AMAZON REVIEW: Alex Laybourne draws on vivid, unrelenting "catholic" visions of a mediaevalist hell as he drives us through a modern, far more terrifying, version of a Dante Alighieri like Hell. As I read the grim horror, of Laybourne's dark prose I found myself imagining some inquisitorial preacher spouting a very similar vision of "Hell and Damnation" from his high pulpit, lashing his sinful parish to follow his idea of God through fear for their mortal souls.
In places I found the horror almost too hard, not that a lover of that genre will find it so. There is just too much of the frightened catholic in me to be able to read such works with the necessary degree of personal detachment. You have been warned, to reflect first on your own psyche.
I am glad I struggled through. Actually I felt strangely compelled to keep going as I grew to understand the cleverly constructed victims of the vision. Eventually I reached a point whereby I started to appreciate Laybourne's mastery, and get a feel for the directions the following books may take. A modern version of the "Divine Comedy", moving on from the inferno, is what I expect. But what Laybourne's intriguing writing will actually show us, I can't wait to see.
Marcus, Becky, Richard, Helen, Sammy, and Graham. All complete strangers, different ages, backgrounds and even countries, but they have one major thing in common…they all must DIE.
Sentenced to offer their penance in the many chambers of Hell, their lives are nothing but a torturous experience. They are brought face to face with their past, their mistakes and the implications they had for others. Until, one by one they are rescued.
Waking in a dying world, they are introduced to their rescuers who do anything but conform to their angelic stereotype.
Together, bonded by an unknown destiny the group is set on their quest; to find one individual buried deep within the many Hell worlds.
Not only does the fate of their world rest on their shoulders, but that of existence itself.
Heaven and Hell, Angels and Demons, these things were once considered opposites, but what happens when they become neighbors, allies…friends?
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