INFERNO by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle. (1976)
A complete
overhaul of the classic DANTE’s INFERNO.
Seemingly crazy job is perfectly
and masterfully pulled out by the two GREAT writers, LARRY NIVEN and JERRY
POURNELLE.
If Terry Gilliam(“Brazil”) produces
a movie based on Dante’s book, THAT movie would look a lot like this book.
Absolute MASTERPIECE!!
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layers. – Allen Carpentier. Very popular Science Fiction writer who
chooses to entertain readers than educate or impress them.(Therefore, big
paycheck but no awards what so ever.)
This is
how all starts.
Allen, trying to win over fans for his first ever HUGO Award (which, apparently, is given to the most popular author by fan votes.), started the stupid drinking game and with his last pull, literally dropped himself to death, 8th floor hotel balcony to the ground while nobody was watching.
Allen, trying to win over fans for his first ever HUGO Award (which, apparently, is given to the most popular author by fan votes.), started the stupid drinking game and with his last pull, literally dropped himself to death, 8th floor hotel balcony to the ground while nobody was watching.
After
going through what appears/feels/sounds like an eternal darkness, Allen wakes
up in a desert somewhere (Hell). In there, he is picked up by Benito Mussolini
and with Benito’s lead/guide/help, Allen travels down all nine layers of Hell.
From
the moment he opens up his eye in Hell, Allen, with unlimited curiosity of the
writer, tries to explain everything he sees in Hell with science, and comes out
with several theories. Here are some.
1. He was killed and frozen to
preserve his brain.(“Corpsicle”)
2. Somehow, someone (“Builders”, he
called) re-created him with unbelievably high-tech method (no hunger, no
fatigue, no injury), so he must be in thousands of years away from his day on
earth.
3. And now he is in some kind of
amusement-park(city) of damned, which he just calls INFERNOLAND!!
4. Yes. As you can see, he does NOT know he is in Hell, up until three
quarters of the book.
Sounds kind of stupid, right?
Believe me, it is NOT. It actually is funny as Hell.
Benito Mussolini. A weird looking guy with big square jaw and very wide fore-head. He
leads Allen to the bottom of Hell(nine layers) just like Vigil did it for
Dante.
Eventually, he and Allen becomes a good friend and they try to save other damaged souls together. He has been trying to save others for decades, but so far only succeeded six times (six persons so far).
Eventually, he and Allen becomes a good friend and they try to save other damaged souls together. He has been trying to save others for decades, but so far only succeeded six times (six persons so far).
At the end of the book, something
unexpected happens to him and he is …well, let’s just say all his hard works
are paid off. I think.....
Allen and Benito, they make a
great team like the duo in Lethal Weapon or even Rush Hour. Later, they add
couple more crazy guys to the team, Corbett
the space shuttle pilot and the authentic Billy the Kid, and make the journey even more crazy (hilarious!!
Billy is ).
There are lots of other
historically famous/infamous persons in every level of Hell and cause for their
eternal damnation are mostly hilarious but make complete sense.
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lace. – LARRY NIVEN and JERRY POURNELLE, they
completely overhaul Hell into 20th century version of
Disney-Hell-land. Sounds cheap? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. But once you
start reading the book….
Lucky for us readers, this new
version of HELL is the brainchild of the two upmost imaginative/creative/funny
as Hell writers, you can seat back and admire their achievement.
There are Hells for every
possible sin. For example, there is an island for people who let go killers by
taking bribes, altering the laws or giving the false statement. Naturally the
place is filled with lawyers, judges and jury members. Then there is one for
the developers who bulldoze the nature spitting out the pollution for money. And
all those punishments are in a permanent loop.
Never-ending story. There are factories where on the one side, half the
prisoners, under unbearable heat, constantly built the really heavy metal-belt
which goes into the other side of the wall. And on the other side of the wall,
the other half of the group dismantles the belt and sends the parts back into
the other side, also under unbearable heat. So the machinery is screaming and
the damned are painfully hard at work, FOREVER!!
The looping cycle that NEVER ends
is the definition of Hell.
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lot. – Same as original INFERNO. Allen dies and goes
to Hell and finds the way out (or die trying). Not with angel but Benito who is
not your typical text book angel (no wings!!).
I guess if you stay in Hell long enough, anyone trying to help you out
of your misery must look like an angel no matter what.
After Benito picks up Allen from
eternal darkness, he guides Allen to the bottom of Hell where, according to
Dante’s Inferno, there is a door to Heaven. (=knocking on Heaven’s door!!)
I am saying this again. It is the
design of the Hell that makes this book much much more than updated version of
original.
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erdict. –First of all, for a book
written more than 36 yrs ago (1976), this book is surprisingly fresh and modern.
This tells you these two writers are not just wildly imaginative, but also know
how to tell the story, too. Those two combination are not easily come by.
Second, despite of all the
religious implication, you know Dante and all his naïve Roman Catholicism, two
writers very wisely chose NOT to use the same kind of theory/philosophy for
their version of Inferno. What that means is that this book is NOT a religious
book. Yes, it deals with Heaven and Hell and all kinds of punishment for all the
sins, but not from any kind of specific religious point of view.
Finally, Dante’s Inferno, first
one out of Divine Comedy (Inferno,
Purgatorio, Paradiso), is perhaps the first ever written Science Fiction novel
in mankind’s history, I think. I am sure there are others explored the similar
theme, but the scale of it (- Hell is a huge pit inside the Earth with the bottom
opens up to the other side of Earth and HEAVEN is some kind of floating island
in the sky=spaceship!! –) just make it the one and only.
These two guys- Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle – took up the almost impossible task of re-newing one of the most influential classic and came out on top of everyone’s expectation. Well, at least they completely blew away my mind.
These two guys- Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle – took up the almost impossible task of re-newing one of the most influential classic and came out on top of everyone’s expectation. Well, at least they completely blew away my mind.
It is a great reading experience top to bottom.
After the turn of the last page, huge satisfaction is guaranteed
to follow.
to follow.
You will be proud of yourself for finding and
finishing this book.
