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Raising Hell
A clueless optimist ruins a perfectly good hell. Pity poor Lucifer. He rules hell with a vice grip. Demons and damned scatter at the sound of his foot steps. The Supreme Butt In hasn’t pestered him in eons. Lucifer’s future looks perfect, pitch black, until an administrative error sticks him with an innocent soul—an overweight optimist who calls himself Pilgrim and who believes he must be in hell to do good. Lucifer never considers sending him back. Why waste a second chance to corrupt an innocent soul? He orders his subordinates to torture, degrade and humiliate Pilgrim until he promises to become evil if only it will ease the pain. Unfortunately, Pilgrim makes the best of the worst possible experiences. Always polite and well-mannered, he makes Pollyanna seem like a prophet of doom. Even worse, the damned start catching on, and set about making hell into the most enjoyable place of everlasting torment they can. Lucifer can’t let Pilgrim continue to wreak happiness, but he can’t send him back untainted, either. When God arrives with a deadline for Pilgrim’s return, he enlists fellow fallen angels Screwtape, Azazel and the gender morphing Mephistopheles in a plot to corrupt Pilgrim’s soul before the deadline expires. But don’t take our word. Listen to the Stephen Think Dante meets the Road Runner. Terry I could never make torture this funny. Douglas The one book I'm keeping in the afterlife. *Not to be confused with popular authors of the same names. No cats were injured or neglected during the writing of this novel. Parental This book contains a little sexual innuendo and lots of graphic comic violence. This makes it perfectly acceptable for children.
282 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
4 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Phillip T. Stephens
11 books31 followersPhillip T. Stephens is a mythological character who evolved from a spin-off cult of the Church of the Subgenius called Our Lady of the Lady of the Lord of the Subtransgender in the late 1970s. In Subtransgender mythology Stephens was Bob Dobbs sidekick who dreamed of surpassing Dodds as the universe’s top salesman. In order to do so, he sold the Xists on plans to convert the earth to transgender only condos, which would, in essence, put a kibosh on the entire Subgenius sales pitch. Needless to say this subjected Stephens to the wrath of Bob who short sold all of Stephens’ shares in America Online, causing the recession of 2000 and reducing Stephens into a clone of Pewee Herman.
Many followers believe Stephens can now be seen as Jim Parsons on the Big Bang Theory with no awareness of who he truly is, but they are, of course, completely misguided.
Needless to say, the Church of the Subgenius in no way acknowledges Our Lady of the Lady of the Lord of the Subtransgender.
His wife Carol patiently waits for him to start behaving like a normal human being and devotes most of her time to patient babysitting and Austin Siamese Rescue.
Many followers believe Stephens can now be seen as Jim Parsons on the Big Bang Theory with no awareness of who he truly is, but they are, of course, completely misguided.
Needless to say, the Church of the Subgenius in no way acknowledges Our Lady of the Lady of the Lord of the Subtransgender.
His wife Carol patiently waits for him to start behaving like a normal human being and devotes most of her time to patient babysitting and Austin Siamese Rescue.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 24, 2015
Wow! No ... double wow!
It's really hard to say much more than that about this rip-roaring read without resorting to a redundantly repetitive list of ridiculously rhetorical reasons that could really reduce this review ... oh crap ... now the author has me doing it (just not as well).
Do yourself a favor ... pick a time when you can sit back and have more fun than you've had with a book in a long time, and laugh out loud at the antics of a hell that almost sounds like fun. Poor Lucifer ... wanna' be evil undone by unpretentious good trying to do the bad needed to fit in ... and failing gloriously.
Every time I think there can't be that many five star Indy books, I find another. I was going to make a list of the one liners and political zingers for use later ... but to do that I would have had to copy the entire book. VERY well done.
It's really hard to say much more than that about this rip-roaring read without resorting to a redundantly repetitive list of ridiculously rhetorical reasons that could really reduce this review ... oh crap ... now the author has me doing it (just not as well).
Do yourself a favor ... pick a time when you can sit back and have more fun than you've had with a book in a long time, and laugh out loud at the antics of a hell that almost sounds like fun. Poor Lucifer ... wanna' be evil undone by unpretentious good trying to do the bad needed to fit in ... and failing gloriously.
Every time I think there can't be that many five star Indy books, I find another. I was going to make a list of the one liners and political zingers for use later ... but to do that I would have had to copy the entire book. VERY well done.
February 17, 2016
An unusual, one-of-a-kind, laugh-out-loud road trip through Hell.
This book is unique it's like nothing I've ever read before.
Phillip T. Stephens is a master of one-liners with a brilliant, albeit dark and mature, sense of humour.
It's a descriptive, brimming with details, that make you feel as though you're there, however, this doesn't prevent the story from moving along at a good pace.
The characters are well-written and likeable and had me alternating between rooting for Pilgrim and feeling sorry for His Satanic Majesty Lucifer, Sovereign Lord of Hell.
I loved the names for all the different parts of hell.
This book is unique it's like nothing I've ever read before.
Phillip T. Stephens is a master of one-liners with a brilliant, albeit dark and mature, sense of humour.
It's a descriptive, brimming with details, that make you feel as though you're there, however, this doesn't prevent the story from moving along at a good pace.
The characters are well-written and likeable and had me alternating between rooting for Pilgrim and feeling sorry for His Satanic Majesty Lucifer, Sovereign Lord of Hell.
