The Fear Institute / Jonathan L Howard

The Fear Institute

(Johannes Cabal 3)

by Jonathan L Howard

fantasy, humour

copyright 2011

read in October 2017

rated 6/10: read to pass the time

There is no way this book can get a fair review. Not from me, not today.

I post from either a desktop PC -- preferred -- or a tablet. Both run off the same internet connection. That internet connection -- Telstra, in case you are wondering -- has been dead all morning. So neither PC nor tablet is worth a pinch of internet shit.

I tried a mobile hotspot which I had recharged for a short stay away from home. Of course it had expired -- 99.9% unused -- a week ago.

Now the desktop PC still has no internet connection. Yet the tablet is working fine! yes, it's bloody magic. Oh, Windows 10 on the PC, in case you are wondering. In case Windows 10 is the pile of crap which randomly kills the internet connection. Who knows. In the past I have spent hhours on the phone to Telstra. And hours on the internet -- when it works -- reading idiotic wild guesses by self-professed experts as to why Windows 10 could be a pile of shit. And still, both -- or one -- or some weird combination -- will randomly kill the internet connection.

So... while the tablet at least appears to be working:

I think that 6 out of 10 is fair for this book. I didn't really enjoy it.

The humour is clever, some is quite funny. Lots of it is overdone.

The hero is awful. I dislike him. For a short while I thought, okay, this is book three, he's about to gain some humanity. But he did not.

The end was of the form, Oh, so it's *you* Who is behind all this! At least, I think that was the point. Unfortunately I have no idea who  the mysterious "you" really is. And -- because I don't really like the book or the characters -- I'm not interested in finding out. Though at a guess -- and this may even be a spoiler -- if I were to guess, I would guess that the hero just saved himself. Twice in a row, probably. By cunning use of loops in  time.

Which is a pile of rubbish, really.

When characters can go anywhere -- anywhen -- in time and space, why don't they do it more effectively?

Oh, and of the very few Lovecraft books and stories that I have read... my opinion is... that they are absolute rubbish. Which does make it difficult for me to appreciate what may well be an homage to Lovecraft.

If you like Lovecraft. If you like nasty, sarcastic, self-centred main characters whose only redeeming feature is intelligence. Read the book. Apart from the ridiculous "I'll save myself by looping back in time" ending, the plot is quite logical. Pointless, perhaps, but logical.

I wouldn't bother.

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems? Solved.
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"Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." ... Karl Marx

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Now so much more than a simple holiday blog:  https://notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com.au :-)
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