dreams Archives - The Y Logs

Yzabel / June 8, 2024

Review: This Is Why You Dream

This Is Why You Dream: What your sleeping brain reveals about your waking life by Rahul Jandial
My rating: 4/5

Blurb:

A fascinating dive into the purpose and potential of dreams

Dreaming is one of the most deeply misunderstood functions of the human brain. Yet recent science reveals that our very survival as a species has depended on it. This Is Why You Dream explores the landscape of our subconscious, showing why humans have retained the ability to dream across millennia and how we can now harness its wondrous powers in both our sleeping and waking lives.

Dreaming fortifies our ability to regulate emotions. It processes and stores memories, amplifies creativity, and promotes learning. Dreams can even forecast future mental and physical ailments.

Dreams can also be put to use. Tracing recent cutting-edge dream research and brain science, dual-trained neuroscientist and neurosurgeon Dr. Rahul Jandial shows how to use lucid dreaming to practice real-life skills, how to rewrite nightmares, what our dreams reveal about our deepest desires, and how to monitor dreams for signs of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

In the tradition of James Nestor’s Breath and Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep, This Is Why You Dream opens the door to one of our oldest and most vital functions, and unlocks its potential to impact and radically improve our lives.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Dreams in general fascinate me. Not so much the typical “meaning of dreams” approach, where if you dream about X then supposedly it means Y, but the whole subject: we all dream, dreams are as old as humanity, and yet, like with sleep in general, they’re something so trivial but at the same time so elusive, not fully understood yet. (My own dreams are also pretty much of the WTF kind most of the time, and it is fascinating in its own way.)

The author explores some theories about why we dream here, also from an approach as a neurosurgeon. I enjoyed especially the part about nightmares, how it seems that very young children don’t have them, but they actually start when children really get deep into building their own sense of self: nightmares as “the Other/the Threat vs. the Self”, in a way for our brains to establish who we are? I can sense so many possibilities for stories here, too.

Another part I enjoyed was the different roles of the Executive Network and the Imagination Network. Most of my past, older traditional reading about dreams tended to put them in the “information processing” category, with their being some jumble of whatever we experienced during the day, and in a way I think this is also part of it anyway (at least, I do regularly find elements of my current work or personal life projects in my dreams!); but this other approach was more novel to me, and made a lot more sense when explained.

I think I may have liked seeing a few more case studies, but overall I really enjoyed this.

Yzabel / December 12, 2015

Review: Sandman Overture

Sandman Overture Deluxe Edition by Neil Gaiman

My rating: [rating=5]

Blurb:

Twenty-five years since THE SANDMAN first changed the landscape of modern comics, Neil Gaiman’s legendary series is back in a deluxe edition!

THE SANDMAN: OVERTURE heralds New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman’s return to the art form that made him famous, ably abetted by artistic luminary JH Williams III (BATWOMAN, PROMETHEA), whose lush, widescreen images provide an epic scope to The Sandman’s origin story. From the birth of a galaxy to the moment that Morpheus is captured, THE SANDMAN: OVERTURE will feature cameo appearances by fan-favorite characters such as The Corinthian, Merv Pumpkinhead and, of course, the Dream King’s siblings: Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Destruction and Destiny.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.]

Seldom have I regretted having only a PDF copy instead of a paper one—I can usually shake off the regret and unease easily enough. My bank account will NOT love me in weeks to come, all the more since I am now also sorely tempted to get the Sandman omnibus.

I discovered the Sandman comics when I was 18 or so. I used to get French translations from a second-hand books store whenever I had the money (same with the Death comics), and even though I never owned many of them, and ended up selling them later because I 1) had to move, 2) wanted to get them in English instead, I also never stopped wanting to go back time and again to this world.

“Overture” doesn’t disappoint. Gathering the six issues of the eponymous story, it’s a festival of different styles, whether in drawing, colouring, layout or lettering, working all together to create that peculiar yet delightful atmosphere of being in a dream, thrown into ever-changing landscapes where reason always comes with madness, or is it the other way round? Paradoxical staircases. Panels rotating until they come full-circle. Characters in full colour on one page, then switch to pastels or whites on the next, to accomodate a change in the narrative… or—again—is it the other way round?

And however, if you pay closer attention, you realise that it all makes so much sense, and isn’t merely a blend of nonsensical scenes “meant to look like a dream”. Colours, images and forms echo each other, reminding you of something from the previous chapter, or foreshadowing a chapter yet to come. It is truly fascinating. Also, my neck hurts now, because not being able to turn a book around in my hands, I turned my head downwards to look at my screen. I kid you not.

