Very much this reminded me of Good Omens; it's funny, the characters are excellent, and I laughed out loud a lot during the reading of it. Yep, I really liked it. ( )

This book tended, like the carnival train Cabal rides from town to town, to run off into abandoned sidings leading nowhere. This happened a few times: suddenly we're reading about peripheral characters with no introduction (who is this guy? and why do I care?). Cabal himself gets little introduction, just a sentence of description (which I missed on the first read - I went back and found out he's towheaded and twenty). Why does he mutter German expletives? No idea (I guess he's from Germany). Why is his brother a vampire? No idea, though the book seems to assume we know the backstory. What is Cabal trying to discover with his researches? This last is kept hidden until the very end, when we at last get a look at the man's motivations. The droll, sardonic tone carries the day, fortunately, and the story itself (though it sputters and smokes here and there) is fairly amusing. It is sort of like a funny Jonathan Strange, but not very much. More like the Henghis Hapthorn books by Matthew Hughes: a misanthropic loner who is not much afraid of anything. I'd go with the Hughes books, if you haven't checked them out. Much better than this. ( )

Johannes Cabal needs to collect 100 souls in less than a year to get his own soul back from the Devil. See, he sold it to get insight into necromancy and the ability to understand life and death. Unfortunately, what he thought was a hindrance in his work - his soul - turns out to be needed after all and he's got to get it back, and he's even been given the Devil's carnival to make it happen.

Part Faust, part Something Wicked This Way Comes, with a dash of dark humor, Jonathan Howard's Johannes Cabal the Necromancer is a pretty darned good novel. There's more than a hint of Neil Gaiman here, even some Terry Pratchett, without being derivative. And there's an interesting study of our human nature, how we can lose it in the process of attaining an ultimately unachievable goal, and how we can get it back again. ( )

Although the American Edgar Allan Poe is father of the modern detective story, the ancestry of the thriller is surely English, born to the Gothic novelists Mrs Radcliffe and Horace Walpole?

And for many readers the British still do it Best, mixing humour, provocation and good writing into a tale like Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, set in a world very like our own but in which Necromancers are recognized, and feared.

Johannes sold his soul to the devil but now he wants it back and so enters into a wager with Satan, involving a diabolical carnival and the harvesting of human souls: to achieve his target, he enlists the help of his brother, a humane vampire.

Pretty witty, thoroughly thrilling but not even faintly frightening, this intelligently written book gives a new spin to the Faust fable: small wonder the author is already writing a sequel. ( )

We’ve all done things to advance our careers that we later regret, but Johannes Cabal has screwed himself royally. He sold his soul to Satan in order to further progress his studies in necromancy, but it turns out that the lack of a soul is seriously cramping his research. So Johannes crashes Hell and demands his soul back from the Infernal One, who agrees to give it up if Cabal acquires one hundred human souls to replace it. Oh, and since the Devil’s such a nice guy he’ll toss in a special carnival to help. After a quick stop in a musty graveyard to recruit the assistance of Horst Cabal, Johannes’ charming brother (and vampire!), the carnival begins trawling the countryside to damn the wicked and the gullible and save Johannes’ soul.



The peeks into the world of this carnival-from-Hell were fascinating. Hideous freak shows, occult rides, a cursed midway…a dark carnival is a wonderful place to set to set a story, and author Jonathan Howard creates a creepy setting that I wish he'd spent more time exploring. We see how Cabal ensnares a few of his souls through the attractions of the Carnival, but it would have been great to see more of the different ways he catches his victims.

Something about the book felt unfinished. There were stories that should have been told, but weren't. For example, what motivated Cabal to get into necromancy in the first place? This is hinted at but never looked at in detail. How did Horst become a vampire? Again, never explained to my satisfaction. There were so many references to previous events that occurred before this novel began that the book reads just like the second volume of a series. In fact, as I read I became so convinced that there was another book I went to Google and spent a few minutes trying to find the title to the book I was certain preceded this one.
Likewise, the ending wraps up so quickly and on such a cliffhangin' note that I will be VERY surprised if a sequel doesn't come out in the next few years. (In fact, in an interview on Amazon Howard announces he just finished Johannes Cabal the Detective.)

Johannes Cabal is one sarcastic and calculating bastard. He's not quite a villain, but he's certainly no hero. Even anti-hero is a hat that doesn't quite fit him. But he's very determined, and his dialogue is quite snappy and sharp. His brother, Horst, is equally delightful and provides a perfect foil for Cabal. But while the characters' personalities are well-developed, their histories are not. I wish more time had been spent discussing their childhood or what Horst did while incarcerated underground.

But as much as I’m whining, I really did enjoy this book. It’s positively entertaining and fun. ( )

This is a light and humorous Faustian tale, involving a man named Johannes Cabal who decides that trading his soul to Satan years prior had been a mistake. He confronts Satan, striking a deal with him to get his soul back by convincing one hundred other people to sign their souls over to the devil. Satan "helps" Cabal by giving him a carnival and an allotment of Satanic power to raise the dead or place hexes on inanimate objects.

