Larry Niven is one of the giants of contemporary fantastic fiction. He’s written some of the best and most innovative hard science fiction of the last 40 years; he has managed new and unique takes on classic fantasy themes just as well. Jerry Pournelle has been Niven’s partner for many seminal hard SF novels (The Mote In God’s Eye, Lucifer’s Hammer), as well as his own excellent solo work (Exile and Glory, Janissaries). But something for which they are not well known is a spiritual cast to their stories. It’s a fair cop; while their books often celebrate the most shining virtues of humanism (and a very broad definition of human, at that), matters of religion and the soul are not their forte. The gods, if mentioned at all, are more likely to be found cadging drinks at a local pub, or devolving past the need for paltry sentience.
They just aren’t the writers one would expect to essay a modern version of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. And that’s a shame, because Inferno is one of the better books either of them has written. It is clever but also wise, which is very rare in science fiction. The setting of Hell itself is thoroughly horrific, but the action and descriptions are restrained enough to let character and philosophy drive the plot. The scholarship is ingenious and impeccable; they can be forgiven for focusing on Hell, since the other two-thirds of the poem are, frankly, boring.
Their take is very modern and firmly rooted in science fiction tropes. They have always been firm proponents of Arthur C. Clarke’s famous maxim: “Any sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And, in fact, the desperate protagonist of Inferno spends the majority of his time in Hell convinced it is an alien construct — Infernoland — devised by aliens for inexplicable and sadistic reasons. Alan Carpentier (it was “Carpenter” but he classed it up with the extra “i”) is well-suited to the task — he is a science fiction writer — in Hell after accidentally committing suicide at a science fiction convention. His speculations, fired by equal parts stubborn rationalism and his own story-telling instincts, are desperate and logical. They are also ultimately doomed, as Niven and Pournelle take the courageous and unexpected position that Hell — and God, the Devil and the whole nine yards of religious construction — are, yes, real.
There are a lot of unexpected twists on the original Divine Comedy, and they are all fascinating. Carpentier’s guide is not Virgil, but a modern famous Italian, Benito Mussolini, himself consigned to Hell but now wandering loose and trying to save damned souls. Like Dante, the authors freely damn people they clearly don’t like, and update both sins and punishments with clever and occasionally hilarious results. The damned libertines who, in Dante’s time, were pursued and torn apart by wild dogs are here chased by sentient muscle cars. Phony environmentalists, greedy book collectors, self-righteous health fanatics and all proponents of what we now call the Nanny State are here, although none of them can understand why. They all meant so well . . . . The bureaucracy of Hell (of course Hell is a bureaucracy!) is especially well-drawn and ironic. Consider the difficulties of filling out your retirement paperwork if you are an ancient Babylonian who has to write in cuneiform . . . in wet clay . . . in the climate of Hell.
Mussolini has found there is a way out of Hell — damnation is not permanent — and the brave, determined and, above all, penitent soul can leave. He spends his time guiding souls to the exit, and convincing them their fate is in their own hands.
This is the most important and most courageous idea in the book — that Hell is real, but we alone keep ourselves there. If we can be made to realize our errors and reject them — if we can be healed — then all we need to do is walk out of Hell. Nothing will stop us but ourselves. Hell, as Niven and Pournelle postulate it, is God’s last desperate attempt to get a soul’s attention.
It’s a message of hope and self-determination, really, and an elegant answer to the old argument between predestination and free will. I’ve re-read this many times over the years (I still have my ancient, tattered copy with the hideous cover) and every time I get more out of it. It’s actually deeper, if less reflexively pious, than Dante’s original. He was in love with a woman — Niven and Pournelle write like men in love with the human soul.
(Pocket Books, 1976)
