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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deliciously Provocative Must-Read, July 27, 2004
Cassie and her sister Lissa are typical young Goth girls. Though they are twins, each have their own emotional issues and depressing angle at which to observe life. While at a Goth club one evening, Cassie makes the mistake of kissing Lissa's boyfriend (with some prompting by the boyfriend), and Lissa goes over the edge. She pulls a gun and kills her boyfriend and then herself. Trying to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life, in addition to trying to heal emotional wounds and recover from their loss, Cassie and her father move to a much more rural locale in the backwoods of Virginia. Little do they know that their new home was the former home of a Satanist, and contains a doorway to Hell.
A trio of dead souls, Via, Xeke, and Hush, who squat at the Deadpass in Cassie's house as fugitives and ex-residents, confront Cassie one day, and the three of them inform her that she is an Etheress. She unwittingly meets some very particular conditions that give her the ability to visit the infernal city and stir things up a bit in the process. Of course, her only goal is to find her sister and apologize for the unfortunate events that landed her in a place and position of eternal damnation.
Hell, however, isn't all that Cassie had imagined it would be. The city has evolved via advanced technology just as any other city in the Living World has. As Cassie explores the Mephistopolis, she finds that she has a lot to learn, and that things are more than meets the eye. Every street corner is ripe with depictions of systematized evil and atrocious oddities.
Edward Lee definitely ranks up there as one of my favorite authors. He has a simple, yet intensely descriptive way of describing the worlds he envisions and creates in all of his works. The Mephistopolis in this book is no different. This particular depiction of Hell is intricately woven and extremely well thought out, as is the plot in general. The picture of Hell that Lee has drawn within these pages is one of diabolical evil and grandiose design, and Lee hasn't left out a single detail, making for a titillating excursion that shouldn't be missed by anyone.
If you are familiar with any of Lee's other works, you know that he tends to push the extremes when it comes to the "gross-out" element of his writing. His literary signature is one of severe and extravagant, yet fascinating and intriguing, brutality that borders on the obscene and vulgar. In City Infernal, the portrayals tend to be much mellower, making this a great introduction to his work and something those with slightly weaker stomachs can enjoy.
This book was a fast-paced and fun read that I thoroughly enjoyed, and I have already bought and look forward to reading the sequel, "Infernal Angel." Very highly recommended!
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gruesome, August 4, 2002
This review is from: City Infernal (Mass Market Paperback)
Edward Lee is considered by many to be the gross-out king of the horror genre. I wish I could confirm or deny that statement, but I cannot. That's because "City Infernal" is the only Ed Lee book I've ever read. His other novels are either out of print or are so expensive that one would have to visit a mafia loan shark just to come up with the dough to buy one. Fortunately, "City Infernal" doesn't require a broken arm in order to get a copy (at least not yet; when it goes out of print, it might be a different story.). "City Infernal" is a real thrill ride. Lee tells us the story of Cassie, a Goth girl recovering from the suicide of her twin sister Lissa. Cassie and her father, a big shot Washington lawyer, move into the Virginia boonies to put the past behind them. Unfortunately for the two, they move into a mansion built by a Satanist. Cassie discovers that the house is occupied by three dead teenagers and serves as a gateway to the underworld (one of the teens is a mute named Hush. Nifty name!). But the Hades that Lee creates isn't all fire and brimstone; this Hades is a city built over the last 5000 years. It is much like New York or any other global metropolis. But in this city, torture, cannibalism, weird shops, and other types of mayhem can all be found during a stroll down the street. In Hades, black magic and sorcery are hard sciences. One can buy elixirs and cast spells on other people. Lucifer exists and lives in the largest high rise in the city, where he controls all types of government operations. The fallen angel Ezoriel, who battles his former friend for control of the underworld, opposes him by using terrorist tactics with a private army. Cassie enters Hades with her three dead friends, hoping to find Lissa. Fortunately for Cassie, it is quickly discovered that she has special powers in Hades. The result is a freewheeling ride through the nooks and crannies of the city. We see Cassie and her chums battling demon cops, eating at a fancy restaurant that serves human and demon meat, cooling their heels at a club, and running from a gangster called "Nicky the Cooker." I found this book highly entertaining. Lee is a reader's writer. He knows that when creating such a fascinating world, the reader wants details. That is exactly what Lee delivers. Hundreds of pages are devoted to the minutiae of life in the netherworld. We get to see a demon birth, gruesome murders and tortures, very strange television programs, and some of the more famous residents of the underworld. All of this is described in abundant and clever detail. I liked Cassie a lot, probably because she reminds me of several young ladies I know. Her internal observations were entertaining and realistic, considering the subject matter. Cassie's anguish over her responsibility for her sister's death is written with genuine feeling and comes across as such. Some of her reactions to experiences in Hades are a bit ridiculous, but on the whole she emerges as a good character that the reader knows quite well by the end of the story. Other characters aren't drawn as well. Cassie's dead buddies are central to the story, but come across as one dimensional (of course, they are dead!). Lissa is an enigma; she appears at the beginning of the book, and only intermittently throughout. We know the context in which she kills herself, but never understand the real reason for her actions. This is a problem because Lee originally paints Cassie as the outcast, depressed loner while Lissa is an extrovert. An even bigger problem is Lee's tendency to make the rules up as he goes along. We are told, by Cassie's dead friends in the beginning, that Hades has many rules. How fortunate that these rules always become apparent when most needed, and always helpful to our heroes! The demon cops are closing in-presto! We're invisible! Oh dear, it doesn't look like we're going to get out of this situation alive-here's Ezoriel and his black knights to save the day! I could probably stomach most of these miraculous saves, as most fiction uses them to some extent or another. But by the time the end of the book rolls around, it gets cutesy-wootsy and it grates. Despite a few minor problems, this book is still a lot of fun. I would read more Ed Lee in the future, based on what I know of him from this book. If you like horror/sci-fi/fantasy, pick this one up before it goes out of print.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a great horror novel!, June 1, 2002
This review is from: City Infernal (Mass Market Paperback)
I was one of those who read the negative reviews and bought the book with trepidation, but once I opened it up, I couldn't stop reading it until it was finished. Let's just say that I devoured this book during one very long night and it stayed with me long after. Leisure Books brings out tons of really great books, but occasionally there's one that stands out amongst all of them. City Infernal is that book. As a semi-aging goth, I identified with the main character Cassie who is very confused and lost after contributing to an event that sent her twin sister over the edge and caused her to commit suicide. Cassie and her father move to a small rural southern town and from there the story gets going. Its at this house that she meets up with a ragtag group of teenagers who guide her into hell itself to find her sister. From this point, I won't give anything else away just to say that hell is a very colorful and incredibly imagined city. Mr. Lee took a interesting concept and turned it into a strange and frightening city of the dead. There are all manner of demons here and hellish traps not to mention an odd plot twist with warring demons and a plot to overthrow Lucifer's grip on the city. This book is exceptional and there are funny parts too. Cassie's trip to the local redneck store was really funny, not to mention her friendship with a one-armed redneck. All in all, a great book and one I highly recommend.
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