Escape
From Hell by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (2009).
Oh My God!
The sequel of INFERNO, a perennial
masterpiece that nobody knows, is finally arrived!
Allen Carpenter who shows us what
Hell is made of is back and embarks in another epic journey!!
And this time, he is looking for
answers!!
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layers. – Allen Carpenter.
The guy who dies, stays inside a bottle with infinite darkness for God-know
how long and finally wakes up in a desert in First circle of Hell in “Inferno”,
the brilliantly re-imagined Dante’s Inferno by two great writers, Larry Niven
and Jerry Pournelle.
In this book,
Allen is what Benito is for Allen in first book: a guide in Hell who knows the
way out of Hell. So, here, Allen wonders around Hell freely trying to recruits
any souls who want to escape Hell and show them the way out which turns out to
be a very tough jobs. With all the pains and endless tortures, you would think people
are dying to escape from Hell, right? Well, you could not be more wrong. We
humans are very twisted creatures. Specially, ones in Hell.
After the last
journey, he gains some sort of inhuman strength like Benito but still feels
pain.
Sylvia Plath. A poet who commits suicide and becomes a
black tree in Seventh Circle: The Wood of the Suicide. Allen just happens to be
under her branches and they starts talking from there.
Eventually,
Allen brings her back to a human-form and she becomes his companion.
Sylvia is the
only one who follows Allen from beginning to the end. The rest of the crews
just come and go as they wish. Lots of people follows Allen for a while but
just move away at some points to their righteous places (in Hell, off course).
Because there
are so many names in this book, the writer duo actually index their names in
the beginning of the book. Many of them are real figures in history and all of
them are (righteously) suffering from their sins. Yet somehow, even with all
the pain and torture, they manage to be funny and often hilarious at the same
time. Maybe Hell isn’t such a bad place.
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lace. – Hell. More
precisely, Hell based on Dante’s Inferno. I attach the map below to give you
better idea of what it is looks like.
In
this fantastic sequel, Allen is wondering around Hell freely recruiting any
souls who are sane enough to listen to him to take them away from Hell. The
exit is on the bottom of the pit but it requires hard work to convince anyone
to come with him, Allen finds out. I guess years of tortures make most
men/women illogical and stubborn.
Also,
due to a sudden surge in population, Hell is currently going through huge
systematic upgrade which cause a lot of confusion all over the place.
We,
people on Earth, just keep pumping up new kinds of sinners: greedy cooperate
lawyers and executives, scientists with wrong data to support their cause, arms
dealers, religious-fanatics, right-wing media moguls who fill the air with
negative ads, insanely greedy developers who wipe everything away for their new
condos, the list is endless….
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lot. – Since
Benito is long gone, this time around, Allen is the guide in Hell. He wonders
around Hell, relatively freely and preaches the only truth he knows: there is
one way out of Hell and the gate is on the bottom of the pit!!
Only thing you
have to do is just keep walking down, dodging devils with wits and
determination (with Allen’s help) and as soon as you reaches the bottom, say
hello to Satan (his body is the bridge between Hell and the beyond), and climb
down his hairy body which is a long journey because Satan is as big as a
continent. Then once you hit the ground, climb up the leather to either Heaven
or Earth. Nobody really knows what lies beyond. That’s because when you are
finally out of Hell after spending millennium getting tortured, you NEVER come
back. EVER.
The sequel
starts with Allen lying under the black tree in the black forest which extends infinitely all around him. He is in the first layer of Hell which is Seventh
circle, which also named "the wood of suicides". And the tree Allen is sitting on turns out to be
a poet named Sylvia who kills herself. So as a punishment, she becomes a black
tree which can only talk when someone breaks its branches and cause a pain to
her. Hilarious.
After chatting
with Sylvia for a while (by constantly breaking her branches, off course),
Allen finds a way to free her and his second journey into the bottom of the pit
starts with Sylvia. On his way to the bottom of the pit, he meets a lot of
people/demons who remember him from his previous journey and also lots of
famous historic figures, all of whom did, of course, terrible things to
humanity when they were still on the other side of the grass.
Allen’s main
objective is two things.
1. Save as many
damned soul as possible. Explain how to get out of Hell to anyone who listens
to him and take them with him if it’s possible.
2. Trying to find
a meaning of Hell. What is the purpose of endless tortures if there is no
salvation? They have to learn from their mistakes and move on is what Allen
thinks and I totally agree with him but, just trying tell that to all the
demons who run Hell. They will torture you till the next eternity!!
He never find out
the answers for either of them but that’s natural because nobody know answers
anyway including all the demons.
There are some
discussions about why Hell is built this way, like a big pit. And honestly,
some part of Hell doesn’t really make much sense at all. For example, Dante
puts a traitors at the bottom of the pit as the worst kinds of criminals. But
what about terrorists? Public servants like politicians or mayors?
Also, there are some mystic creatures like
Minos and Giants. I understand Demons and snakes but giants? And why Minos?
Allen and Sylvia have the same questions but just ignore them. According to
Larry and Jerry, Dante’s Devine Comedy is the classic masterpiece (and the
treasure). So you should just take it and respect it. Can’t argue with that.
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erdict. Another
hilarious and brilliant journey of Allen Carpenter in Hell based on Dante’s
Inferno.
Why I haven’t
met anyone who read or even heard about this book is just beyond me. So please
go to your local book store (I don’t believe in Amazon) and order both of them,
“Inferno” and “Escape from Hell”. You will feel like you hit a big jackpot
because SF book is just doesn’t get better than this.
This book is seriously well written and amazingly imagined.
Another masterpiece that sadly nobody knows.
