These days, listening to the SFF community recommeding books
reminds me of listening to my parents trying to coax a much younger me into
eating Brussels sprouts. Whether it’s to
choke down another vegetable or to support the newest in a never ending parade
of social causes du jour, the reason
is the same: It’s Good For You. In both
cases, precious little time is spent answering the one question that matters to
me. Will I like it? In that spirit, let me take a moment to speak
to the sense of wonder of those who might be on the fence about buying Nethereal, by Brian Neiemeier.
Space Pirates Go to Hell.
One might expect that Nethereal
would be about a series of just but cruel punishments served to a crew of
hardened criminals. I certainly did
after reading that description online.
However, the space captain, Jaren Peregrine, is a mysterious yet charismatic
leader who wages a personal rebellion against a Guild that holds all space
travel in its iron grip. His crew
follows him out of loyalty, not lucre.
And in the pursuit of his war, Jaren flies his ship straight through
Hell itself.
For anime fans, think Captain Harlock
instead of Peter Pan’s Captain Hook.
Hell in Nethereal
is not the lake of fire of current religious depictions. Instead, it is patterned after the Nine
Circles of Dante’s Inferno, complete with cities of the
damned, backstabbing demon lords, and horrors, but built vast enough to fly a
spaceship through. Like the Inferno, the only escape is to go deeper
through the horrors of the Circles, to the heart of Hell and beyond. Yet Nethereal
chooses inspiration instead of a direct science fiction retelling of the Inferno.
(For that, I recommend Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Inferno
and Escape
from Hell.) This gives the
adventures of Jaren and his crew a Blake’s 7 meets Firefly meets Event
Horizon flavor.
I could go on about how Nethereal
is a genre-blending amalgam of science fiction, fantasy, and horror harkening
back to the days of D&D’s Appendix
N and the pulps, but that’s starting to veer too close to “It’s Good For
You”, at least for my own sense of wonder. Fortunately, we have an entire month to delve into the plots
and the characters that flesh out Nethereal
from the concept of “Space Pirates Go to Hell” into the wonderful novel that
robbed me of sleep when I first read it.
You can buy Nethereal
at Amazon.com.
