To Reign in Hell

To Reign in Hell (1984) Steven Brust

Still on my Brust kick, the next book in line was To Reign in Hell.

To be honest, the best description I can give of the book, is the one on the back cover (I have the 2000 Orb reprint):

The time is the Beginning.
The place is Heaven.
The story is the Revolt of the Angels–
a war of magic, corruption and intrigue
that could destroy the universe.

Well, maybe not the destroy the universe bit, since most of us are at least vaguely familiar with the story of the fall of Satan, but the rest of it is about right.

The reason I like this book so well is that–despite knowing the story and how things are going to turn out–I kept hoping that things were going to work out. I really wanted Satan to patch things up with Yaweh, even though I knew he wouldn’t.

I also liked it because, as with all Steven Brust’s books, it’s amusing. Take the very first sentence:

Snow, tenderly caught by eddying breezes, swirled and spun in to and out of bright, lustrous shapes that gleamed against the emerald-blazoned black drape of sky and sparkled there for a moment, hanging, before settling gently to the soft, green-tufted plain with all the sickly sweetness of an over-written sentence.

I promise, the rest of the book isn’t written like that. But it does show his sense of humor throughout.

Although the dialog isn’t quite as sharp as his later books, it’s still good, and the story is fantastic (for both definitions of the word.) If you are not yet a fan of Steven Burst, I would certainly recommend starting with this book. It’s a quick read, and to be honest simply wonderful.

Unfortunately, finishing this book leaves me with the problem of figuring out what I’m going to read next, because I read a whole lot faster than Steven Brust writes.
Rating: 8/10

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