![]() ![]() Howard certainly brings the setting to life, showing it as being both marvelous and terrifying, sometimes all at once. ![]() It’s the sort of place that nurtures insanity. Here there are talking skulls, ship-eating monsters traverse the sea, wizards live in secluded towers on islands that can’t be found, and the Great Old Ones hear your prayers (whether you want them to or not). The Dreamlands are built from imagination, where the rules are a little more Byronic than in the real world. The setting plays a huge part, so let’s talk about that first. This novel is similar to the first one in tone and style, with more fantasy and less steampunk. While he couldn’t care less for the Institute’s goal of freeing humanity from irrational terror, an all-expenses paid trip to the Dreamlands is too good to pass up. The catch? He has to help them find the Phobic Animus, the source of all fears, so they can destroy it. Turns out these men are from the Fear Institute, and they want to hire Cabal as their guide through the Dreamlands, a world built by mystics and poets (neither of which are the sort of people Cabal is particularly fond of). ![]() ![]() It’s rare for Johannes Cabal to have visitors that aren’t of the torch-bearing mob variety, so when three strangers show up at his front door asking for his help, he greets them with his Webley. “Why on Earth did you steal three dead popes?” asked Cabal. ![]()
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