INFERNO

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Summary: Inferno: wicked satire of modern society as viewed by Dante
Review: One of the best collaborations between Niven and Pournelle, INFERNO is a wicked satire of modern society as it would be viewed through the eyes of Dante Alighieri. A science fiction writer named Allen Carpentier dies at a convention party and finds himself in Hell, and in trying to escape is taken on a tour of the Inferno which becomes a commentary on the morals and hypocrisy of 20th century America. Niven and Purnelle truly shine in this novel, and it is a damn shame that it has been out-of-print for nearly a decade. Want to read it? Contact the publisher and ask them to reprint the book--and while you're at it, ask about a possible hardcover edition...

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Summary: Somebody needs to get off the stick, and make this movie!
Review: One of the most creative and original books I've ever read. Not an easy task to take an epic from the 1300's and update it successfully. There aren't too many books that I re-read over and over again, but this is one. Niven & Pournelle brought the story of a trip through Hell in to the modern day, with a recently deceased Sci Fi author (hmmm?) filling in for Dante. This is one cool book, complete with a surprise twist of an ending and everything. It's out of print (go figure), but if you search the net, you'll find it somewhere.

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Summary: Fun Adolescent Fantasy
Review: This was an enjoyable page-turner, very boy's own adventure (despite its unusual setting), some "if-I-try-I-can-do-it" heroics, no particularly impressive set-pieces (he's no Dante), but it was fun.

From other reviews I'd expected a bit more emphasis on a science-fiction rationalization from the protagonist, but they were rare and subordinate to the action. The ending was satisfying and unexpected.

It wasn't especially comic, despite the opportunities and occasional suspected effort, and it wasn't particularly moving. The characters were cardboard figures, the thrills were absent, the prose itself was utilitarian and unromantic--nonetheless I enjoyed it for what it was, though I won't be reading it again.

Note: a 3 star ranking from me is actually pretty good; I reserve 4 stars for tremendously good works, and 5 only for the rare few that are or ought to be classic; unfortunately most books published are 2 or less.

Rating:
Summary: Fun Adolescent Fantasy
Review: This was an enjoyable page-turner, very boy's own adventure (despite its unusual setting), some "if-I-try-I-can-do-it" heroics, no particularly impressive set-pieces (he's no Dante), but it was fun.

From other reviews I'd expected a bit more emphasis on a science-fiction rationalization from the protagonist, but they were rare and subordinate to the action. The ending was satisfying and unexpected.

It wasn't especially comic, despite the opportunities and occasional suspected effort, and it wasn't particularly moving. The characters were cardboard figures, the thrills were absent, the prose itself was utilitarian and unromantic--nonetheless I enjoyed it for what it was, though I won't be reading it again.

Note: a 3 star ranking from me is actually pretty good; I reserve 4 stars for tremendously good works, and 5 only for the rare few that are or ought to be classic; unfortunately most books published are 2 or less.

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Summary: Never in My Wildest Dreams - Pure Genius
Review: For someone who doesn't read a lot, I have now spoilt it for myself by reading this modern adaptation of Dante Alighieri's "Inferno". Now all future reading prospects must be as "un-put-downable" as this absolute masterpiece of madness. The story begins with the untimely death of one Alan Carpentier, a self-acclaimed, world famous Sci-Fi writer. During a Sci-Fi convention, His fans had talked him into a drinking competition where one sits, legs dangling outward, on a window ledge while skolling an entire bottle of Rum in one go. Unsurprisingly, His gagging reflex sent him hurtling out the window of an 8 storey building just as his fans were facing the other way. So begins the story of a dead man's trip through the various layers of hell. You will find yourself raving about the book with comedy in mind while generating a look of horror on the faces of your friends. I myself would need more than 1000 words to explain the absolute enjoyment of reading this book (which I've read Approx. 5 times). Be very careful though, because there is a place in hell for the slightest of sinners and you may find yourself looking up from within the plains of freezing ice or being slashed in half by 18 foot demons in the boiling lakes of blood. Remember, you can only die once...
Get it from anywhere...Just read this Book!

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Summary: An updated Classic
Review: This was the first book by Niven I read. It started me on a five year science fiction reading jag. I liked his modernization of the original upon which it was based. Often original Classics are tedious and unintersting. I believe as times change so should literature. However beautiful, profound or whatever the original Classic might have been, in "now time" it's a drag. This is especially more so with literature that has to be translated not only from one time period to another, but also from one language to another.
Inferno could've been rendered in many different ways interestingly. The Niven/Pournelle version was excellent. Stories like this should be made into movies.
Back in the '50s there were comic books called Classics. These took famous items of literature and rendered them into a very condensed, graphic versions of the original. They were a good familiarization and intoduction to such literature. This version of Inferno, although it takes greater liberty with the original, does much the same thing as those Classic comics only in an adult version.

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Summary: Great!!
Review: A man wakes up in Hell. All around him people are going through incredible tortures. Some he can help while others are impossible to help. So begins his journey to try to escape Hell.

This was such a well written interesting short novel. Very philosophical in nature. The authors give a new slant on explaining the reason for Hell and how to get out of it. I will not give away the surprise ending but it really came as a surprise and did work well.

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Summary: Potlatch is not an example of "Violent Wasting"!
Review: This is an enjoyable book and you should read it, by all means.

But when you do, please mentally correct the authors' error in the examples they give of "Violent Wasters". The Violent Wasters are the denizens of Hell who made it their by willfully destroying their wealth to show off how wealthy they are. The authors incorrectly describe a potlatch as the gathering together and willful destruction of a large quantity of material goods, and hence a kind of "Violent Wasting".

This is not what a potlatch is. The potlatch is a Native American festival in which the hosts redistribute much, even most, of their worldly possessions to others. In the past they did this by literally giving away everything in the house. In today's cash economy, the tendency is for the family, clan or village to spend all its money on consumer goods which are then distributed at the potlatch. The custom is found in various forms all over the northern Pacific coast of North America among both Indian and Eskimo groups; in some places it has the name "potlatch" and in other places it has other names.

Christian missionaries were appalled by potlatches and pressured both the U.S. and Canadian federal governments to outlaw them. Why they were appalled I'm not sure. The purpose (or at any rate the effect) of the potlatch was to ensure that no family had too much of the wealth, and no family had too little. This is certainly in keeping with Christian doctrine, if not with Christian practice.

However, it seems the missionaries misunderstood. Perhaps it looked like Violent Waste to them, or maybe simply Communism. Since the European tendency is to think in terms of family welfare while the indigenous tendency is to think of the welfare of a whole people, the potlatch may have looked like waste to them. It may have been something written by a missionary which gave Mr. Niven and Mr. Pournelle the impression that potlatches involved waste.

Potlatches remained illegal until sometime in the 1950's, I think. They are back in vogue now. While teaching school in western Alaska I attended one. The village I was teaching in invited another village and, after several days of eating and dancing, all of the guests were lined up in order of age, from the elders on down to the babies, and given gifts ranging from furniture and blankets down to groceries and paper goods. Certainly nothing was destroyed, except for a door hinge on the meeting hall and that was an accidnent.

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Summary: The Mother of All Metaphors
Review: "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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Summary: best book....ever
Review: 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!