Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heck of a ride, July 30, 2000
For some reason this seems to be the only Niven/Pournelle collaboration not in widespread print. Indeed that's sad because this is probably one of the more distinctive of their collective musings, if still definitely having their mark on it. The title was no doubt easy to pick, in case you're wondering if the book has anything to do with that wacky long work of poetry by a certain Italian poet, you're absolutely right. A science fiction writer dies and for some strange reason gets sent to hell, which of course he then proceeds to break down into science fiction terms (figuring he must have gotten sent into the future . . . "Infernoland" I love it!) while events and settings around him defy all sense of logic and physics. It's a rollicking ride through the netheregions, the boys barely give you time to catch your breath as Carpentier attempts to replicate Dante's journey through the place to get the heck out of there. Along the way he runs into the twentieth century versions of sins, some of which you might disagree with, since a bunch are political in nature but I found most of them fairly funny and the authors don't hit you over the head with their social commentary. He also runs into some notorious historical figures and the identity of his guide is at first so seemingly obvious that you can't believe that they had the gall to actually include him in the book and then you wonder how come Carpenter doesn't realize until long after you do. A great companion to Dante's poem, it raises a few religious questions just to give you something to think about but overall it's a fun read.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
best book....ever, February 22, 2001
This book is one of the most amazing books Ive had the pleasure to read, not often the science fiction fan, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle put a fun and informative new age twist on a amazing piece of italian liturature, ie Dante's Inferno, not only does this book make its own powerful impression about our own imaginations, it also inspires us to pick up the original, and have a better understanding for the basics in it. The adventures of our poor missplaced hero Allen Carpentier (not Carpenter, mind you) and his education through the many ironic and over appropriatly tourturous stages of Hell. I rarely read books twice, this one i have read more then 37 times, it is a keeper, make sure to have at least 3 hours time on your hands, assuming you are a fairly speedy reader, because you wont be able to put this one down!
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Mother of All Metaphors, May 7, 2001
"Inferno" has been justly regognized as a classic. The hero, Allen Carpentier (a minor sci-fi writer) accidentally falls out of an 8th story window and wakes up in a place that seems to be modeled on the Hell of Dante Aligheri's poetic epic "Divine Comedy." His guide, Benito (whose true identity is one of the author's little surprises) leads Carpentier through all the circles of this alleged hell. At first he assumes he has been kidnapped by aliens and is imprisoned in some sort of fiendish Disneyland. But it doesn't give too much of the story away to reveal that he is in the actual, real hell, which Dante saw in a vision. Niven and Pournelle have a lot of fun revealing their candidates for hell--environmentalists and developers, liberals and conservatives (Kurt Vonnegut ends up in the circle reserved for Creators of False Religions.) But as Carpentier and Benito plot their escape serious issues emerge. It seems the tortures of the damned are extremely painful and very real. What kind of God would create such a place? Even if you accept Hell as a metaphor rather than a literal reality (as man traditions do), what about the hells on earth we create for ourselves? Do we sentence ourselves, because God can't violate our free will? What do Carpentier and Benito have to learn in order to escape from Hell? "Inferno" lives up to its reputation as morally informed, gripping speculative fiction, like Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow."
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