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From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: To Reign in Hell [SPOILER]
Message-ID: <1386@shark.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-May-85 19:49:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.1386
Posted: Thu May  9 19:49:24 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 11-May-85 02:48:28 EDT
References: <1823@topaz.ARPA> <1369@shark.UUCP> <184@hyper.UUCP>
Reply-To: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 161
Summary: 

In article <184@hyper.UUCP> brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) writes:
>It is Bad Form for an author to respond to negative reviews.
>   ...
>
>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.

Mind?  Actually getting a reply from someone who has been published,
talking about a review of his work?  Why should I mind?

>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!!!

Good.  It looked frighteningly like a sequel was pending, probably
a rewrite of Genesis.

As for offending anyone, I'm offended, but let me make clear the reasons.
The book clearly intends to be a retelling of the pre-creation mythos
which developed in medieval Europe from some Jewish and Gnostic traditions.
This mythos was adapted by Milton when he wrote Paradise Lost.

Now, the things that offend:  First, it will offend any orthodox Jew because
the Name of God is not supposed to be written casually, and never ever is
it supposed to be destroyed (treated as trash).  Those names have meanings
and they can add to the cognitive dissonance.  "Satan" means "adversary" for
instance.
It will offend just about any educated Christian.  There are several points
of basic theology which you tweaked with.  First, the reduction of God from
the absolute to "just" another angel.  Second, the denial of the trinity
inherent in the existance of Yeshua as you described it.  Third, the creation
of Yeshua as an entity well after everything else in Heaven, and the very
sick personality which you ascribed to him.

>> ... 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.

What he admits to Beelzebub, and what the rest of the angels do not
grasp, is that the story which was concocted with Abdiel's collaboration
was a true one as far as it went; that Satan was explicitly created
BY Y*hw*h as were the others.  That was the political linchpin on which
everyone else organized around Satan, that and the creation of Yeshua.
The "untruth" is that there was no planned, deliberated, careful creation
of ANYTHING (according to your own descriptive interludes) until the existance
of an area large enough to live in and (sort of) relax in had been
established.  Y*hw*h did not believe this to be the case; he accepted
this dishonesty as necessary and followed through with it.  God as
Richard Nixon.  Since this theme predominates among the ancient and current
Gnostic philosophies, and it is just too easy to do, I got the idea that
this was a cheap shot.

>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 Y*hw*h has the power to OBSERVE (and probably to communicate) at
a distance, why would he believe Abdiel rather than using his own
power to investigate the claim?

For that matter, as to why anyone would revolt against an omnipotent God,
try, ignorance of the true nature of that omnipotence, pride in one's own
tremendous power, the simple refusal to obey.  You touched on THAT topic
very nicely and I really thought that would be the nature of the tragedy,
the tension between obedience and free choice.

As for omniscience.  You granted Y*w*h the power to find out anything; this
was not automatic but rather seemed more like traditional Angelic Knowledge.
True omniscience consists of automatically KNOWING.

>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.

Y*w*h was driven by love and anger and the desire for survival.  Abdiel was
driven by fear, by greed for power, and by his immaturity.  Beelzebub was
pretty much loyalty incarnate, hence the doggy form; Satan was paralyzed
by indecision but driven by ignorance and by stubborn pride.  At least, that
was what I perceived.

>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.

If there had been no Abdiel, then there would have been no lies, no murders 
in Heaven, and the tension would have to have developed along the lines of
Satan and Y*w*h trying to convince each other of their respective positions.
I didn't LIKE Abdiel but I do think he was crucial in the development of
the plot you wrote.

As for "never evil" once again we disagree.  AS YOU DEFINED THE SITUATION
it was wrong for Y*w*h to resort to coercion and the choice to do so was
morally wrong.  How does one persist in a course of action which is admittedly
"evil" without accepting that evil and, in fact, BECOMING evil?
A "lesser of two evils" is still an evil.  There was lots of room there
for further exploration.

The real problem with the story was that you were writing in a minefield.
Nearly every american has SOME preconceptions about the Judeo-Christian
beliefs and therefore will find SOMETHING wrong with a story where their
own preconceptions have to be reconciled to the story.  This is a LOT of
the reason I dislike the book, but I have tried to keep my objections on
a basis of literary analysis.

>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

My apologies and touche'.  Your book hit ME where it hurt.  I am eagerly
awaiting the arrival of Jhereg and Yendl at the local Powell's Books.

Hutch