Johannes Cabal is a necromancer, raiser of and communicater with the dead. To his gate (not into the garden, due to the tendency of the fairies in his garden to eat the unwary) come three visitors. Messers Shadrach, Bose and Corde, an art dealer, a solicitor and a funeral director, who belong to a society known as The Fear Institute. They want to hire Cabal to guide them through the Dreamlands, the place people go when they dream, in search of the Phobic Animus, fear itself. What ensues is an adventure in the vein of Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Jasper Fforde's Bookworld, and indeed in the tradition of Lewis Carrol. Howard draws on literature and mythology in a book that is laugh out loud funny, gently and not so gently poking fun at mystics and believers in dream reading everywhere. A book I didn't want to end.
