Johannes Cabal the Necromancer (Johannes Cabal series Book 1)

"It’s about a necromancer – obviously – who made a deal with the devil to acquire his necromancy, in exchange for his soul. And then he decides he wants it back. He travels to hell and avoids a bunch of paperwork, and confronts Satan, who presents him with a new deal. Satan provides him with a hellish carnival on a train and declares that if, in one year, Johannes can procure one hundred souls for him, he can have his soul back. Cabal has no problem doing this. He’s definitely an anti-hero. But he’s also traveling with his brother Horst, who is a vampire, and Cabal’s conscience in a lot of ways. It’s really funny. It’s really, really weird, and incredibly enjoyable. There’s an element of slapstick with Cabal’s summoned zombies, but Johannes himself has a very dry, black sense of humour. Some of the subversive feel comes from the fact that Johannes is just not a good guy. You get these little glimmers of his humanity drawn out by his brother – but he has no problem exchanging a hundred other people’s souls for his own. Ultimately he has goals that you can relate to… I’m not going to spoil the book. But I think we’ll also forgive a lot of characters if they’re funny. You still root for Johannes; you can’t help it. I think it’s because his brother is so likable, genuinely an empathetic and fundamentally good person. Horst sticks with him and sees something good in his brother, so we can too. I think in all books, the ones that we really connect to are the ones that have basic relatable human elements, experiences that we share with the characters, and ultimately probably the author. When we connect in that way, a story sticks with us. One of the reasons that Death is so wonderful in Pratchett is that he is very human, and thoughtful about what being human is, from the perspective of someone who’s been alive for an incredibly long period of time and observed humanity from all angles. I think all good stories have that human connection at the centre of them. Gosh! There are lots of fabulous writers. Well… Martha Wells. Seanan McGuire is really, really funny. Jonathan L. Howard. Neil Gaiman. And Tamsyn Muir – Gideon the Ninth and the Locked Tomb trilogy have a lot of incredibly amusing moments in them. And Nicholas Eames, Kings of the Wyld … Okay, I think we’ve got enough, right?"