Noteworthy as well is how the book echoes other Sandman stories, in another of those going-full-circle structures I mentioned aboves. Chronologically-speaking, “Overture” comes before “Preludes & Nocturnes”, and can be read independently; but knowing what happened in the Sandman-verse in general, even roughly, will definitely help enjoy this comics even more, as the latter references quite a few characters, events and scenes (I’m positive I missed more than one, too). Remember the crazy ole lady. Remember the Dream of a Thousand Cats. Remember that final word of ‘Hope’. Ever wondered how Dream came to be so weak that he could be imprisoned, in the very first comics? Right. And so many others.

I need this book in physical form. Plain and simple.

As a side note: it also contains a few add-ons in the shape of interviews and Q & As about drawing and lettering, among other things. Those are worth reading just as well, as they cast light on the artists’ choices.

Yzabel / November 5, 2015

Review: The Dream Engine

The Dream Engine by Sean Platt

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

A truth terrible enough to bury for a millennium …

A mysterious boy calling in her sleep …

A secret city that shouldn’t exist …

When Eila Doyle first sees the strange boy beckoning in whispers from somewhere deep in her imagination, she questioned her sanity. She was used to seeing strange things with her eyes closed — that’s what Eila did all day while strapped to the Blunderbuss, Building whatever the Ministry of Manifestation required — but never before have those images felt so real, or so dangerous.

After Eila learns the terrible truth about her reality and the monsters inside it, she thinks that maybe madness might be her only escape…

Review:

[I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

2.5 stars

A very interesting theme, but ultimately this novel felt more like an introduction.

I liked the idea of a world shaping its inventions through thoughts, from concepts and a strange machine called the Blunderbuss. I liked the explanation behind how this weird science worked, where exactly the concepts and images came from, not to mention that in general, anything that has to do with dreams tends to fascinate me. One part of the world living a relatively placid existence, with nights spent in quiet, without dreams; and the other, its counterpart, having to sift through dreams nightmares in order to send feedback. And the remnants, what nobody wants, the pollution born from human minds, which just goes… somewhere else. Although the explanations weren’t too easy to follow at first, soon they made sense.

Another thing I liked was how the “mysterious boy” didn’t end up as the mandatory love interest, the one that always ends up trampling over the plot in typical YA novels, whether their genre is actually romance or not. It was quite refreshing, and I can only hope that the world and the stakes presented by the “dream engine” will not fall prey to “luuuurve” in the next volume. There’s enough going in without giving in to trends. So, authors, thank you for sticking to the weird science and dreams and contraptions here.

However, as I was reading, I kept feeling that a lot of things often got rehashed and repeated more than necessary—that some trimming would’ve been in order. It took a long time for what I thought would be the plot to unfurl, and while Eila’s hesitation and questioning herself was totally understandable, it still looked to me like beating around the bush, instead of helping flesh out her character as well as others. In the end, Cora, Daw, Levi (for a few minutes, I couldn’t even remember his name, even though I’ve just finished reading the book… that’s how much an impression he made on me), all the others, were more shades than actual people. Eila was the most developed of all, yet her running in circles in her mind kept her at a basic level: I still don’t know what she likes and dislikes, for instance. I think this is the kind of plot where less time should’ve been spent on introspection, and more on subplots (no need for complex ones: simple things such as more than just Atwell confronting Eila after dinner, or someone realising she wasn’t with Cora every evening, etc.).

So much potential, so many endless possibilities, yet never truly explored…

The world itself, albeit interesting, also suffers from the “pocket universe syndrome”, in that the idea behind its foundations is great, but it seems really, really tiny, no more than a city and some land around it. It could be an island, for what it’s worth, completely isolated, and I didn’t get the feeling of a “real” world, for all its talks of airships and pilots bringing goods from other areas. How far is Stensue from Waldron’s Gate? Is Pavilion only under the latter, or does it extend everywhere? Are there other Pavilions under other towns? And so on.

Conclusion: despite finding quite a few likeable elements in there, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I may or may not pick the second book someday, to see if the potential of this series is going to be properly exploited; right now, though, I really don’t know.

Yzabel / October 5, 2015

Review: Lair of Dreams

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. Now that the world knows of her ability to “read” objects, and therefore, read the past, she has become a media darling, earning the title, “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” But not everyone is so accepting of the Diviners’ abilities…

Meanwhile, mysterious deaths have been turning up in the city, victims of an unknown sleeping sickness. Can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld and catch a killer?

