To Reign in Hell (Unboxed spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

Further to my posts 69 and 77 in this thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=490492&page=2

Here iare my comments, so far, of To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust. I’ve not quite finished it yet, but am only about 30 odd pages from the end, so should finish it tonight after work.

I’ve really enjoyed this book, Brust’s style is easy to read, although is an eclectic combination of modern slang and olde english. Strangely it seems to work.

The characterisation is a little thin in places, but then most people will be aware of the characters and back story.

In essence the plot is that of Paradise Lost, but is much easier to read (I tried and it was hard going). See this Wiki article for a plot breakdown.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Reign_in_Hell

There is a lot of humour in the book, particularly between Satan and Beelzebub, who in this book is stuck in the form of a dog.

Probably because it was intended Satan comes across more as a victim of inaction and others duplicity than an actual villain in this book, Yahweh, as in many other texts, appears as the authoritarian figure, determined to do the right thing at any cost. Satan in this case appears to be the conscience of heaven.

The true villain of the piece is an Angel called Abdiel, who craves advancement and plays Satan and Yahweh off against each other by delivering misleading messages and generally contributing to the breakdown in communication.

There are a lot of things I really enjoyed with this book, in particular:

The idea of cacoastrum (chaos) being the formative stuff of the universe and the original angels, of which Yahweh is the first, appearing spontaneously from this is great.

Michael (the Archangel) is well done if a little stereotyped and in my mind comes across as a big musclebound type who’s not very bright. Although morally his heart is in the right place, but he does hold an unreasonable grudge against Satan.

The battle scenes are short and actually do not make up a lot of the story, which mainly focuses on dialogue. As one online reviewer said, this would work well as a play. Although I don’t know if has actually been translated to the stage.

Overall a good book, some flaws, but easy to read and not heavy going at all.

2

I thought it was quite good.

You might want to pick up his Vlad Taltos series ( Jhereg is the first written, followed by Yendi ).

3

I’ve heard of them, but not read any yet. Are they still all in print?

I think I’ll give them a try if I can get hold of them. Do they need to be read in order?

4

I believe so; he’s still writing new ones.

That’s not really an easy question to answer. They weren’t really written in chronological order; I found that reading them in written order worked well. That way the the ones that ARE written in order will be more understandable, and not spoilerize everything either.

5

I’ve just ordered the omnibus edition of the first three books from Amazon.:cool:

6

Hope you enjoy them !

7

Thanks Der Trihs.

I finished Reign… last night. I felt it was good right up to the last battle after which it just kind of fizzled out.

Obviously I knew what the ending was going to be, but was a litle disappointed in how it actually came about.

All in all though, I enjoyed reading it and like I said above will be reading more of Brust’s work soon.

While I wait for my Amazon delivery to arrive, my next book will be “I Lucifer”.

8

The wiki article you linked to seems to say they originated from Iliaster, the formative stuff of order, rather than from Cacoastrum.

Also, having read the wiki summary, I wonder if the novel presents any information concerning how humans came to know about the characters in the book, and is there anything in there about an “incarnation” (in the human world) of the Yeshua character?

-FrL-

9

The events of the book stop before either of those would be detailed, but both are implied.

It is mentioned that each “generation” of angels has been weaker, with the implication that the “generation” created during the final conflict – the “Fourth Wave” – would be weakest yet; i.e., humans.

And at one point Yahweh mentions that it would be too painful to recreate Yeshua, but leaves that as a possibility for the future.

10

Oops, serves me right for trusting a Wiki article. I think that Angels are composed of Illiaster, which for some reason spawned them from the sea of cacoastrum.Exactly how/why this occured is not made clear (to me) in the book.

When angels are killed in the book they seem to vanish, but whether this is back to the cacoastrum or the illiaster is also unclear (I don’t think they know). They can apparently use the illiaster to perform feats that we would associate with magic and at the end of the book it says thta illiaster is rare or it’s power is reduced on the Earth.
As Lightray says the end of the book implies the creation of humans on the Earth but does not explicitly state it. The Yeshua question is left hanging, although if you believe Christian mythology then you can assume that he did in fact get recreated.

11

I’m a fan of Brust and had read much of his Vlad Taltos series. Somewhere along the way I felt the series lost track and I stopped reading it. It has been years since I last read him.

I tried *To Reign in Hell *and didn’t enjoy it - which was why I was interested in how well you would enjoy it.

I felt the characters were rather one dimensional and I had no interest in them - or the outcome - at all. (I of course didn’t want to say that when you had just purchased the book.)

I’m glad you liked it better than I.

12

You might want to give it another try. The series changed when Vlad left Adrilanka, but some of the later books have brought him back there, as well as filling in some of the holes in his history. If you ever get the urge to try again but don’t want to pick up where you felt they were flagging, I’d recommend Issola from among the later works.

And for anyone who’s fully enjoyed the Taltos books and also liked Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, you must read the Khaavren Romances, which begin with The Phoenix Guards. They take place in the same universe as Vlad’s, but are written as if done by a totally different author, with what I found to be a very entertaining style. They also start several hundred years before Vlad’s birth and tell us a lot about how things in the Empire got that way. In some ways, it’s handy for a fantasy author to have characters that can live for a millenium or more (in one case, Sethra Lavode, much more).

13

Yeah, maybe I’ll try it. There was some subplot involving his girlfriend and freedom fighters or some such and they broke up and it just seemed to lose track for me. Next time I’m in Borders I’ll grab Issola (and put it in a queue that is already 20 books deep.)

14

I read it just after it came out in paperback, and was disappointed. I thought it was a great idea for a book not well executed. I also read Brokedown Palace, but its Dead references didn’t save it. Brust was somewhat active on usenet before every author and his dog had a website, so I was biased to like his stuff, but it just doesn’t do much for me.

15

The Horse! I should think so!

There is also a very amusing tie-in to Brokedown Palace in the Phoenix Guards. Or, vice-versa, I suppose.

16

Thanks, I did enjoy it. You have a point about the two dimensionality of the characters, but I thought a lot of the dialogue was quite witty, particularly beween Satan and Beelzebub.

Apparently my copy of “The Book of Jhereg” has just been dispatched so should be here in the next day or so. Gives me a bit of time to polish off “I Lucifer”, which I have just started and other than the fact that Lucifer is a separate character in Brust’s work reads a bit like a sequel.