Recurring themes are clinging to "what's coming to me" and justice. Allan Carpenter has become a new guide out of hell and is determined to point the way out. In the end, it becomes clear it is a personal choice where you spend eternity.

I still say that Niven's Inferno and Jerry Pournelle's #1 and this (#2) would make great video games. ( )

In 1978, frequent collaborators Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote Inferno, in which middle-rank science fiction writer Alan Carpenter (sometimes Carpentier, for no apparent reason), gets a little inebriated at a science fiction convention, tries to duplicate Dolokhov’s rum-drinking bet from War and Peace, and falls to his death. Some indeterminate time later, Carpenter finds himself in Hell (more or less exactly the way Dante described it), escorted by the shade Benny (whose actual identity would be a spoiler). After various adventures and encounters with the damned, Benny makes it out of Hell and Carpenter goes back to try and rescue others.


Well, Escape from Hell is the sequel. Carpenter is back; this time he’s the one trying to rescue souls. Having editorial power over Hell must provide a certain satisfaction; Dante certainly enjoyed it. Some of Niven and Pournelle’s choices for the denizens and their locations are grim justice – Hugh Hefner in the Second Circle; Anna Nicole Smith in the Fourth; Reinhard Heydrich and “Bomber” Harris burning together eternally in Eighth, and Hitler and Stalin frozen together in the Ninth (well, Virgil did suggest Dante taunt the damned). Others are a little dubious; I’m not quite sure Carl Sagan belongs with the False Prophets or Robert Oppenheimer with the Traitors, and the book perpetuates the dual myth that Katrina flooded New Orleans because the levees failed and that the levees failed because they weren't inspected. The geography of Hell has changed somewhat; they’ve had to add a lot to the Circle of the Virtuous Pagans since Vatican II. Carpenter gets a sort-of-kind-of love interest in Sylvia Plath, who he helps escape from the Wood of the Suicides by setting her on fire and Sylvia, in turn, gets a meeting with Ted Hughes.


Not great world literature, obviously, but it did inspire me to go back and re-read Inferno (both of them) and pleasant enough for a quick read in a coffee shop. You need to read Dante and the Niven-Pournelle Inferno first. And perhaps Sylvia Plath. ( )

Sequel to their "Inferno," another trip through hell with a science fiction author who is now out to show people the way out (as you might have guessed from the title.) I found this one a little more irritating in that there were more discussions about hell and its purpose than in the first book and so my disagreements with the authors (which I knew were there) were made more evident. I can't imagine that Sylvia Plath or Albert Camus would enjoy their rather comic-book depictions, but I digress. I admire the authors for taking this on, renewing interest in Dante's Divine Comedy, and risking the theological speculation...but doesn't hell (with an escape hatch) end up being Purgatory? And can they really think, as they say in the afterword, that their picture is in line with the teaching of the Catholic Church? I'd love to see the Vatican response. ( )

[Escape from Hell] by [[Larry Niven]] and [[Jerry Pournelle]] is very entertaining to read. This fantasy re-write of Dante's Inferno is surprisingly accurate from a religious and theological point of view. In Hell, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle have all characters of history and populate Hell with corrupt politicians from New Orleans, J Edgar Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, and of course, Hitler and Stalin. I found it amusing from both a political and religious commentary. I wonder how much of the theology Mr. Niven and Mr. Pournelle believe? I really enjoy seeing people repent and escape from Hell; that's the point of the book, after all. ( )

Read this 2010? I enjoyed it, but no where as good as the original. Also, the political posturing was a little silly, getting the boot into Carl Sagan! (was it CS?, been a while since I read). The original was something I read and re-read, not so much this. ( )