Beautiful Hell

Hades #1.5

by Jeffrey Thomas

"Wildly imagined." - Publishers Weekly "I thoroughly enjoyed reading Beautiful Hell." - Fangoria.com Hades is in upheaval. The Damned are rebelling, and worse, the more human-like breeds of Demons are beginning to sympathize with their plight. The Creator Himself decides to venture into Hades to address this conflict, a conflict which may test His very sanity...and make him a target of assassination. Against this tense background, a Damned man named Frank Lyre and a beautiful winged Demon named Oni act out a passionate love affair, but they too will be swept into a battle that may decide the future of all Creation. "Subversive, sexy, poetic and nightmarish, Beautiful Hell is set in the world of Jeffrey Thomas' short story collection Voices From Hades, and the novels The Fall of Hades and Letters From Hades, about which F. Paul Wilson said, "Jeffrey Thomas' imagination is as twisted as it is relentless."

Genres: Horror

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Jeffrey Thomas is an American author of weird fiction, the creator of the acclaimed setting Punktown. Books in the Punktown universe include the short story collections Punktown, Voices from Punktown, Punktown: Shades of Grey (with his brother, Scott Thomas), and Ghosts of Punktown. Novels in that setting include Deadstock, Blue War, Monstrocity, Health Agent, Everybody Scream!, Red Cells, and The New God. Thomas’s other short story collections include The Unnamed Country, Gods of a Nameless Country, The Endless Fall, Haunted Worlds, Worship the Night, Thirteen Specimens, Nocturnal Emissions, Doomsdays, Terror Incognita, Unholy Dimensions, AAAIIIEEE!!!, Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood, Carrion Men, Voices from Hades, The Return of Enoch Coffin, and Entering Gosston. His other novels include The American, Boneland, Subject 11, Letters From Hades, The Fall of Hades, The Exploded Soul, The Nought, Thought Forms, Beyond the Door, Lost in Darkness, and A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers.

His work has been reprinted in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII (editor Karl Edward Wagner), The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror #14 (editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling), and Year’s Best Weird Fiction #1 (editors Laird Barron and Michael Kelly). At NecronomiCon 2024 Thomas received the Robert Bloch Award for his contributions to weird fiction.

Though he considers Viet Nam his second home, Thomas lives in Massachusetts.

Reviews

[George Wilhite · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first encounter with Thomas' version of Hell and I found it fascinating. The idea of a rebellion among the many diverse creatures, and Thomas' exploration of human on monster sex, make this fun, intriguing and wanting more. This is novella length and was over quickly but definitely made me want to seek out his other books about Hades.

I am also working my way through Thomas' Punktown material and find his mind to be wonderfully warped and full of constant surprises. Great read!

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read by Jeffrey Thomas. I received it as part of a grab bag I purchased from Dark Regions Press and the synopsis grabbed me so I read it first. It was an amazing journey, a truly imaginative and gripping storyline. I’ve read loads of books set in Hell or Hades as Thomas describes it and this sits among the best of them. I’ll definitely be reading the other books in the series now. I think this is the 4th book, unless I’m mistaken but it worked well as a standalone.

[W.T.H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

World building still a 5 star achievement in this short sequel novella. What we see is riveting, we're just kept in much smaller setting and exposed to far less horrors than in Letters From Hades

[Made DNA · Rating 5 out of 5]

A civil war rages in Hell over the publication of a book that tells the true story of love between a demon and human. Demons and humans fighting together against Hell's overlords to create something new... a place where they can be free to love each other.

Set in the Biblical Hell, this novella is an autobiography of the protagonist, Frank Lyre (as told in third-person). Frank, a man sentenced to eternal damnation for being an atheist, witnesses the descent of God in to the realm of demons; through this event, he comes to understands something very big is happening. When he sees his former wife is among God's entourage, it is a bittersweet reunion as he is torn between his growing love for a demon who has shown him favor, and a chance to make it into Heaven.

Beautiful Hell is not the book you think it's going to be. It isn't preachy or anti-religious or blasphemous, and in fact, leaves religion out of the picture for the most part, showing instead, a 'human' side to EVERY SINGLE character in the book. It was poetic and extremely thoughtful, even during the scenes of violence and sex. In my opinion, the author took great care to create the world of The Creator (of the story) and what steps The Creator might take to understand and quell a rebellion in Hell.

Great entertainment from the author of PUNKTOWN.

[David Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's nowhere near as good as Voices From Hades but it remains an interesting metafictional take on life in Hell when God decides He'd like to make a few changes.

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