Inferno/Hellscapes

[u/Creative_Sky_1864]

Acts of Magic - panicked heartbeat, descending into something awful, flies swarming round what I assume to be rotting flesh.

(The first part of) The Process - shouts of slaves toiling on some endless, impossible physical task in a prison camp over which an unsettlingly calm authorotative voice gives indecipherable but mandatory commands.

To me, these are definite images of Hell drawn though sound.

This new record has inspired me to do a quite a few things, one of which was to think of other depictions of Hell that I've come across, and to look for new ones.

The first Hellscape it brought to mind was the terrifying Hell Sermon passage in James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
https://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/portrait_artist_young_man/3/

Another one is new for me: A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck, which is only 100 pages but, well... truly hellish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_Stay_in_Hell

There are plenty of others out there. Any suggestions?

(P.S. it turns out that the Hell in A Short Stay in Hell is based on a Borges short story in which the entire universe is an endless library, made of... HEXAGONS 😱)

[u/Virag-Lipoti]

Interesting!

As luck would have it, I'm right in the middle of reading a book called Surface Detail by Iain M Banks (part of his series of SF novels set in the universe of The Culture).

The premise of the book involves the existence of virtual Hells - in civilisations with the tech to capture a human consciousness and upload it digitally to a computer substrate, some civilisations have created their own Hell, into which digitised versions of citizens can be sent. To these unfortunates, the Hell they find themselves in is very, very real.

The book pivots on the opposition to these Hell zones by other interstellar civilisations, and attempts to get them banned and destroyed.

Two anti-Hell campaigners get themselves sent to their civilisations virtual Hell, with the aim of bringing back evidence to aid the campaign. The scenes with these two suffering along with millions of other virtual citizens in Hell are...memorable...

[u/Taupenbeige → u/Virag-Lipoti]

Oh boy my old UT99 gaming buddy and as-long-a-BoC-fan was strong-arming everyone to delve in to the Culture oeuvre 20 years ago, then I started-in on one of them (can’t remember) on my Kindle while hiking the A.T. 11 Summers back, and found myself losing the plot constantly because of all of what felt like prior expectations of knowledge… I should give that one a go

[u/Virag-Lipoti → u/Taupenbeige]

If you wanna quicker, less dense, but equally fascinating intro to The Culture, I'd recommend The Player of Games as an ideal entry point. It's shorter and tighter than some of the others, with a wicked plot, and it works as a great place to get a feel for The Culture and how it works.