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Interesting premise, all the more because dreams fascinate me—lucid dreaming, the power to travel in dreams and even shape them—but possibly too ambitious a book for its own good.

The good stuff:

* Dreams and dream walkers. People who can travel in dreams and remember everything upon waking up, consciously alter others’ dreams, find the spirits of the dead to ask them for answers… Meeting other dreamers like them: Henry, Ling, Wai-Mae. The many landscapes found in there, and how they may or may not have ties to the real world. As said: fascinating.

* More bits about the bigger picture: the man in the stove pipe hat. The mysterious men in suits, all with (obviously fake) names of dead presidents. Project Buffalo. Sam’s mother.

* The last chapters, and how the characters had to basically work in both worlds to save the day.

* The sleeping sickness.

* Vivid descriptions, sometimes really creepy and eerie.

And the not so good…:

* Half the characters were left aside or weren’t terribly relevant for a good two thirds of the plot. While I found Ling interesting, and Henry got more screen time, it was frustrating to see Jericho left dangling in his museum, Will pretty much out of the picture all the time, Evie doing her radio show (then partying/getting drunk, rinse and repeat), and Theta and Memphis… just standing there in the background, looking cool? I can easily appreciate a plot with a large cast, but here it felt like the two arcs (the sleeping sickness + Project Buffalo) could have benefitted from having each their own novel.

* Everything being all over the place, including the historical themes (immigrants, racial tensions, the KKK…): interesting, yet so many things to tackle that in the end, just like the main characters, they didn’t really come together.

* Inconsistencies. Why did Ling take ages to notice what should be absolutely oblivious, considering her own abilities within dreams?

* Mabel. There was no point in having her around. The poor girl should just forget about Jericho and go live her life.

* Still a lot of 20s slang. I didn’t particularly care for it, and it was repetitive. Like a good deal of the book, in fact.

Conclusion: Really good ideas, only the execution didn’t convince me, and I felt that more threads were left dangling, without any real, solid resolution (even the sleeping sickness arc isn’t 100% resolved, with questions remaining about what caused it in the first place).

Yzabel / September 17, 2015

Review: Dreams of Shreds and Tatters

Dreams of Shreds and Tatters by Amanda Downum

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

When Liz Drake’s best friend vanishes, nothing can stop her nightmares. Driven by the certainty he needs her help, she crosses a continent to search for him. She finds Blake comatose in a Vancouver hospital, victim of a mysterious accident that claimed his lover’s life – in her dreams he drowns.

Blake’s new circle of artists and mystics draws her in, but all of them are lying or keeping dangerous secrets. Soon nightmare creatures stalk the waking city, and Liz can’t fight a dream from the daylight world: to rescue Blake she must brave the darkest depths of the Dreamlands.

Even the attempt could kill her, or leave her mind trapped or broken. And if she succeeds, she must face the monstrous Yellow King, whose slave Blake is on the verge of becoming forever.

Review:

[I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Granted, I took my sweet time in reading it… so by now the book has been out for quite a few months.

Overall an interesting experience, though I expected more out of it. I’ve been fascinated by the original work behind this, The King in Yellow, for a couple of decades, from the weight it bore in Lovecraft’s works to the stories by Robert Chambers that actually inspired it. Simply suggest one nightmarish yet terribly beautiful and sublime (in a Burkian sense) city, and I will think “Carcosa”. And while we don’t have a play here, we do have art, including the painting of a door.

Mostly I liked the descriptions, especially of what happened in dreams and how some people in Vancouver were affected. Liz the dreamer, chasing after her friend Blake to bring him back from his coma. Blake, lost in a place he doesn’t understand, where pain and promises of eternal pleasure tempt him both. Rainer and his circle of artists who dabble in magic too potent for them. Rae and other people addicted to mania, a dream-inducing drug that does just that, and more, turning them into zombie-like creatures desperately wanting to taste the real dream. Above them all, the shadow of the King in Yellow, watching from his throne, and the Twins, waiting for an opening. Waiting for, yes, a door.