I have never read any other stories based on the original Faustian tale, so I cannot compare this to others. By itself, however, this book is an entertaining read. I wouldn't call it hilarious, but more of a "chuckler", as I call it. There were, however, several points when I did laugh out loud while reading it.

My main criticisms are related to the "believability" of the story. Now I know, this wasn't meant to be realistic, but I was disappointed with the lack of logic used. For example, Cabal is apparently free to use any and all means of getting people to sign the contracts. As it was explained in the book, all he really had to do was tell a hundred kids that if they signed the form they would get a free piece of candy, and he'd be done. Due to the lack of restraints, it should have been extremely easy for him to accomplish his goal, yet he went about it the hard way. Illogical, in my opinion, and a blight on the story.

Another criticism I have is related to the lack of philosophical dialogue regarding the idea of selling one's soul to the devil in return for knowledge. This is a personal criticism, which would not bother very many people. I guess the book was meant to be more of an humorous narrative than a philosophical discussion, but I was disappointed not to find any reference to the implications of the Faustian plot line.

The main character, Johannes Cabal, I found to be a very interesting and intriguing character. He's sarcastic in nearly everything he says, and calm and cool in nearly every situation. I enjoyed his character extremely, and wish we could have learned more about him.

Which brings me to the final criticism. I think this book should have been twice as long as it is. There seemed to be a great deal of things which were not talked about which I think should have been. Granted, there were certain aspects of the history left out for "intrigue" purposes, which is fine, but I feel like this book was rushed and that we didn't learn enough about...well, everything, as we should have.

All that being said, though, between the humour and the interesting personality of Cabal himself, I found this book well worth reading. ( )

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 Acknowledgements a brief homage to Ray Bradbury, whose Something Wicked this Way Comes caused Howard to wonder where an evil carnival would come from. He has given us a quite credible answer here.

http://www.bookgeeks.co.uk/2009/06/21... ( )

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. ( )

Faustian novels don't come along every day. Inexplicably, I've read two in a row. However, Johannes Cabal the Necromancer and The Angel's Game are as different as night and day. If Carlos Ruiz Zafon's dark gothic drama is night, then Jonathan Howard's light comic fantasy must be day.

As the novel opens, Johannes is pursuing an audience with Satan, to whom he sold his soul some years earlier in exchange for the secrets of necromancy. As you know, Satan never gives something for nothing. He proposes a wager--Johannes must collect 100 souls within a year's time or forfeit his life as well as his soul. To aid in this endeavor, Satan lends Johannes a "carnival of discord."

From there, the first half of the novel is picaresque, almost like a series of linked stories: Johannes and the Vampire, Johannes Meets a Ghost, Johannes Takes on a Madman. You get the idea. The second half of the novel is really an extended dénouement, and I'm not entirely sure the two halves join together gracefully. The latter half of the novel is more dramatic in tone and features less of the comedy that buoyed the opening.

When he puts his mind to it, Howard does have that distinctly British comic voice. Here are two brief examples:

* The mayor of Murslaugh was a jolly, ebullient man of the sort who, in a well ordered world, would be called Fezziwig. That his name was Brown was a powerful indictment on the sorry state of things.
* We're supposed to be doing the devil's work and you've gone and contaminated it all with the whiff of virtue. I really don't think you've quite got the hang of being an agent of evil.

One of the problems with this novel is that it's a redemption story. As the seeker of redemption, Johannes starts out as a fairly unlikable character, and remains so for much of the book. Truthfully, I generally wasn't sure if I was rooting for or against him in his wager with Satan. His brother Horst is repeatedly described as "the charismatic one," but we're told this rather than shown. While Horst is definitely the more likable of the two, there are few characters to care about in this novel.

As I read, there was one revelation regarding Johannes's motivation that I kept expecting to be revealed. I didn't expect, however, to have to wait all the way until the penultimate paragraph of the novel. It's an ending, of sorts, but leaves me thinking that we haven't seen the last of Johannes Cabal the Necromancer. ( )

David Eicke:
“Wait, WHAT are you reading?!” is the reaction I got a few times when I told my friends the title of the book flashing across my e-reader. They would ask me if I was a Satanist or something, and I would answer no, but that sort of thing just got a whole lot cooler. Who knew stealing souls could be such funny business? Well, apparently, the British can make anything funny. In the tradition of The Gone-Away World, the wit involved here is subsuming. The book’s title character is an unsmiling, perpetually annoyed spigot of hilarious nastiness, and I can’t get enough. I want Johannes to be real. A sampling: “I’m not holding a soiree either. You have a problem with sarcasm, don’t you? Now do you have anything else fascinating to impart or can I kick your wrinkly little carcass down the embankment as I so dearly wish?” This riotous send-up of the classic Faustian tale is endlessly fascinating, to the point where I kind of want to sign my soul away just to see what would happen.