[Editor's Note: The following article originally appeared in Volume 2, Numbers 6 & 7 of The Starship Express Copyright 1988 Philip J De Parto. It is reprinted with permission.]
Thus spoke Lucifer:
"I am tired . . . I no longer revel in the suffering of the damned. . . I need, in short, to be the hero in an epic of Homeric proportions--to see myself as the Magnificent Antichrist once more. For this, Homer, you are eminently suited." (Page five)
This is the premise of The Little Helliad, the latest novel in the "Heroes in Hell" series. Arguing that he needs to find suitable inspiration for his inferno epic, Homer (consigned to Hell because of all the conflict his epics have inspired) is granted permission to travel the length and breadth of Hades. Along the way he meets such figures as Odysseus, Achilles, Alexander the Great, Confucius, and others, ranging from the dawn of mankind to veterans of World War III, to the Angel, Altos--an unfallen member of the heavenly host who chose to travel to Hell as a sort of Peace Crops worker. All their adventures and tales of earthly deeds are to be woven into Homer's current opus.
This bare bones outline may sound like a dreary didactic Christian fable of fire and brimstone and angels with harps and devils with pitchforks. It is anything but. It is, instead, a celebration of the human spirit, of the struggle to love, to hope, to strive under even the most difficult of conditions.
The cast of characters includes both newcomers to "Heroes in Hell" like Hesiod and Nefertiti and earlier adventurers like Lawrence of Arabia and CIA agent Welch. Characters who appeared in earlier volumes are fleshed out. Take, for instance, the taciturn World War III veteran, Nichols, a man found to be a complete cipher to this reviewer until now:
"His eyes seemed to lose their focus. 'You Old Dead don't know how good Hell is. you've never been in a nuclear exchange. You haven't seen guys flesh melted off their bones. You don't have a clue what pain is, if you haven't seen the casualties of modern warfare--skin burned away, eyes blind, bleeding from every pore . . . . Hell ain't bad. It's an equal opportunity destroyer. Equal's good enough for me.' (Pages 167 - 168)
The Little Helliad is designed to both stand by itself and also to advance the plotline of the "Heroes in Hell" saga. Thus Homer, who has safe passage to wander wherever he chooses, soon joins a group of the regular H.I.H. cast who are on a quest of their own. Alexander, Achilles, Lawrence, Welch, and Tanya are travelling to the headwaters of the Nile in search of Enkidu of Sumeria, friend of the hero Gilgamesh.
The more important storyline is Homer's search for wisdom and understanding of the nature of man and of Hell. The bard has the ability to draw out the hidden depths and motivations of his companions. Few people are able to resist his requests to tell Homer a story. This slows down the search for Enkidu plot, but adds to the depth and complexity of the narrative. The best moments of the book are at these quiet times: Odysseus' account of his final days, Tanya's terse report of the reason for her damnation, the tale of the devil and the Trojan woman, and my personal favorite: the melodramatic, but effective, dying soliloquy of Achilles:
"When I went again to Ilion (in The Gates of Hell), I saw all the liars and the maddened monarchs trading untruths on a land which itself had no truth of place. The rivers moved and the sea remade itself; Agamemnon made men into stone in his palace, and the Minotaur was loose upon the land. Hell is a mirror into which no man dares look, lest his lies overcome him. And whatever I have done, as man or shade or damned soul, I have owned to it, though I serve the Devil. In like I served the gods, and fared no better.
It is not the Devil who makes Hell horrid, but the men who come here thinking right and wrong are open to interperation. . . .
And blame not the Devil for our sins. For if there were no men, there would be no Hell to receive their shameful souls. I, who was brought up a woman and yet never learned better than to squabble over women, can attest to that." (Page 129)
This sort of stuff may not be for everyone, but this reviewer considers it one of the best fantasy novels he has read in the past couple of years and hopes that it is considered for the Hugo and Nebula Award nominations.
"Heroes in Hell" is one of a number of shared universe science fiction series. A "Shared Universe" is a "world" created by one writer who sets up the basic premise, locates a publisher, and then invites other writers to contribute stories set within its confines. The creator also serves as editor, accepting or rejecting submissions and insuring that the tales from various hands are compatible with the central premise and each other. Although there had been stuff of this sort going on in the field for some time, witness Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, the gimmick didn't really catch on until Robert Asprin created Thieves World during the 70's.
There are currently nine books published by Baen in the "Heroes in Hell" saga. The others are:
Heroes in Hell collection various writers
The Gates of Hell novel Cherryh and Morris
Rebels in Hell collection various writers
Kings in Hell novel Cherryh and Morris
Crusaders in Hell collection various writers
Legions of Hell fix-it novel C J Cherryh
Angels in Hell collection various writers
Masters in Hell collection various writers
Most prolific among the contributors is C J Cherryh, who has focused her attentions on the Roman damned, especially the Ceasar household. This concludes Julius and Augustus Caesar, Cleopatra, Brutus, Horatio, Dante, Machiavelli and others. Robert Silverberg has also been busy chronicling the exploits of the Sumerian epic hero, Gilgamesh. His short story, "Gilgamesh in the Outback," in the big G encounters Robert E Howard and H P Lovecraft, won the 1986 Nebula Award. Other featured characters in the series include Attila the Hun, Napoleon Bonaparte, James Dean, Yuri Andropov, Helen of Troy, and Marilyn Monroe. Anyone who enjoyed Philip Jose Farmer's early Riverworld novels should really give the "Hell" books a try.
With the exception of a handful of fundamentalist ministers, few people would really look forward to reading a book in which the hero is bound to a spit and then roasted over Hellfire for all eternity. The popular conception of Hell is not the residence of our heroes. Morris draws on many sources to create her version of the hereafter.
Some are borrowed from Christian mythology. There is a devil and a fallen host. But although Lucifer wields great powers, he is far from being the nigh-omniscient source of evil traditionally accorded him. There is also a lot of ideas taken from the Greek Hades, i. e. this is the land of the dead. Most people experience Hell, however, as a sort of poorly run third world country: the plumbing tends to back up, power often fails at the most inopportune times, construction is shoddy, the bureaucracy maddening, and you never know when the secret police are listening.
Still, famous leaders can rally their followers and plot. Different groups vie to rise higher in the infernal bureaucracy. Che Guevara leads the Viet Cong in a guerrilla war against the establishment. Alexander the Great can search for Troy. And Machiavelli can sift through rumors for a way out of Hell. No, there is no lack of plots to keep the authors busy.