Such imagery I found quite fascinating, even though I admit it didn’t extend to the actual Vancouver (rain and cold is standard weather where I live), and that I found myself eagerly waiting for the oneiric dreams, the ones involving Liz seeking Blake in the strange streets, corridors and rooms in Carcosa, under inhuman skies. Those were the most interesting scenes for me. Also some other mysteries, such as Lailah and the two other “jackals”, which may or may not be akin to certain hounds living beyond the folds of time and space, but…

…But that’s one of the problems that prevented me from enjoying this story more: a lot of side stories and hints that made the characters more enjoyable, and paradoxically were really frustrating, as they’re not resolved in the end. Alex, for instance: his past involvment with Samantha was brushed upon, where it would have deserved more, considering the sequels it left him with. The artists, too: running from a Brotherhood, rivals of another wannabe sorcerer, the beginning of a strange relationship where Rae was concerned… yet all of this collided a bit too fast (almost in a chaos that may have been intended to mirror the circumstances everybody was thrown in, only it didn’t work that well). Such subplots deserved either more developement, or not to have been included at all, as the middle ground didn’t feel so satisfying. More answers as to who was what and what was who would have been appreciated. Where does Liz’s power come from? What about the memories she sacrificed, would those come back to bite her later? What exactly is Lailah? What role did Seker play, apart from being some deus ex machina?

Also, a lot of the characters had a sort of “hype” edge bordering on pedantic, as if they were trying too hard—including the asexual relationship thrown in there (are Liz and Alex happy that way? Because Alex sure doesn’t seem to be, not that much). I’m all for various kinds of relationships instead of the usual, often bland typical ones, but something didn’t quite fit here.

I still liked this story, mind you. I just expected more out of it, I guess.

Yzabel / August 25, 2014

Review: The Anatomy of Dreams

The Anatomy of Dreams: A Novel by Chloe Benjamin

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

It’s 1998, and Sylvie Patterson, a bookish student at a Northern California boarding school, falls in love with a spirited, elusive classmate named Gabe. Their headmaster, Dr. Adrian Keller, is a charismatic medical researcher who has staked his career on the therapeutic potential of lucid dreaming: By teaching his patients to become conscious during sleep, he helps them to relieve stress and heal from trauma. Over the next six years, Sylvie and Gabe become consumed by Keller’s work, following him from the redwood forests of Eureka, California, to the enchanting New England coast.

But when an opportunity brings the trio to the Midwest, Sylvie and Gabe stumble into a tangled relationship with their mysterious neighbors—and Sylvie begins to doubt the ethics of Keller’s research, recognizing the harm that can be wrought under the guise of progress. As she navigates the hazy, permeable boundaries between what is real and what isn’t, who can be trusted and who cannot, Sylvie also faces surprising developments in herself: an unexpected infatuation, growing paranoia, and a new sense of rebellion.

In stirring, elegant prose, Benjamin’s tale exposes the slippery nature of trust—and the immense power of our dreams.

Review:

(I got this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

2.5 stars because I liked the concepts in this book, but found the execution wanting.

The story bounces between a few time periods, allowing us to see what’s happening in two “levels of present” (the first one being Madison, where Sylvie and Gave meet Janna and Thom) and two “levels of past” (high school time, then the beginning of Sylvie’s involvement in Keller’s research). I’m mentioning this because it can be a potential deterrent to some readers. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a kind of narrative style I tend to enjoy, and since I had no problems following it and piecing things together, I’m putting it in my “I like it” category. There was just one part, though, towards the last third, where I felt that it wasn’t handled that well. Too bad.

My feelings when it comes to the characters remain lukewarm. The story’s entirely told from Sylvie’s point of view, but in the end, I’m not sure I got to “know” her. Same with Gabe and Keller, perhaps even worse. They all seemed to be here for the plot, and not as full-fledged people. Granted, their research consumed a lot of their life during the course of the novel, yet I think I would’ve felt Sylvie’s plight much more if I could have related to her as to a “real” person (no need for she and I to have anything in common: just more character development in general). There’s her painting, but what about Gabe’s occupations? Was there only work here? What about Janna, who was definitely in a good position to notice what was going on? There would have been more to tell about them all, and the lack of such information, in the end, diminished in my opinion the ethical questions surrounding Keller’s research, as well as the degree to which each of them was influenced by the experiments.

To be honest, I was probably waiting for something different, something more linked to the theme of lucid dreaming: Sylvie really not knowing what was real and what wasn’t, for instance, or other people displaying such characteristics. The blurb was in fact more exciting than the story itself, all the more because I’m always eager to read anything that has to do with dreams, nightmares, and blurred reality boundaries. The story showed one patient being submitted to the experiment, and spoke of another one whose actions might or might not have been a direct result of Keller’s study. There was a lot of potential here for dilemmas of various kinds; however, the characters often danced around the issues, only confronted them now and then, and I found this slightly frustrating.

