Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

I enjoyed the Johannes Cabal series as a whole. Dark carnivals in particular hold a soft spot in my heart, so this first book of “The Necromancer” kept me entertained. I laughed and had a fun time reading it, and the book has joined the ranks of my transient favourites. I would not recommend this series to everyone, however, because much of the humour is based around in-jokes and nods towards the culture. The Johannes Cabal series is stylistically similar to a tabletop campaign, with a protagonist-centric view and a focus on questing. Tabletop gamers and other geeks will probably find this right up their alley.

For the technical aspects, I must reiterate the in-crowd effect: the novel is built upon references to other literature, most notably the Cthulhu mythos. The story is self-contained, but the reading will be less fun if you aren't with the in-crowd and therefore miss the jokes.
For the characters, they are about as average as any player character–which is to say, driven and with enough complexity as to be interesting. Special mention must be made of Horst, though he receives less than his fair share of the spotlight in the novel. The plot appears contrived, but I found it simple enough to suspend disbelief and to enjoy the aesthetic.