Re: Five SFF Stories About Hell and Damnation

On Tue, 20 Aug 2024 20:59:55 -0400, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

On 8/20/2024 3:00 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 8/20/2024 9:12 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

Five SFF Stories About Hell and Damnation
>
Hell gets a bad rap--it's certainly a great motivator for any number
of plots and characters attempting to escape from the fiery flames
of perdition!
>
https://reactormag.com/five-sff-stories-about-hell-and-damnation/

 
I have read "Inferno", several decades ago.
 
How about the opposite, Heaven ?
 
I advise reading "The World of the End" by Ofir Touché Gafla for a truly
strange story.
    https://www.amazon.com/World-End-Ofir-Touch%C3%A9-Gafla/dp/0765333570/

>
Aside from Dante's 'Paradiso' (by far the dullest of his Afterlife
Trilogy), I can't think of too many examples outside of the dreck
you'll find in Christian bookstores (if there's any *good* ones, let
us know).
>
There's Twain's 'Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven', written after
he'd lost his faith in a just God.
>
Heinlein's 'Job: A Comedy of Justice' has some brief scenes.
>
'What Dreams May Come' by Richard Matheson, later made into a film
with a very non-clown-mode Robin Williams.
>
I'm told CS Lewis's 'The Great Divorce' may count.
Of course, the final Narnia book has scenes in a Narnian Heaven.

I'm not sure it is a Narnian Heaven. Although it is entered from
Narnia, I've always thought of it as just "Heaven", reachable from
anywhere (by those who do reach it).
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"