Glen Cook has a happy talent for confounding horror with humor. It’s almost as if a magpie or other animistic Trickster was telling the story, its head cocked to one side, eyeing you to see if you get the Joke. There is an extraordinary freshness to every description. If you have ever felt that the fantasy genre was becoming stale, or that you at least were becoming a jaded reader, anticipating every plot turn, portrayal and meme, this series would rejuvenate you. I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much.

Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series was a serious consideration of how archetypal Powers might be confronted and wielded by persons of conscience; by contrast, Cook’s Instrumentalities of the Night is a Rabelaisian Romp, a epic-length Saturday Night Live skit. Highly recommended.   ~~  Chris R. Paige