I loved the names for all the different parts of hell.
April 20, 2015
It's rare for a writer to make me laugh for the right reasons but on numerous occasions I found myself sniggering at Phillip T Stephens' one liners. Initially, for some reason I got it into my head that this was a children's book. It isn't. In fact, it's a very literary novel ostensibly telling the story of a person who has gone to hell in error but actually serving up a metaphor for modern society in a very clever way. This is undoubtedly a unique book by a writer whose sense of humour is cut from the same cloth of my own. It deserves to sell in the thousands as the manual to how we live our lives. Very, very, very funny with a wit like a red hot poker.
May 15, 2016
I read this last year and don't quite know why I never got around to reviewing it.
Phillip T is very very good at writing small town twits. And the small town twits were the glue that held together an entertaining read. The thing that amazes me with Phillip T is that it only takes a sentence for him to introduce any given twit, and two more to form them up.
And the small time background twits formed the foil for the twits front and centre to the rather entertaining story. A good time of a book. The best worst Christmas book ever.
Phillip T is very very good at writing small town twits. And the small town twits were the glue that held together an entertaining read. The thing that amazes me with Phillip T is that it only takes a sentence for him to introduce any given twit, and two more to form them up.
And the small time background twits formed the foil for the twits front and centre to the rather entertaining story. A good time of a book. The best worst Christmas book ever.
October 26, 2015
A darkly humorous journey to Hell where the devil dishes out punishment with a fiery vengeance (naturally) but can't take it when his authority is questioned by a misguided (to Hell) soul.
Nothing and no one is safe from Stephens' satirical social commentary on such things as religion, politics, human nature, and the atrocity that is Barry Manilow.
The Hells within Hell that one could get sent to were hysterical. So were Lucifer's overly verbose insults and the great pride he took in them. Clever in its randomness, or random in its cleverness, I thoroughly enjoyed Raising Hell.
Nothing and no one is safe from Stephens' satirical social commentary on such things as religion, politics, human nature, and the atrocity that is Barry Manilow.
The Hells within Hell that one could get sent to were hysterical. So were Lucifer's overly verbose insults and the great pride he took in them. Clever in its randomness, or random in its cleverness, I thoroughly enjoyed Raising Hell.
July 27, 2017
I'll start by saying I really enjoyed this book. But I enjoyed some parts more than others. I might have given it three stars (I might have given up reading it at one point, tbh) but, in the end, the memory of the experience is definitely four stars. I think I am enjoying having read it more than I enjoyed reading it, although the revelation at the end did give me an actual thrill. That was partly because I thought I'd been clever and figured it out, which I sort of had, but there was an addition twist that delighted me (I have a theology degree and a lifetime of spiritual reading/study so I can't guarentee that same thrill for anyone else). So why not five stars? Because it is so badly edited. Or rather, not edited at all. It broke my heart to find so many silly and easily fixable mistakes.
This is a clever book, with hints of lots of knowledge and/or research, and a very good sense of humour. (One of the main reasons the lack of editing irked me - so much care seemed to have been taken with the story).
I am not big into visualising gore, guts and torture, so I glossed over vast tracts of description, though I did note that there was no repetition (except deliberately, when various hells were revisited). Don't be put off by that, there is enough story going on for that to be 'optional'.
I would definitely read this author again, in fact, I'll probably read this book again. Highly recommended.
This is a clever book, with hints of lots of knowledge and/or research, and a very good sense of humour. (One of the main reasons the lack of editing irked me - so much care seemed to have been taken with the story).
I am not big into visualising gore, guts and torture, so I glossed over vast tracts of description, though I did note that there was no repetition (except deliberately, when various hells were revisited). Don't be put off by that, there is enough story going on for that to be 'optional'.
I would definitely read this author again, in fact, I'll probably read this book again. Highly recommended.
February 18, 2016
Mr. Stephens plays havoc with hell and comes out the winner in this well written romp through eternal damnation. A. Pilgrim, our fallen hero, goes through all types of highly descriptive bureaucratic hells in an effort to please the insufferable magnificence of Lucifer. This is the charm of the book. We encounter all sorts of religious, social and political figures who have managed to live down to the low expectations required for entry into the hell of their own making.
There is one group who seems to avoid the devastation of eternal damnation, unless you count Barack Obama’s choice in music. Liberals and democrats of any stripe seemed to have been called to an eternal bliss for some reason. If not for this one omission I would give Mr. Stephens otherwise enjoyable trope 5 stars. A humorist cannot, in my opinion, overlook his/her own farces and still lambast those of whom he finds fault and therefore lets down a wider audience.
All-in-all a fun read with highly creative writing from the author. Well done.
There is one group who seems to avoid the devastation of eternal damnation, unless you count Barack Obama’s choice in music. Liberals and democrats of any stripe seemed to have been called to an eternal bliss for some reason. If not for this one omission I would give Mr. Stephens otherwise enjoyable trope 5 stars. A humorist cannot, in my opinion, overlook his/her own farces and still lambast those of whom he finds fault and therefore lets down a wider audience.
All-in-all a fun read with highly creative writing from the author. Well done.
June 3, 2015
A smart and sarcastic take on the alleged "War On Christmas", light and fun. Mr. Stephens takes a few (dozen) playful jabs at that infamous Jimmy Stewart Christmas film, too. You know the one.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews