29 December 2013

Books: The Creeps By John Connolly (2013)



 
In John Connolly’s third book with Samuel Johnson and his dog Boswell, the author continues his quirky, often hilarious look at Hell, demons who aren’t as evil as word “demon” defines them, and the Multiverse.

Much like The Gates and The Infernals, in The Creeps Samuel must deal with the Great Malevolence and Mrs. Abernathy, who despite having her atoms scattered throughout the Multiverse for her failure to allow Hell on Earth and then take revenge on Samuel, is using what part of her that still remains –her deep hatred for the boy- to destroy Biddlecombe and eventually the entire Multiverse. But Samuel, as always, has help in Nurd and Wormwood along with assorted dwarfs, policemen and even the scientist of CERN. And then there is the upbeat and generally happy gelatinous cube sliming around. 

Once again, Connolly has created a weird world, where the battle against the forces of evil come off as a delicious romp that seems to combine all the best elements of Douglas Adams, Monty Python, Christopher Moore and Terry Pratchett into an entertaining series. Connolly also continues to use the footnotes, which are just as informative as they are funny. I admit they threw me at first in The Gates, but I’ve found them important to the story. 

But alas, it seems Connolly brings his trilogy to a close with The Creeps, but he did leave a little wiggle room for more books dealing with Samuel Johnson and his faithful dachshund Boswell. I’ll be there if he does.

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