On the plus side, the writing style itself was pleasant enough, beautiful while remaining believable for a first person point of view narrative.

Yzabel / April 16, 2014

Review: Night Terrors

Night Terrors by Tim Waggoner

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

It’s Men In Black meets The Sandman.

Meet the fine men and women of the NightWatch: a supernatural agency dedicated to hunting down rogue nightmares that escape from other realms when people dream about them, while ensuring that other dream-folk are allowed to live among the regular, human population… as long as they play by the rules.

Review:

[I got a free copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Well, what can I say… I really liked this one? I tend to naturally gravitate towards themes such as dreams and nightmares, and when I saw that Night Terrors dealt with exactly that—more specifically, nightmares made “flesh”—I just couldn’t pass on it. Although I’m also a glutton for punishment, since clowns have always creeped me out, and guess what Jinx is? Yep. The cover kind of gave it away, after all.

Audra and Jinx are agents of the Shadow Watch, an organisation bent on regulating interactions between the human world and Nod, a place where dreams have attained a state of self-awareness. Audra is an Ideator, a human whose psyche created and fleshed out a nightmare (Jinx), until the latter became his own self. Since then, both have been working for that special agency.

Some aspects of this novel rest on well-known tropes, such as the two “cops” with a record of regularly causing havoc while on a mission, or the dashing potential love interest with mysterious goals and a mysterious employer. Or the shady bar with shady customers and a shady bartender who deals information. However, those being traditional fixtures of the detective novel/UF genre, I wasn’t too surprised to see them here. What I appreciated was how they were, but didn’t become too heavy.

I seriously dug the world-building here. The narrative, told in Audra’s voice, is peppered with small doses of information here and there, which allowed me to qickly grasp what Nod and the Shadow Watch stood for, how things worked there, what an Ideator was, and so on. Audra has a tendency to address the reader, which can be annoying to a degree if you don’t like that; personally, I thought it created some kind of complicity, as if I was allowed to get a glimpse of what dreams are really made of.

The characters weren’t the most developed ever, but I found them fun and sympathetic nonetheless. The nightmares/dreamt creatures came in many flavours, ranging from relatively human-looking dreams to strange animals, fear-inducing shadows and even Deathmobiles beaming green aging lasers into their enemies. The concept of their having Night and Day Aspects added interesting possibilities in my opinion. Night Jinx was pretty funny (in his own frightening ways), while Day Jinx turned out to be quite the decent fellow. There’s also a hint of a potential love interest, as said above. It never becomes overwhelming, which I was grateful for: the story’s stakes are high enough, and I seldom root for making-out sessions in such cases. The novel paved the way for more in that regard… or not… and it doesn’t really matter.

I admit I wasn’t too keen on the Evil Gloating speech of the villain towards the end, but at least it wasn’t the Bond Villain Stupidity kind.

As a whole, this book simply… clicked with me. I can’t really explain in objective terms.

Yzabel / February 17, 2014

Review: Dream Caster

Dream Caster by Najeev Raj Nadarajah

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Haunted by memories of his massacred settlement, sixteen-year-old Weaver seeks cover in a hidden refuge among the remains of a ruined city. In the midst of building a new life, Weaver discovers that he has the amazing power to cast his dreams into reality. Convinced it’s just an anomaly, Weaver ignores it. That is until he learns of a mysterious man who shares the ability, and uses his power to bring nightmares into existence and wage war on the world. The peaceful life Weaver hoped for begins to unravel as waves of chaos begin to break loose about him. In a race against time, Weaver must learn to accept his role as a dream caster and master his new power, before his new home is destroyed and humanity is pushed to the brink of extinction.

Review:

(I got a copy of this book through Goodreads’ giveaway/First Reads.)

I’m not too sure how to rank this book; it’s a toss between “it’s OK” and “I liked it”. Some ideas I really enjoyed, but they weren’t enough to make me love the novel.

What I liked:

* The concept of materialising dreams into reality. It paves the way for incredible possibilities, and the whole idea lends itself to basically “imagination come true”. Oh, what a writer can do with that. And Weavers seems to find original ways of exploring his powers at the end.

* Corollary of this: the creatures. The Fire Hounds are just so wicked, and I love the paradox of fire as having sustained humanity for centuries, yet turning into its worst enemy. The people must’ve felt miserable without it to keep them warm.

