This series gets better and better. I am seeing the sneakiness of Howard and his sleight of hand methods regarding character building. The third book in this series has much to take in. We find our Anti-Hero Cabal thrust into the Dreamlands of all creatures great and small.

Now before touting this book I have to say that I cannot help but think this is a Love Letter to not only H.P. Lovecraft but Brian Lumley as well. And I am going to go more with Lumley simply because a good chunk of his catalogue takes place in these off handed, lethal and phantasmagoric netherworlds of human dreams and imagination. This book is good, solid and has tons of crafty ideas thrown into it. Cabal journeying into a swashbuckling and mind-numbing void of dreams and human consciousness with a group of companions who looking to discover and eradicate the source all mankind’s fear is nice touch. What a better place to achieve this than the world that forms and shapes our deepest and darkest fears. In the middle of this we find the author interjecting himself into our story without really being told he is doing so. That aspect becomes much more obvious in the fourth installment. As a series the reader is learning to understand Johannes and his methods a bit more and some cases sympathize with him and his cause. But just when we think Johannes is about to cross over to the land of giving a darn…he does a complete about face and throws it right back at us in such a wittingly matter that we as readers cannot help snicker to ourselves in light of, for the better lack of words, a character questioning our intelligence. That is ok though, Howard makes it very clear that being daft compared to Johannes is ok and that we should not concern ourselves with it...because it is not just the reader who is of lesser intelligence…it is the entire human species who are suffering from this unfortunate mental disposition and that makes us glad for some reason. ( )

Didn't realize that this was a sequel until I looked it up on Goodreads, but I'm delighted to say that I barely noticed I'd missed anything--unlike some other sequels I've accidentally picked up, this book gives you enough information to be getting on with. Which is why it was such a disappointment to reach the end and get such a rude drop-off. Thanks for reading, you don't actually get an end until you read the next book. Thanks, thanks a lot.

Other than that, this was a very fun read. Howard is very inventive, not only in his original elements but in his use of existing literature, like H. P. Lovecraft. It was a bit like reading an adult take on A Series of Unfortunate Events: serious happenings, but described in quite funny ways.

I love the book cover design, though I do think the title could have used a little tweaking. The previous two books are, "Johannes Cabal the [Necromancer/Detective]"--so the title of this book makes it sound like Cabal *is* the Fear Institute.

Quotes (pretty much all my favorite kind of wordplay)

26) Once one went beyond that, however, one effectively hobbled oneself, leaving oneself vulnerable and liable to one becoming zero, and one wouldn't like that.
Just one sample of the clever writing. Honestly surprised I've never seen an author play on the use of "one" before!

38) Musically, his attempts at 'Chopsticks' sounded like Stravinsky in a temper, his art was inferior to a manatee's attempts at finger painting, and what his prose lacked in style, it also lacked in adverbs.
Burn! (I'm most fond of the middle metaphor)

75) Bose, to his credit, saw it coming. Bose, to his debit, reacted by moaning and fainting.

118) None of the crew had ever seen a man vomit in a dignified manner, and it worried them in a disquietingly undefined fashion [to see it done].

241) "Cats, as any rational person knows, are solitary, opportunistic, ambush predators, much like spiders, but with fewer legs and a better fan club."
I raise my hand as a guilty member of this fan club. ( )

Excellent. Number 2 The Detective was less paranormal than number 1. I liked that less and had low expectations for 3, but three was excellent. ( )

I was slightly less than enthused with the previous novel in this series (capers on an airship with little no to supernatural elements doesn't quite do it for me), but Cabal is back to his charmingly ascorbic self in this volume. He is enlisted by the Fear Institute to guide their quest to find and vanquish the Phoebic Animus (fear personified, allegedly) in the Dreamlands. Howard's narration is a touch chopy at points, but I'll excuse it due to the fact that he has to move his characters on such a lengthy adventure across a vast "world." His attention to detail and vast imagination are well-suited to this landscape, as it allows for an endless amount of scenarios - no matter how absurd. In fact, it is quite amusing to see Cabal deal with the sheer insanity of the Dreamlands - even if it makes the reader laugh at rather than with him. ( )

Jonathan Howard writes that sarcastic style of English humour that in the wrong hands is forced and unconvincing; with Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett he stays just on the entertaining side. Johannes Cabal is an anti-hero just sympathetic enough to keep the reader’s interest and sympathy. Howard’s world-building is superb, his secondary characters engaging, his big villains interesting; his minor villains delightfully so. This third novel is the best yet, and could stand alone but is far better enjoyed in sequence. ( )