Niven's Inferno

[D'kian]

Actually that should be Niven and Pournelle's Inferno, but this one feels like it was written by just Niven.

So, it's a retelling, somewhat updated for the XX Century, of Dante's Inferno. The story is about a science fiction writer named Carpentier who dies and goes to hell. After spending an indeterminate time inside, presumably, a bottle in the vestibule of Hell, where he exists as a mind without a body, he's released by somene named Benito.

Benito tells Carpentier he's in Hell and propposes the two of them escape. Nice. Carpentier spends most of the novel denying he's either dead or in hell, even while evidence slowly and steadily shows otherwise. He attempts to think he died, was frozen and alter revived. He thinks he's either in some sort of Infernoland experience, or in an insane asylum. The odd physics of Hell and, for lack of a better term, the miracles he wtinesses, he tries to put down to advanced technology. Eventually he does accept he's in Hell.

Eventually Carpentier and Benito make their way through the nine circles fo Hell, too. Carpentier does a lot of sightseeing, but that's fine with Benito who reminds him they have all eternity ahead.

The picture painted of Hell is nasty and brutish (but alas not short). However Carpentier, who tells the tale in first person, doesn't question God enough. In the end, in fact, he thinks he's beginning to see the true purpose of Hell, which he thinks it's not to torture people forever. There is a sequel, written many years later, which is next on my list.

Along the way the pair meets lots of tortured souls. Often Benito will try to encourage some of these to join them, telling them they, too, can escape Hell. Benito, BTW, is highly devout. They are joined by a dead Shuttle pilot and William Bonny (Billy the Kid), but both abandon the quest before completion. Among the updating we see cars taking the palce of dogs in the lower circles of hell, and we learn some sins, like the sale of sacred offices, have become obsolete.

People seem to be condemned to Hell for very specific sins, or at least they're punished for specific sins. We're never explicitly told what Carpentier's transgression was, but we can easily deduce it was agnosticism, and his punishment was the bottle he was locked in. We do learn what Benito did.

I'm purposefully not saying anything about the various punishments and the pits of Hell because they are highly unpleasant, the more so if you can really imagine being there. I'll just mention one aspect. In the vestibule there is a section of villas reserved for unbaptized children and virtous pagans. There are no punishments there, but the people there are barred from Heaven. As for the rest, suffice it to say all inhabitants of Hell are always in pain or in a highly disgusting situation, or both.

I do enjoy fiction about the afterlife. It's total fantasy, of course, but sometimes a good story or an interesting background comes along. They're also a chance to see falalcies and myths put into action. One such, an Albert Brooks' movie called "Defending Your Life," hinges on the 5% brain myth (ie we only use 5% of our brains). But the story is interesting and the background is rather nice.

I'm even thinking of writing some of my own. the idea's foggy still, but I'm thinking of a place where there are three areas: Heaven, Hell and Paradise. Heaven is God's domain, Hell is the domain of the Jim Taggarts and Lillian Reardens. Paradise, now, paradise is Lucifer's domain (Lucifer means "bringer of light"). Stay tuned for developments.

[Grames]

People seem to be condemned to Hell for very specific sins, or at least they're punished for specific sins. We're never explicitly told what Carpentier's transgression was, but we can easily deduce it was agnosticism, and his punishment was the bottle he was locked in. We do learn what Benito did.

It was for making up a false religion in a science fiction story.

[D'kian]

It was for making up a false religion in a science fiction story.

Two false religions.

But no.

We know he shows up in Hell inside the bottle and Benito lets him out. We know Carpentier picks up a similar bottle, which is hot and has sounds coming out of it, indicating someone else trapped inside. No other people are let out of bottles, but plenty of people just show up in Hell, take the ferry accross the river and are assigned punishments by Minos.

Had Carpentier's sin been the false religions, he would have been sent to the bottom rungs of Hell pretty quickly. Besides, the demon who asks him about it lets him go without more than a tic-tac-toe game scratched on his chest and a request for a rematch.

BTW I found Hell's bureaucracy to be rather mild.