* The Dream Eater (although I’m not sure why he got that nickname, considering his way of acting). While his goals aren’t totally clear, they seem to run deeper than mere destruction.

What I didn’t like:

* I couldn’t wrap my mind around the dialogues. The characters speak (and think) as if out of a fairly literary book. It would work if the narrative was, say, first person POV and told by someone with an academic background—but it doesn’t cut it for dialogues. I know quite a few teachers and people with solid backgrounds in literature, and even they don’t talk in such a way in everyday life. It makes little sense that survivors in a post-apocalyptic setting, all the more teenagers, would talk like that.

* Weaver was so. frelling. dense. Having spent years working the way he did for Ruben, there’s just no way he could be so naive regarding other human beings. When Abanel tells him “Show me”, it’s obvious she means his settlement, not his cloak. Then, when they reach the new settlement, he’s told—at least twice—that he’ll be given a job for life; his five days as a guard can’t compete against years of cleaning waste, but the people here don’t know he’s been a guard for a few days only, right? He could have lied. He could’ve said “I was a guard”, period. Instead, he tells the truth, and then feels crushed when he’s appointed as, well, waste-cleaner. Well, duh. Could’ve sensed that coming from miles. He becomes more clever later, but after his first blunders, such a growth appeared to be too quick. It would’ve worked better for me if he had been less sense in the beginning.

* Also, “coincidences”. There’s ice around his bed, just like in his dream, even though the room is well-heated. There comes a moment when you have to accept that, no, “coincidence” just doesn’t cut it. It’s not like he had been told he had awesome powers without ever seeing proof. The proof is there.

* The archetypal bad-guys-who-don’t-like-him-on-a-whim. I found them useless and predictable (and they did a poor job as bullies anyway).

* The catastrophe that led mankind to the brink of destruction: it happened a few decades ago, yet nobody seems to remember much, not even the old guys who lived through it. It felt weird: I would’ve expected at least some records, if only written down a few years later by younger people who had heard accounts from “first-generation survivors”.

Yzabel / September 28, 2013

Review: The Fear Institute

The Fear Institute by Jonathan L. Howard

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Johannes Cabal and his rather inexact powers of necromancy are back once more. This time, his talents are purchased by The Fear Institute as they hunt for the Phobic Animus – the embodiment of fear. The three Institute members, led by Cabal and his Silver Key, enter the Dreamlands and find themselves pursued by walking trees plagued with giant ticks, stone men that patrol the ruins of their castles, cats that feed on human flesh and phobias which torment and devastate. The intrepid explorers are killed off one by one as they traipse through this obfuscating and frustrating world, where history itself appears to alter. Cabal, annoyed that the quest is becoming increasingly heroic, finds himself alone with the Institute’s only remaining survivor, and after a shockingly violent experiment, begins to suspect that not everything is quite as it seems…

Review:

(I got an ARC of this book from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I’ve only read the first novel in the “Johannes Cabal” series, and hope I haven’t missed on too much by tackling #3 without knowledge of the events in #2. But from what I saw, “The Institute of Fear” does well enough as a standalone book, with the occasional hints at Cabal’s past adventure(s) being easy enough to understand.

The crossover with H.P. Lovecraft’s worlds and creations was nicely done in my opinion—here, too, prior knowledge isn’t absolutely necessary, although the regular winks are, of course, best enjoyed when you know what they’re about. It is also a cause for a lot of deadpan humour, which is something I like. Johannes Cabal is the voice of cold, unfazed logics in a place (the Dreamlands) that is all but rational, and where everything is shaped according to people’s deeply rooted unconscious beliefs. For instance, cats. If enough people believe that cats are intelligent, cunning creatures, then cats in the Dreamlands are exactly that, and have to be treaded around carefully. Well, this is what happens at several moments, and the hapless three travellers who’ve come to seek Cabal as their guide are reminded of such facts on a regular basis.

The necromancer’s point of view is definitely one of sarcasm and dark humour: a protection for his charges, but also his own way of keeping fear at bay, for Fear (or rather, its physical incarnation) is what the adventurers are seeking here, in order to destroy it. Their journey is impeded by the strange, changing geography, monsters, dead beings, and various other elements pertaining either concepts of dreams or the lovecraftian corpus. It’s full of interesting ideas (the dreffs, the Moon slavers), and it seems there’s always something new to discover… and dread.

If anything, I’d say the pacing was a little unequal in places. But the tone of the narrative definitely made up for this in my opinion.