Escape From Heaven [Hardcover]

J. Neil Schulman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2002

An L.A. radio talk-show host is sent on a mission from God that takes him to Heaven -- then back to earth -- on a rollercoaster adventure that includes meetings with the most famous celebrities in Heaven and on earth.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Just plain fun ... a romp ... behind the pure fun, has the serious Miltonic purpose of justifying God's ways to man." -- Jerry Pournelle, Byte

"Wild, irreverent, a hoot. Any other civilization would have burned Schulman at the stake. Did they know something we don't?" -- David Brin, author of The Uplift Saga and The Postman

From the Publisher

"Schulman has humour, wit and imagination, and I devoured this latest offering with pleasure." --Colin Wilson, author of The Outsider, After Life: Survival of the Soul, The Philosopher's Stone, The Mind Parasites & many others

"A fast-moving interesting story with surprising developments as Good and Evil face their final struggle. A challenging novel that should annoy all the right folk." --Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth series & many other bestsellers

"J. Neil Schulman's Escape from Heaven is so heretical it threatens a new orthodoxy and so comic that it is one of the most serious novels you will ever read." -- Brad Linaweaver, author of Sliders, The Novel and the Doom series.

"It is the God damnedest thing I've ever read. If C. S. Lewis, Robert A. Heinlein, and Ayn Rand had teamed up to write a novel, something like Escape From Heaven would have inevitably resulted. I say `something like' because this blistering satire of contemporary culture, religion, and politics could only have been written by J. Neil Schulman." -- John DeChancie, author of Witchblade, Castle Perilous, and MagicNet.

"The Pilgrim's Progress of the 21st Century." -- Samuel Edward Konkin III, author of An Agorist Primer.

"It is full of the jokes, puns, and outrageous concepts joyfully explored which will have a strong appeal to the libertarian reader as well as a more general audience. (I recommended it to two Christian evangelical types while I was waiting to change planes in Kansas City last month.) This novel doesn't purport to explain it all to you, rather, it takes you along for a wild intellectual ride. Escape from Heaven is thus far from mundane." -Lynn Maners, Ph.D.

"I stopped reading after I had consumed everything Robert Anton Wilson wrote up to about '92. Escape from Heaven held me as spellbound as the Illuminatus! Trilogy. Though half blind, and knowing I was straining my eyes, I read until there was nothing but a blur. The novel is a brilliant Discordian way of looking at conventional religion. The characters were brought to life and had depth and substance. The plot was fantastic, the meter of the book consistently building to a perfect ending. The lovers are reunited, and you don't know who would have won. Overall I give it a 10." --J.R. Ploughman, author, The Book of the Holy Grail

"What a fun book! I pretty much read it all in one sitting. Escape from Heaven is definitely not orthodox as it contemplates ideas from Christianity, Judaism, and Gnosticism. But it reflects an authentic encounter between Jesus and the author, and Schulman doesn't take cheap shots. The first page grabbed me, and the rest of the book was fast-moving and full of surprises. I enjoyed the book as entertainment, but I found Schulman's ideas on free will theologically stimulating." --Chris B. McKinney of the Philippine Christian Mission

"Escape from Heaven is a masterpiece of satire in the tradition of Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth and The Diaries of Adam & Eve. It is a divine comedy in the original sense of the term. The book may offend some partisans of organized piety whose faith is so frail that it can't take a joke, but I can't think of any other book that is quite so serious about the concept of Christian love and forgiveness." --Robert Schneider, author, Shylock, The Roman

"Nothing but fun except where it was thought-provoking and that was fun too!" --Dyanne Petersen from Laissez Faire Books

"What a deliciously reverential offense! A little heretical blasphemy for all flavors of believers, agnostics and atheists. An edgy little book that defies categorization. A guaranteed mega-bestseller. It ought to make $$$$ like The Celestine Prophecy." -- Teny Rule, Fandom Publicist for Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Pulpless.Com, Inc. (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584451920
• ISBN-13: 978-1584451921
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,763,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

J. Neil Schulman is an award-winning writer and filmmaker, whom the Wall Street Journal called a pioneer of electronic publishing His 1979 Prometheus-Hall-of-Fame novel Alongside Night -- endorsed by Milton Friedman, Anthony Burgess, and Ron Paul -- projected the economic meltdown and was Freedom Book of the Month for May, 2009. It's currently in development as his second feature film, following his award-winning comic thriller, Lady Magdalene's, starring Nichelle Nichols, which Schulman wrote, produced, directed, and acted in. His 1983 novel, The Rainbow Cadenza, won the Prometheus Award, was adapted into a Laserium show, and Robert A. Heinlein told the 1983 L-5 Society, "Every libertarian should read it!" Schulman scripted the CBS revived Twilight Zone episode, "Profile in Silver." He taught a graduate course on electronic publishing for The New School, has written for popular magazines and newspapers including National Review, Reason, the Los Angeles Times, and Reader's Digest, and monographs ranging from animal rights, informational property rights, and medicalization of criminology have been widely anthologized by academic presses. His 12 books include Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns, endorsed by Charlton Heston and Dennis Prager, Self Control Not Gun Control endorsed by Walter Williams, and The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana, which Virginia Heinlein said "should be on the shelves of everyone interested in science fiction." His latest is Unchaining the Human Heart--A Revolutionary Manifesto. He's recipient of the James Madison Award from the Second Amendment Foundation, and on March 16, 2009 Schulman was awarded the Samuel Edward Konkin III Memorial Chauntecleer by the Karl Hess Club, the only previous recipients being Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Wally Conger. Full bio at http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/jnsbio.html

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Old Diety Peddler, December 16, 2002

By 

"ssandfort" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Escape From Heaven (Hardcover)

I read the first part of ESCAPE FROM HEAVEN for free on line. That's the way J. Neil Schulman hooks you in. You're reading along, enjoying the story, getting into it, than right at the most exciting part, he cuts your water off. Sort of like Tom Lehrer's "Old Dope Peddler":

He gives the kids free samples,
Because he knows full well
That today's young innocent faces
Will be tomorrow's clientele.

I'm not complaining, though. I just had to read the rest, because it was such a rollicking good story and funny as, uh, hell. I especially appreciated the little inside jokes and references for science fiction fans, libertarians and gunnies. It kept me glued to the screen until I had read it "cover" to "cover."

A couple of caveats; if you think you don't like anything but "hardcore" science fiction, this is probably not the J. Neil Schulman book for you. (Though I strongly recommend you give it a chance--hey, it's free.) Ditto, if you take your religion too seriously. (Schulman seems to agree with Heinlein's observation "One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." ESCAPE FROM HEAVEN has something to offend everyone's religious sensibilities, therefore plenty of belly laughs.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars North of $20 for this crud?, August 15, 2011

By 

Cal - See all my reviews

This review is from: Escape From Heaven (Hardcover)

This book just did not engage me at all. I found it boring and childishly written, not an enthralling page-turner.

Bad writing is bad writing...

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Madcap, Manic, Midrashic, and Fun!, February 2, 2003

By 

Louis N. Gruber "Author of Jay" (Lexington, SC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Escape From Heaven (Hardcover)

This amazing--and FUNNY--book begins with the last earthly hours of radio talk show host Duj (rhymes with judge) Pepperman, as he receives an unheard of call-in from God, and is summoned home to heaven. There he receives an unexpected assignment and learns some surprising things about God, including the fact that God looks just like him. And that's just for starters.

Soon Duj is involved in the climactic battle of God and Satan, conducted as a political campaign, with assistance from some of the greatest minds in history, not least of which is a man author Schulman has always admired--Robert Heinlein. All this is related in snappy, irreverent dialogue that will keep you laughing. But there is more.

In fact, there is lots more, and I won't spoil it for you. Schulman turns all the major religions upside down and shakes them. His ideas about God, Jesus, Satan, Adam and Eve, are totally unorthodox. What is he doing? It sounds a lot like midrash--a kind of teaching story that Jewish scholars use to teach theological principles. What is he saying? That God is really, really good. That God took a tremendous risk in creation, and in giving us free will. That God wants us, his children to be free and creative and--well--godlike.

Is Schulman a mystic, teaching us Kabbalah or Gnosis? Is he doing midrash cloaked in outrageous humor? Or is he just having fun? You will have to decide for yourself. And I hope you will. This is a marvelous book and I hope you will read it. Maybe more than once. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber