Quick Take
- Narration: Todd Haberkorn is an excellent fit for this material, his anime dubbing background gives him range across the exaggerated character types the series requires, and he delivers Lloyd’s clueless narration with a genuine comic instinct.
- Themes: Reluctant heroism, the gate between hell and the ordinary world, the particular terror of adult responsibility
- Mood: Troma-movie energy with video game logic and genuine laugh-out-loud set pieces
- Verdict: A two-book starter pack that earns the investment, Lloyd’s arc from catastrophic zero to reluctant hero is more satisfying than the premise suggests, and Haberkorn keeps nineteen-plus hours from ever dragging.
I want to describe the experience of arriving at this audiobook accurately: I had low expectations, the kind you develop when the premise sounds like it was generated by someone listing their three favorite things and connecting them with a plot. An out-of-work slacker. A convenience store. Hell, accessible through the beer cave. I was ready to abandon it inside the first chapter. Instead I found myself, somewhere around hour three, genuinely invested in whether Lloyd Wallace was going to stop being a catastrophic coward in time to prevent an apocalypse. That shift from skepticism to investment is the mark of a comedy that knows what it’s doing.
The Publisher’s Pack contains the first two books in D.M. Guay’s 24/7 Demon Mart series plus a Christmas bonus story. Book 1, The Graveyard Shift, establishes Lloyd: broke, directionless, living at home, playing video games in the basement. He wanders into a corner store job that turns out to have a gateway to hell in the beer cave. His coworkers are DeeDee, described as a karate-chopping bombshell, and Kevin, a talking cockroach with what the synopsis accurately calls a really bad attitude. The store’s owner is a suave figure whose devilish nature is not particularly subtle. Lloyd’s job is to keep the demons in line. He is spectacularly unqualified. He does it anyway because he doesn’t have better options.
Lloyd Wallace and the Comedy of Genuine Incompetence
Reviewer puggimer identifies the specific character type: Lloyd is not the lovable nerd whose hidden potential gets unlocked. He is, as the reviewer puts it, a loser in the full somewhat uncomfortable sense of the word. A second reviewer is more pointed about the neckbeard-adjacent energy. The series is aware of this. Lloyd’s lack of qualifications is not a surface quality that conceals secret greatness, it is his actual condition, and his development as a hero is meaningful precisely because it costs him something. He has to become a different person to do this job, and the novel takes that transformation seriously even while mining it for comedy.
That distinction matters because it separates this series from the large population of reluctant-hero comedy where the protagonist’s incompetence functions as charming contrast to eventual glory. Guay is interested in what it actually feels like to be inadequate at something that requires you to not be. The humor is darker for it, and more interesting.
Book Two and the Escalation That Earns Its Place
Monster Burger, the second volume, raises the stakes in exactly the right direction: construction problems have compromised the gate, the rival business across the street has a snooty owner with a grudge against the Demon Mart crew, and Lloyd, who has just proven he can be a hero, is now too scared to leave his house because he has processed the fact that zombies are real. The plot involves a zombie apocalypse originating in the store itself. The emotional arc involves Lloyd learning that being terrified of something and acting anyway is not a contradiction.
The Christmas bonus story, Hell for the Holidays, is a compact extra that demonstrates the series has enough internal mythology to sustain holiday special territory without losing its particular flavor. It is not the strongest material in the pack but provides good value as a bonus.
Todd Haberkorn and the Vocal Range Required
Haberkorn’s anime dubbing work, he is known for roles across numerous English dubs, is precisely the background that makes him effective here. The novel’s character types are exaggerated enough to require genuine range: DeeDee’s bombshell competence, Kevin’s perpetually aggrieved roach persona, the store owner’s particular brand of sinister charm, and Lloyd’s first-person terrified narration all need to be distinct from each other without becoming caricature. Haberkorn keeps them all coherent across nineteen-plus hours, and his comic timing is consistent throughout.
Reviewer wendyp notes that the first-person structure, which she usually avoids, works here because it reads like your best friend telling you what happened rather than like a diary. Haberkorn deserves credit for that effect, it is a narration choice that depends on delivery, and his casual, slightly bewildered tone throughout creates exactly the conversational quality she is describing.
Who Should Listen / Who Should Skip
Listen to this if you enjoy comic urban fantasy with a horror movie energy underneath the jokes, if you have any tolerance for protagonists who need to earn their hero status rather than having it revealed as a latent quality, or if you want a starter pack that gives you a genuine sense of whether this series is for you at minimal cost per hour. Skip this if you found the description of Lloyd as a couch-surfing zero genuinely unappealing rather than interestingly complicated, the series does not apologize for its protagonist’s starting point.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Publisher’s Pack the best way to start the 24/7 Demon Mart series, or should I just buy Book 1?
The pack contains Books 1 and 2 plus a Christmas special and offers better value per hour than purchasing separately. If you are uncertain whether the series suits you, Book 1 alone is the safer starting point.
How crude or adult is the content, is this appropriate for younger listeners?
The series contains adult language, violent content in the horror-comedy mode, and mature themes. It is firmly adult comedy. Reviewer descriptions comparing it to Troma movies suggest the content register accurately.
Does Lloyd become less insufferable as the series progresses, or does his loser persona persist through both books?
His development is one of the series’ main satisfactions. The arc from Book 1 into Book 2 is specifically about whether the person who proved himself once can become someone who acts even when terrified. It is more earned than a sudden personality transplant.
Is Todd Haberkorn’s voice acting recognizable from his anime work, and does that affect the listening experience?
Haberkorn fans from the dubbing world will recognize his voice. Whether that affects immersion is personal, most listeners find his range suits the material well enough that the association stays in the background.
