Suggest books regarding the battle for heaven and hell

Cafe Society
21

The comic book series Lucifer by Mike Carey starts off with Lucifer running a piano bar in Los Angeles and the book is largely about Lucifer still trying to accomplish his goals from the original rebellion, viz., freedom from God’s predestination. Lucifer is a spin-off of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic, where Lucifer is a supporting character.

In White Wolf’s Demon: The Fallen roleplaying game the players take the role of a fallen angel, now a demon. The rulebook and various sourcebooks for the game have a lot of interesting takes on Heavenly society before the Fall, the reasons for it, and the life of fallen angels today.

–Cliffy

22

“Deathbird” by Harlan Ellison is only a short-medium story, but still worth searching out. Really, it 's worth finding.
It covers Heaven vs Satan (and Man in the middle) pretty well.

It’s in a collection Deathbird Stories. The other stories are weaker, but still several worth reading.

23

I have to disagree with Brust’s To Reign in Heaven. It reads like a bunch of high schoolers deciding which clique to be part of.

Much of the dialogue is like this:

“Let’s go down the road and talk to Satan.”

“Okay.”

24

You might enjoy The Warhound and the World’s Pain by Michael Moorcock, an author who otherwise I find equal in appeal to a case of bleeding piles.

25

A set of recently published books by Jeffrey Burton Russell maps a history of the Devil and our notional views of evil:

The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity
ISBN: 0-0814-0938-1 (cloth)

Satan: The Early Christian Tradition
ISBN: 0-8014-1267-6 (cloth) / 0-8014-9413-3 (paper)

Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages
ISBN: 0-8014-1503-9 (cloth) / 0-8014-9429-X (paper)

Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World
ISBN: 0-8014-1808-9 (cloth)

The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History
ISBN: 0-8014-1808-9 (cloth)

All of these books were published by Cornell University Press, the first appearing in 1977 and the last in 1988. The first four constitute a fairly straightforward history of the Devil and his place in our imaginations. If you’re interested in a particular age, any of these volumes can stand on their own. Extensive bibliographies will carry you to wide ranges of source material. The last is a kind of summation and exegesis, a long monograph and rumination on the nature of evil and its personification. Unfortunately, this fifth volume has no bibliography.

At times, Dr. Russell seems too quick to apologize for the Roman Catholic Church. He does not always cleanly distinguish between among the concepts and constructs he uses, so that, at times, a reader might have to decide whether the writer is speaking of an actual Devil who walks the world or a concept that finds personification in Old Scratch. Overall, though, the writing is clean and heartfelt, set down by a man who has read widely and who, perhaps ruefully, loves his subject.

Here is another, earlier look at the same set of topics:

The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil
Author: Dr. Paul Carus
ISBN: 0-517-15064-6 (cloth)

Originally published in 1900, Random House republished this book in 1996 as part of its Gramercy Books line. With hundreds of illustrations and a charming writing style, this is a very entertaining look at the way one 19th century scholar apprehended percepts of good and evil, and how such a man regarded the Evil One. In the works mentioned above Jeffrey Burton Russell rightfully pays his respects to Paul Carus. Most diabologists consider Dr. Carus a large influence.

Above, KarlGauss offered a good recommendation: The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagels, takes a long look at the Devil as he appears in the Old and New Testaments. She puts a very clean, clear writing style at the service of incredible amounts of information, scholarship, and well-founded opinions. At times, she can wield a wry and welcome sense of humor; too, she can be an unusually warm and generous writer. On any topic, Dr. Pagels is worth your time.

Some disclaimers, then: although most of these books mention the Fall of Angels, the war is not discussed in any great detail in any of the books listed above; although I own all of these books and have read all of them more than once, I can’t guarantee that my enthusiasms will be yours; although I like to read about this topic, I am in no wise an historian or a theologian.

My personal library contains a number of related books, but if you’ve managed to read this far, you might already feel overwhelmed by recommendations. Some other day, perhaps. In the meantime, I hope you feel like visiting a library and I hope you have a lot of fun. Report back and let us know, if you would, what you found and what you thought.

Peace.

26

You sir ROCK! thank you and I shall be tracking these down along with some of the others I do not own already.

Osip

27

No one has mentioned the graphic novel(s) Swept Away?? I haven’t read them myself, but they have to do with the rapture, etc.

28

What references, exactly? I once went looking for info in the bible about the devil and came up remarkably empty. In particular, I couldn’t find anything about his origins. Your OP suggests that you have found such references in the bible, so I’m hoping you (or anybody) could direct me to them.

29

I don’t get the fuss about Good Omens either. You can tell the parts Pratchett wrote because of the humorous footnotes and the sections that make you laugh, and you can tell the parts that Gaiman wrote because they bore you into a coma. It’s hard to think of a more uneven book than this.

However, the only book in this thread I’ve both read and liked (I hate “His Dark Materials”) is Memnoch the Devil. YMMV

30

Spiriting Lightly, allow me to second Osip’s opinion: that is one hell {pardon the pun} of a reference list: I’ve been on the lookout for non-partisan accounts of the concept of the Devil {along the lines of Karen Armstrong’s A History Of God}, and your recommendations should keep me busy for a while. From your post-count I gather you’re new to these Boards, but a very warm welcome.

31

The movie Dogma deals with two angels who were thrown out of Heaven, and are trying to get back in by exploiting a loophole in Catholic Church dogma. It’s a riot.

32

32 posts before a mention of Stephen King’s “The Stand”?

33

Although Flagg is evil and probably is the devil, it never comes out and says that or explains a fall from heaven like the OP wanted, does it? I didn’t recommend Swan Song by Robert McCammon for the same reason.

34

If you’re a bit of a manga fan, I’d recommend Angel Sanctuary by Kaori Yuki.