done himself proud.

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." Douglas Adams, `Mostly Harmless'

Johannes Cabal has sold his soul to the devil - with immediate possession - in exchange for magic and arcane wisdom that will help him further his research. But he discovers he needs his soul, not for any particular spiritual reason, but because he believes that being without it is hindering his work. And so he sets out to strong-arm Satan into giving it back. He's willing to make a deal, but both he and Satan drive hard bargains, and in the end, Johannes agrees that within the space of a single year he will deliver one hundred other souls in exchange for his own. And just because he's an okay guy, Satan gives Cabal a carnival. Not your fun-and-games, cotton candy and wild rides sort of carnival either, but one which has the potential to corrupt and destroy human beings.

There's something about this book which reminds me a great deal of Gaiman's and Pratchett's "Good Omens" which is one of my favorites. Probably it's the sense that what's going on in the narrative is serious stuff, and should be taken seriously... except it's not. The danger, the corruption, the infernal interference would all make a terrific horror novel, if it wasn't so damn funny. I guess that in the final analysis, evil isn't majestic or magnificent, but rather it's small and petty and even bureaucratic in nature. Evil is less being rent limb from limb by hell hounds and more getting pecked to death by ducks.

But there is an underlying seriousness within this book, and it's about the nature of the individual soul, about the relationships that have made the characters what they are, and which drive them to do what they do. That is, at least, deadly serious, and rightly so. And yet, that seriousness, and the sadness behind it, is always overlaid by a lively sense of the absurd, kept at arms length until the end when the bet with Satan ends and the truth about Cabal's work is made clear.

In spite of a few slow spots along the way, "Johannes Cabal, The Necromancer" held my attention both through my own sense of the absurd and my curiosity about how it would all turn out in the end. And I have to say that I was satisfied. I enjoyed the heck out of the book, and I think anyone who is willing to go along with the often hilarious narrative, will too.

The premise for the plotline is that Cabal had long ago lost his soul to the Devil in order to receive bountiful necromantic knowledge. At the start of the book, we find Cabal in a sorry and aggravated state, having discovered his study of necromancy cannot continue without it -- it being his soul. So he strikes a bargain, or rather a wager, with the Devil in affect declaring his intention to procure for the Devil 100 souls in one year, and the Devil gives him a carnival of sorts to do it with. Sure, the evil carnival is a staple, we've seen it in Matheson's work, in Lovecraft's, and in Bradbury's, and I loved the HBO show, which sadly got cancelled for reasons unknown. Even so, I was due for some evil carnival and a protagonist that could rub me in all the wrong ways. I also love very dry sarcastic British humour, of which, this book has plenty, and I love a Faustian story, especially when what appears on the surface is not the true essence of the story.

In my wanderings, I saw a lot of negative reviews of the book, mostly of the wanting mainstream styled writing, wanting endless back story, and wanting character motivation explored ad nausea. Sure Cabal was a snobby self-centred jerk who couldn't give a damn about anything but what he wanted ... and the Devil came off foolish, but it felt intentional to me. Many questioned how could the Devil fall for such trickery? I'll explain how I saw that later. And yes, the other characters in the book seemed trivial and one dimensional, but that's because they were and were meant to be it seemed to me. I felt the real essence of the story centred around Cabal trapped by his own design in a carnival house of mirrors, forced to look at his own reflection by proxy, and when his real motivations are revealed in the end -- by the end I mean the very last page -- it's so subtle that many readers might find it to be anti-climactic. Do we really always need fire and brimstone in the end? Sure, I had my issues with the book: I personally would have liked the carnival itself to have been fleshed out a little more, but since the focus was truly on Cabal, it wasn't necessary, even if it would have been enjoyable to read. To me, the author was exploring Cabal himself, so a plot driven action packed story wasn't really needed in my opinion. But that's just me. I loved HBO's Carnivale, and that got cancelled too, which means, maybe my opinion on such things is way off base. In any event, I will be looking for the next instalment of Johannes because by the last page of the book, when the subterfuge and self-preservation tactics fell away from him, I actually truly appreciated him as a character. Pitch-black as he was, he was very charismatic. And the book is just so darn funny. The mockery Howard makes of Hell is hilarious. It's dark comedy written with an absurdist's sense of style. Sure, it's a bit different than the normal redemption story, and I liked it because of that. As for everyone whining about how the Devil could be so easily fooled, well, the fact that Devil interfered with Cabal's quest was really a matter of principle. We would expect the Devil to play dirty, but he didn't play as dirty as he could have, which lead me to believe that he was not trying to thwart Cabal but to test his mettle. Cabal just had one of those souls that even the Devil couldn't keep in good conscience.

