Customer Reviews

House Infernal

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Welcome to Memphistopolis the great city of Hell built by Satan. The stretches endlessly, and it is were the souls of the Damned spend their eternity. In a pitch black sky hangs a red sickle moon that's shines over this evil city were nothing but suffering exist. Clock towers have no hands because time doesn't exist in this hideous city. Demons prowl streets made of Rot looking for damned to torture. Monstrous creatures live in the depths of seas made of blood looking for flesh to devour. Golems stand watch in smoking alleys, while gargoyles prowl the ledges of mile-high skyscrapers made of crushed bone. Anyone who is condemned to the place lives a eternity of torment and despair. Abandon all hope upon entering here.

Venetia Barlow is about to begin working at St. John's Prior House in hopes of one day becoming a nun. She expects nothing but hard work and boredom over the summer. but soon she's haunted by dark visions of a city full of monsters that know her name. She will soon find out that the prior house isn't a place of meditation and worship. Its a temple of evil with a very dark history and the dark forces that inhabit this place has something in store for her that will change her life forever.

House Infernal is the third installment in Lee's Infernal series. I loved his previous installments so my hopes were high when I started reading House. Lee has never disappointed me and House Infernal was no exception. The story takes off with a bang and and never lets up. I found myself staying up to the crack of dawn on a couple occasions consumed in this story. I could not put this book down.

House Infernal has loads of action and gore along with very memorable characters. Lee introduces us to lots of new characters, but he also brings some back from his earlier works. Fans of Bighead, Slither, and the Infernal series cant miss this one. A lot of old storylines get tied together in House Infernal. Lee is the King of Hardcore Horror and House Infernal is one of his best to date. I cant wait for his next installment in this series. I could go on and on but I will end by saying that if you are a Lee fan you owe it to yourself to go grab a copy. You will not be disappointed.

I'm a big fan of the infernal series, and of Ed Lee, so I was counting down the days until I could get my hands on this book. Unfortunately, when I was done reading this one I was only so-so about it.

My biggest gripe about this book was the grammatical errors. I'm not an english major, but when I'm reading a book published by a house the size of Leisure, I expect to not see more than a dozen mistakes in writing. The right words were used and spelled correctly, but they were the wrong word for the sentence i.e. the word "do" when it was clearly meant to be the word "if". Those kind of mistakes are distracting from the flow of the book because I stopped reading to say "what do heck?" (distracting isn't it?).

The story, I thought, was a step up for Lee in that he really told a story that moved along and had me wondering what would happen next. Although for most of the book, I found myself wanting to spend more time following Ruth and Alexander through hell than with Venetia in "this world".

If there was something missing, aside from a good proofreader at Liesure, it would be the shock value. Lee has cut out a niche (no pun intended) for himself with slap-you-in-the-face horror, and I didn't really see it this time. Perhaps it's because I've gotten use to the scenes in hell that I've been desensitized to it, but I can't really think of a time when it was "Oh my God, that was sick!".

So in the end, the plot flowed well, minus the grammar, and it seems Lee is "maturing" in his story telling abilities, but this book did not pack the punch of the first two. If you want to see Lee at his best, take a look at Flesh Gothic, or the first two books of this series, my personal favorite being the second book Infernal Angel.

Although House Infernal once again is a tale revolving around Edward Lee's vision of Hell, it is a different sort of book than the first two installments. Rather than being disappointed by this, I actually found it kept Lee from simply rehashing the same ideas, which was refreshing. I also found this book to be more directly in the horror vein than the first two.

In my opinion, House Infernal is undoubtedly better than Infernal Angel, though it did not have quite the qualities that endeared me to City Infernal. Lee finally succeeds fully in creating scenarios where the heroes do not get out the easy way. Terrible things really do happen to the main characters, and some of them will even be killed. Lee convinced me that they were truly in danger in this book, and that the evil truly was insideously, deeply evil, rather than "just kind of weird and gross." For that alone, this book deserves praise.

However, there were a few things that keep me from giving it full stars. First was that much like in Infernal Angel, Lee continues to contradict himself. For example, in Infernal Angel, we are told that all angels of the Caliginauts cut off their own wings as a sacrifice. In House Infernal, the Caliginauts that have been trapped in Hell have wings - the only one without wings has cut her own off for a reason that is a plot point I won't divulge. Why does Lee have such a tendency to contradict his own points from book to book?

One other thing I found disappointing was that neither of the human damned characters were very sympathetic or endearing, and I found the Hell-based chapters difficult to read unless they revolved around Boniface because of this. It was just hard to wish them well when both of their personalities were so grating. To make up for it, I felt that the earthly characters were developed uniquely and well, and that the villians were also quite original and convincing. My only disappointment with the villians is that it seemed somewhat anticlimactic for Lucifer to be absent after his being the primary antagonist of the second book. This is only a minor complaint, however. Boniface and Willermoz are plenty evil.

The ending of the book reveals a twist that I did not expect at all, but loved. However, this ending did illuminate one last disappointment that I have had throughout the series. If Lucifer is the master of temptation that mythology paints him to be, why are none of Lee's characters ever truly tempted to join his side? Even if a character appears to be choosing evil due to ignorance, as in the case of Walter in Infernal Angel, as soon as something is clearly Satanic in nature, all characters regardless of their background or personality reject it without a second thought. This seemed rather one dimensional to me, and at the end of House Infernal it seems even more clearly so - not for even a moment does Venetia consider taking up the Satanic offer, despite what is revealed at the end.

Despite these issues, I still whole heartedly recommend this book to fans of Lee's previous Infernal books, and also to any fans of Lee who felt that City Infernal and Infernal Angel were not quite horrific enough compared to Lee's usual style. If you felt disappointed by Infernal Angel, give House Infernal a chance. And if you've never read any of the previous books, don't be afraid to pick this one up, as it is a tale almost entirely independent of its predecessors.

I looked forward to reading this book having read the author's earlier work: The Messenger, which was horror at its purest complete with murder and mayhem that treated the reader to subtle peeks into the terrifying realm of the eternally damned known as Hell. Not so this novel.

Switching the points of view between the living world on Earth and Hell, "House Infernal" seemed to be two genres in one book: one half sophisticated adult murder mystery and one half children's fantasy adventure. There were times when I could have believed that the main charatcers' travels through Hell and its urbanized districts were written by J.K. Rowling as the events and descriptions were reminiscent of Harry Potter's experiences at Hogwarts, only with a slightly darker tone. I also found the main antagonist being called "your malevolence" and "my most abhorrent lord" by his servants to be particularly cartoonish.

This book could have been a novel truly worthy of the horror genre if the damned were made up of people who had chosen the wrong religion in their lives, or no religion at all instead of being made up of just murderers, rapists and so on. I thought he might depict God as being as petty, egotistical, and as malevolent as he is portrayed in the Old Testament, a terrifying concept in itself. Lee could have gone further into examining the psychological impact of one realizing that he has just been damned to dwell for eternity within a supernatural realm of torture as well.

Another disappointment was that the damned in the author's version of Hell were just residents forced to live in miserable conditions, a bit too mild for a horror novel if you ask me. They might as well have been damned to Africa. I was expecting to read about countless millions of condemned souls shrieking in searing agony within oceans of fire and lava forever and ever as was implied in Lee's earlier book: The Messenger. But I guess that would be too politically incorrect in this age of benignity and human rights.

The book was very good I thought but the spelling errors is a killer you would think if you have a book published it would have no spelling errors besides that I liked the book the ending had a good twist, so I'm saying to go out and get the book

A good but not great entry into Lee's Infernal series IMO. Surprisingly, I miss Cassie, especially after the events of Book 2 in the trilogy.

I will read more from Lee for sure, though I have just one question:

What is it with Lee, his female protagonists and flip-flops? ;)

3 AND 1/2 STARS

I've read a lot of Edward Lee, but I still say his best storytelling is with this "Infernal" series, and House Infernal is no exception. While this latest entry is my least favorite of the series, it was an enjoyable read, containing all the elements that make the Infernal trilogy so special... wild characters thrown into hell battling disgustingly wretched denizens over the fate of humanity and goodness. That being said, this book felt a little conservative for Lee's standards and a lot of the rules of incantations, spells, ceremonies, etc. felt random and a bit messy towards the end.

I was surprised at the high number of typos this book had, especially since it was published previously by Cemetery Dance Publications. There is no excuse for a top New York publisher like Leisure / Dorchester to put out such sloppy work. If someone simply read through the manuscript they would catch the errors with ease - they were that obvious.

With all the faults of the book, it was still worth reading and I'll keep my fingers crossed in hopes of a fourth book in the Mephistopolis. New fans of Lee should first check out book one in the series, City Infernal, and if you are even more daring, pick up a copy of one of his more hardcore novels, The Bighead or The Teratologist. You've been warned!

This book has its moments, but most of those are humorous rather than horrible. Definitely the weakest of the Infernal series. I enjoyed the first two books a lot more. Not sure what he was thinking with this one. He's done much better.

I expected this one to be just as gripping as the first two Edward Lee pumped out. It was just as descriptive, but a bit redundant. The story did not keep my attention as the first two did. Kind of corny and cheesy. I still enjoy Lee and will continue to read him since this series is the first time I even heard of him. He has abundant talent as a story teller and is descriptive enough to put you right into the story.

i love lee's work. and the whole "infernal" series is a great read. if you like horror - you'll love this. it's clive barker meets douglas coupland.