Back in 1976 Science-fiction authors Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle published their fantasy novel Inferno, about an SF writer who dies and goes to hell as described by Dante in if classic work, Inferno. I have read this novel two ro three times and it is very enjoyable and quite an interesting take Dante’s vision through a modern perspective.
Two years they published a sequel novel, Escape From Hell, which I purchased a few months back and now that I have time, I have finally read. I do not think this book is as good as the original and in part I think politics marred this novel, which just as easily be titled Liberals In Hell. Jerry Pournelle maintains a blog — he hates that words but that is what the world calls such things — and so as a frequent reader I have a taste for what the author thinks versus what his characters are saying. (Larry Niven does not maintain such on line presence and so his thoughts are more mysterious.)
This book in many ways feels like the authors having fun putting their political rivals in Hell and torturing them. There is a decided lack of conservative figures in hell, while prominent liberal such as President Lyndon Johnson, are named and figure as characters. Now I am not insisting that author must maintain an quota system for such works, that’s silly, but the complete absence of namable conservatives betrays the heavy bias and that undercuts any arguments and persuasive powers the text might have.
This major flaw made the book far less enjoyable than the original, even with that novel’s flaws. (Such as maintaining homosexuality as a sin, something that was seriously modified by the sequel. Apparently hell is subject to retconning.)
Wortha read, but with a large amount of salt nearby.