Despite its perceived flaws, I really enjoyed the book, and I see a promising future for Howard and Johannes Cabal.

When you sell your soul to the devil, there's always a catch. When Johannes Cabal sold his, he thought it was irrelevant to his researches. He found that it wasn't. So he went to Hell to get it back.

Now Satan isn't generally inclined to return souls, but he also loves a wager. So he made a bet: if Cabal garnered him 100 souls within a year, he could have his soul again. To assist him in this endeavour, Cabal was supplied with the Carnival of Discord, which he will staff with "people" conjured from bits of bone and hair and fat, with runaway insane asylum inmates (who chant a hymn to Cthulhu) and various and sundry other odd fellows. They travel the country, and at each stop Cabal gets more contracts signed.

The Faust legend is so old, and has been done so many times, that it's hard to find a fresh take on it. This Howard accomplishes, and he does so with a delightfully wry sense of humor. Did you know that you must apply to be admitted to Hell? If you don't fill out the "Infernal Regions (Local Authority) Hades Admission Application -- Provisional (AAAA/342)" properly, back you go to the end of the line, and a couple of thousand more forms, all vetted by the very annoying Arthur Trubshaw.

But there's more to this story than humor. We learn that Cabal is responsible for his brother's transformation to a vampire, yet he calls upon him for help in his quest. The brother is the moral side of Cabal, and as they travel, carnies together, this rubs off on Cabal, until, at last, he must trick the Devil again.

A most enjoyable first novel, and it's not a surprise when one reads in the Acknowledgments a brief homage to Ray Bradbury, whose Something Wicked This Way Comescaused Howard to wonder where an evil carnival would come from. He has given us a quite credible answer here.

Kudos to Jonathan Howard, who has conjured up a fiendishly clever and intelligent novel in the delightfully campy "Johannes Cabal, the Necromancer". Playfully poking fun from "Faust" to Stephen King, Howard's keen insight of human behavior matches his razor sharp prose and dialogue, spinning an offbeat and macabre yarn as whimsical as Arthur Phillip's "The Egyptologist", but told with the literary flare and sophistication of Louis Bayard's "Pale Blue Eye".

Johannes Cabal is "the Necromancer" - a cold-hearted but brilliant scientist who made the proverbial "deal with the devil" to gain the tools of his nefarious trade. He is also an insufferable snob who applies his caustic wit with rapier accuracy on all of those unfortunate enough to cross his path. But recognizing the mistake he's made, Cabal journeys to Hell to make a new deal with Satan: his own soul back in exchange for one hundred more, signed and delivered in exactly one year. With that backdrop, Johannes sets out, with the help of his accidental vampire older brother Horst, leading the literal "carnival from Hell" - an outrageous collection of ghouls straight from "Night of the Dead" central casting, but toned with Three-Stooges grade slapstick and the inventiveness of J.R.R. Tolkien. Howard spices his yearlong rail journey across England with one neat predicament after another, including a thought-provoking, Einstein-inspired visit to Oblivion, while the action never wanes and the dark chuckles continue to build. In keeping with the style and Johannes' genius, Howard will keep even the most accomplished linguist on his/her toes with "tatterdemalions" and "thaumaturgists" and a touch of "excrescence", the "peripatetic", or the "perspicacious", making a good case for Kindle's build-in dictionary. But aside from the black humor and camp, Howard tucks a moral message between the pages, finishing with a poignant and more than satisfying flourish.

In short, an original and highly entertaining new novel from a writer who masters the rare combination of elegant prose and great storytelling. Easily in my top five of the year.

I always thought that carnivals seemed slightly dangerous and evil--and this fabulous book reached into my mind and made me say--that's right! I knew it!

Firstly, this is my new favorite novel, ever. I want to make sweet love to it or at least take it out for a nice dinner and a peck on the cheek. And cheek this book has in spades. And spades too. And more shivery evil than a clown convention.

If you enjoy dry, biting humor and the ability to laugh at the absurd you must read this book. I would buy action figures if they were available. Every character in this book is an absolute character whether you love them or hate them. And in the end, your opinion of each may change several times.

Please Mr. Howard, lock yourself in a dungeon and don't come out until you have ten more books about Mr. Cabal. If need be I'll chuck homemade brownies and tea over the wall on a regular basis, just please get to it!

After a few false starts, I found myself unable to stop reading this book. Johannes Cabal is not an interesting character right off the bat, we have to wait until things get get started to really start to enjoy him.

As a Necromancer, Cabal has found that things don't go the way they are supposed to when the man in charge has no soul. Having sold his a while back in order to learn the secrets of necromancy in a hurry, Cabal has found that he's basically foiled himself, and he needs his soul back. Traveling to Hell to strike yet another deal with Satan, Cabal agrees to obtain 100 souls within one year for Satan in order to get his very own back. Given the use of a carnival that never got up off the ground, Cabal sets off to entrap doomed souls with the help of his brother Horst, who is a vampire.

This book was interesting, but I wasn't too pleased with some of the vagueness. Of course I didn't want to go into excruciating detail for the procurement of each and every soul, but time passes sort of without warning here (I guess as it does in life?) and that threw me off a bit.

We are treated to a few surprises when it comes to the morality of several characters, and I like that unexpectedness. A real treat is waiting for the reader at the end of the book, and that is nice, it casts a little more insight on the tale as a whole. The story has traces of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's collaboration "Good Omens," and that in itself is a comparison that I'm certain is an honor to have.

A very enjoyable spin on the old Faustian classic, this comes highly recommended

I was hooked on this book by the end of the first 2 pages. Great story about a man who has previously sold his soul to the devil (in order to gain knowledge about bringing the dead back to life...hence the Necromancer title) and has now regretted that decision. The story walks through his attempt to regain his soul after he challenges Satan to a contest. He must gather 100 souls in a 1 year period for him to get his soul back. Sounds depressing and dark? Well, I must say that the author adds quite a bit of humor to the story to help the reader digest some the horrible events that are described. Murder (or self defense depending on how you look at it), trickery and even failed (or horribly gone wrong) experiments to family members are described in a way that made me laugh because the main character, Johannes comes off as naïve in a lot of the circumstances. On the surface, his strong desire to succeed in getting his soul back makes you think that he will do anything to accomplish his task. However, along the way, there are some touching times where his humanity comes to life and he becomes a somewhat of a redeemable character in my eyes. The first of these happens at a train station where the end result of his encounter surprised me.

I like the idea of using a carnival as a main place to find people willing (or unwilling) to sign their souls away. No better place than a location where a lot of weird stuff happens and people will believe anything they see or hear, even if they don't want to. My favorite character in the book is Johannes's brother Horst. Don't want to ruin the premise behind his story but he was quite amusing.

Excellent read if you are into these types of themes where the devil is involved. I couldn't help but think of the TV show "Reaper" while reading this book as the show had a somewhat related premise where a kid had his soul sold to the devil and he is constantly trying to get it back. Yes, that was a comedy as well but unfortunately cancelled after a few seasons.

The first thing I'd like to say about this book is "Great cover!" Props to the cover designer.

Johannes Cabal sold his soul to the devil, and he wants it back! He barges into Hell and tries to make yet another deal with the devil. Naturally, the devil has a no refund policy, but likes to wager and agrees to a bet with Cabal. Within 1 year, Cabal has to obtain one-hundred souls for the devil, and if he succeeds he'll get his own soul back.

To help him along the way, the devil gives him a bit of magic, and a travelling carnival. Johannes Cabal the Necromancer is about the misadventures along the way.

It's a fairly clever story, and amusing AT TIMES, but certainly not "wickedly funny" as stated. The writing tries too hard at times, and there is minimal character development; though I do love Johannes's brother, the vampire, Horst.

There are vampires, zombies and other creatures of mystery but they don't do many vampire, zombie or creature of mystery type things. Mostly, they are background, and fairly human.

Overall, an enjoyable read.

I really enjoyed the book - it is more than meets the eye. At first glance it reads like a typical Brit humorous fantasy (Good Omens comes to mind), but it actually has quite a bit to say about the nature of good and evil and the choices we make. A bit hastily written in palces, and the tone may not be for everyone, but overall a very impressive first novel.

That said, the Kindle edition is truly strange. The font size seems to change radically form chapter to chapter. On first opening the book, the font was huge so I set it smaller. Then later on, it became tiny, so I went back to my normal setting. And so on. It is also somehow difficult to read - as if teh overall justification and spacing is off.