YMMV / Inferno (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)

• Anvilicious: Some readers get very uncomfortable with the repeated theme “We’re in the hands of infinite power and infinite sadism.” Others think the portrayal of the Abrahamic god is a bit more nuanced, especially considering the viewpoint character is a damned soul in Dante’s Hell. The sequel, which was released post Vatican II, tackles this more directly. See also Values Dissonance below.
• Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory: How does the sequel end? A carpenter in Hell nukes the frozen plain of traitors, giving them the option to leave Hell. Can you think of any other famous carpenters who were in Hell and gave the Damned the option to be forgiven? (Hint: It was Jesus.)
• Harsher in Hindsight: Among the souls encountered during the brief flight of the glider is a pilot of the Space Shuttle - who died, in Carpentier's future (it was written in 1976), when it suffered a failure of the heat shield, and well... "halfway down and going like a meteor when we got a burnthrough under the nose" took on terrifying truth in 2003.
• One-Scene Wonder: Lucifer, chewing legs like cigarettes makes eye contact:
  "Carpentier. What will you tell God when you see Him? Will you tell him that He could learn morality from Vlad the Impaler?"
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Carpenter's refusal to accept that he's in Hell means that the reader, who can only see the setting through his eyes, is kept insulated from the setting for most of the book, effectively robbing the story of a point.
  • Dante Aligheri filled Hell with real people. Given a chance to do the same, Niven and Pournelle chicken out and make up almost all of the damned.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The constant conflict between the strict Christian morals demonstrated in Hell and Carpent(i)er's modern, secular values (probably also those of the authors) lead him to conclude that God Is Evil. However, the fact that most people nowadays are uncomfortable with the concept of infinite damnation for finite sins leads to that anyone in Hell can escape if they can get over themselves enough to seek redemption. Even if their punishment involves complete immobility or vigilant guards. Then again, there seem to be souls whose duty is to guide others, including Benny — and ultimately Carpenter himself.
  • Dante's Inferno was also based on older concepts. The sequel is post Vatican 2, and thus deals with it very differently in dealing with the values dissonance.
  • The guards almost never stop anyone from going deeper into hell, as very few believe anything exists down there but worse punishments. And the sequel has Carpenter dealing with the people that are trapped and immobile, trying to prove to himself that his idea that anyone can leave is correct.
  • The middle ring of the seventh circle is the Wood of Suicides in Dante's Inferno, with a sideline in punishing the "violently wasteful" (profligate). Now, the wood is gone and the profligate are far more numerous. (Examples in Strawman Political).
  • One to readers of this day and age: Carpenter, who died in the 70s, protests when he sees a woman included in the circle of the rapists. Modern law and sensibilities tend to see rape as a crime without gender, and readers today would thus not be especially surprised at seeing women in that circle.

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