Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site hyper.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!hyper!brust
From: brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: To Reign in Hell [SPOILER]
Message-ID: <184@hyper.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-May-85 15:00:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: hyper.184
Posted: Fri May  3 15:00:25 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 5-May-85 02:36:33 EDT
References: <1823@topaz.ARPA> <1369@shark.UUCP>
Organization: Network Systems Corp., Mpls., Mn.
Lines: 106

It is Bad Form for an author to respond to negative reviews.
Up until now, I haven't.  All of the review I have read
(including yours, by the way) have been intelegent, and
that is such a pleasure that I almost don't care about how
negative some of them have been.

However, I am into bad form these days.

The thing is, there were a few points that just made me
itch to answer, so I'm going to scratch the itch.  I
hope you don't mind.


> 
> > I really like the fact that it is only a novel - I like series,
> >but I like novels too, and there are too damned few of those around!
> 
> Uuuuuhmn, looked an awful lot like a lead-in to a sequel to me.  Any
> word on this, SKZB?
> 
Absolutly not!  There are only three possible sequals that I can see:
First, the book of Job.  No thanks, Heinlein covered it.  Certainly
not the same way I would have, but he did.  In any case, this would
have been a short story or a Novelette, which, as they said in
Monty Python and the Holy Grain, "Isn't my idiom."  Second, the
Passion.  Yeah, I could, but I'm just not interested.  The point
of the book was NOT to offend anyone, though I'm willing to if
necessary.  Doing the Passion WOULD be offensive, and I just don't
have enough interest in it to justify it.  The third possibility
for a sequal is the appocalypse.  Yeeeech!  I almost killed myself
doing the research for HELL.  Do you have any idea how much
appocalyptic literture I'd have to wade through to do a competent
sequal????  No way!!!


> 
> >I am left with but one small question: does anyone have any idea why
> >Beelzebub speaks in Medieval English? 
> 
> Because he read the originals to Faustus.  Actually, that was one of the
> touches I liked, but it wasn't Medieval English, only archaic english.
> True Medieval English would have been rather hard to read.
> 

It was Shakespearean (sp?) English.  It was corrected by
Shakespearean schollar and writer Pamela Dean.  If there
are any mistakes, it is because I did over-ride her
recomendations on a couple of points.

> The things I didn't like:  The characterizations all started out real
> nice, but as the villainy progressed it got to be just a bit too much
> to take.  If Brust wanted to offend Christians, Moslems, and Jews, he
> did a real good job of it.  My real complaint, however, is that the
> choice was the OBVIOUS one.  If you want to make it tragic, take the
> cheap way, make Satan the good, honorable one who refuses to go along
> with the duplicitous and rather foolish Y*hw*h.  And of course God is
> "just another angel" and Yeshua is the last created angel, rather than
> the coequal or even the first created.  Yawn.  
> 

Okay, here we go.  If this is what you took from it, I didn't do
my job.  This is unquestionably a flaw.  But, for the sake of
discussion, I'll say this:  What you describe was exactly what
I was trying NOT to do.  Satan admits in conversation with
Beelzebub, toward the end, that Yaweh
had been RIGHT, that his decisions were correct and that he,
Satan, was wrong.

I never did buy that anyone with Satan's intellegence could
have revolted against an omnipotant God.  So, why did it
happen?  I think there are as many holes in my approach
as in the traditional one, but they are different holes.
However, I don't see where it was "cheap."  I went over
and over that manuscript, doing my best to make sure there
were no cheap shots, or any actions motivated by stupidity.
If I had succeeded, you wouldn't have come away with the
opinion you did, yet I can't see where I failed.  Yaweh
was drivin by love, Abdiel by fear, Satan by indecision,
and Beelzebub by loyalty.  If there was anyone in the
entire book who really knew what was going on, it was
Lilith, but she was too lacking in self-confidence to
take the necessary steps.

No, Yaweh was never evil.  He was forced into evil
actions, as was Satan, by his own failings.  The real
flaw in the book (I say its a flaw because very few
people have picked it up, so I obviously didn't bring
it off) was this: Abdial's actions didn't matter.  If
there had been no Abdial, things would have proceeded
in almost exactly the same way.  In some sense, that
was the point of the book, so in that sense, the
book failed.  I take consolation in the number of
people who have enjoyed it anyway--to me, a book's
"point" is secondary to its enjoyment value.  This
is one reason that I like C. S. Lewis and don't
like George Orwell--even though I disagree with
them to same extent.

There.  It was probably stupid to write this, but
maybe you hit me where it hurt.  In any case, I
will repeat, it is a pleasure to be read and reviewed
by people who actually READ the book, and have
something to say about it, even if the review is
negative.

			-- SKZB