Inferno (Paperback)

~ (Author), Jerry Pournelle (Author)
Key Phrases: next pit, boiling blood, Big Juju, Allen Carpentier, Benito Mussolini (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Inferno is quite literally a cake walk through hell, with a science fiction writer as Dante and Benito Mussolini as Virgil.  I kid you not, Pournelle and Niven have had the chutzpah to re-write Dante's Inferno as if they were some unholy hybrid of Roger Zelazny, Robert Heinlein, and Phil Jose Farmer.  You are right there in the nether-reaches of the ultimate Sam Peckinpah movie with all the matter-of-fact solidity of a Hal Clement novel.  It gets to you, it really does.  This being lunacy of a transcendent order."--Norman Spinrad

 

"A dazzling tour de force."--Poul Anderson on Inferno

 

"A fast, amusing and vivid book, by a writing team noted for intelligence and imagination."--Roger Zelazny on Inferno

Product Description

After being thrown out the window of his luxury apartment, science fiction writer Allen Carpentier wakes to find himself at the gates of hell. Feeling he's landed in a great opportunity for a book, he attempts to follow Dante's road map. Determined to meet Satan himself, Carpentier treks through the Nine Layers of Hell led by Benito Mussolini, and encounters countless mental and physical tortures. As he struggles to escape, he's taken through new, puzzling, and outlandish versions of sin--recast for the present day.  

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Orb Books; First Edition of Reissued Work edition (September 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765316765
• ISBN-13: 978-0765316769
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #345,636 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The correct description of this product, February 4, 2009

By	Ivy Reisner (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The publisher's review, listed above as the product description, isn't accurate. Carpentier wasn't pushed from his luxury apartment; he fell in a freak, drunken accident from a hotel window during a science fiction convention. He doesn't feel like he's landed a great opportunity for a book; he feels disgusted and dismayed at the human suffering around him. He isn't determined to meet Satan; he's determined to get out of there.

So, for a correct description, after his sudden death, science fiction writer Allen Carpentier finds himself along the shores of Hell, with a strange guide who wishes only to be known as Benito, a Hell visited once before by Dante Alighieri. This Hell has changed some, and Carpentier visits some places Dante missed, but where Dante mocked the denizens of Hell, and meekly followed as he was led, Carpentier shows pity and mercy to those he meets, and he's determined to take control of the situation he finds himself in. We're treated to a delightful cast of characters, some from history and others from an imagined future world. This is a masterwork from the pen of two great authors, and it is not to be missed.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hell has change a bit over the past seven centuries, October 25, 2008

By	E. M. Van Court "Van, emvc (at) lycos.com" (Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Dante's Inferno had sinners chased through forests by evil hounds, and all the punitive mechinations available to the medieval mind hard at work. Niven and Pournelle added all the cruelties that humanity has created for itself since then. As a vain and self-centered science fiction author transits Hell in the company of a repentant Mussolini, the 'new cruelty' is hard at work.

Some sins are revisited, as a fashion model is punished for her obsession with her diet along with classic gluttons also being punished for their obsession with their diets, and a teacher who falsey diagnosed learning disabilities rather than work with slower students suffers in the ring reserved for practicioners of evil magic. Other punishments are revised, as Corvettes (the cars, not the ships) replace hell hounds, and bureaucratic, administrative perfection is required of the residents and enforced by demons. Truly a disturbing vision of eternal punishment.

Through all this, the underlying message is hope and the possibility of redemption, even for the worst offenders.

A brilliant XXth century interpretation of Dante, and well worth reading. Powerful prose and vivid imagery brings this one to life.

E.M. Van Court

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars High Protein Chicken Soup for the SF Soul, June 30, 2009

By	Daniel Murphy "Dan Murphy" (Redmond, OR USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

What does a three star rating for Inferno mean? It means that it's not comparable to Niven's A Mote in God's Eye, and it means that neither Niven nor Pournelle were in any danger of having to rent a tux to attend a Hugo Award banquet for this novel. But it doesn't mean that it's not a fun and satisfying read, a bowl of tasty, even spicy, chicken soup for the SF-lover soul.

Patterned, as multiple reviews have pointed out, after Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Niven and Pournelle use the vehicle to explore varieties of sin that inhabit the 20th century (the book was first published decades ago), and to explode pomposity. Land developers that gouge Gaia, yep, they're down there in Hell, but so are leaders of the environmental movement.

Our protagonist, Carpentier, has a pitbull-rivaling grip on the concept that there IS a scientific/rational explanation for what at first seems to be a confirmation of religious dogmatism. In Carpentier's wandering through the levels of the Inferno, he, and we, find some serious chunks of protein floating in the chicken soup, some flashes of insight, some "aha!" moments. And...the reader gets to have blast meeting historical figures that are confronting their just (or maybe not so just) desserts. There are many moments of humor, and some of genuine poignancy.

There are also liberal doses of, um, silliness. In the early chapters of the book, the cocky, smart-alecky tone threatened to overwhelm the narrative. Press on: this is a Chunky Style soup, with some real sustenance to it.

There was one, and only one, note to the book that I found jarring, like biting down on a tooth-cracking pebble in an otherwise tasty mouthful of food: Homosexuality is listed as a serious sin, roughly equivalent to murder and needless violence, and is directly linked with "sins against nature", such as "having sex with small mammals". Is that so, Niven and/or Pournelle? Maybe that was the dominant social view in 1976 (when the book was published, and not that long after the Stonewall riots), but now, I'm thinking, who in Hell really cares about gender preference. Nature is rife with examples of homosexuality, in countless species. Whatever else it might be, "sin against nature" it does not appear to be.

Will you walk away from this book a changed man/woman? Hell (wink, wink) no! Will you have a good rainy day read, or a more pleasant journey through the Hell that an airplane journey currently represents? You betcha. If you're a Niven/Pournelle veteran, read, enjoy, check it off your list. If you haven't read Niven, start with Ringworld or my own personal favorite, A Mote in God's Eye. Happy slurping!