The Gates of Hell

Heroes in Hell #2

by C.J. Cherryh, Janet E. Morris

Alexander of Macedon, Julius Caesar, the Pharaohs Hatshepsut and Cleopatra, Niccolo Machiavelli, Judah Macabee, and other damned adventurers brave the River of Fire and the River of Forgetfulness on a daring journey back to the land of the living

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies

282 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 1986

About the author

Currently resident in Spokane, Washington, C.J. Cherryh has won four Hugos and is one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed authors in the science fiction and fantasy field. She is the author of more than forty novels. Her hobbies include travel, photography, reef culture, Mariners baseball, and, a late passion, figure skating: she intends to compete in the adult USFSA track. She began with the modest ambition to learn to skate backwards and now is working on jumps. She sketches, occasionally, cooks fairly well, and hates house work; she loves the outdoors, animals wild and tame, is a hobbyist geologist, adores dinosaurs, and has academic specialties in Roman constitutional law and bronze age Greek ethnography. She has written science fiction since she was ten, spent ten years of her life teaching Latin and Ancient History on the high school level, before retiring to full time writing, and now does not have enough hours in the day to pursue all her interests. Her studies include planetary geology, weather systems, and natural and man-made catastrophes, civilizations, and cosmology…in fact, there's very little that doesn't interest her. A loom is gathering dust and needs rethreading, a wooden ship model awaits construction, and the cats demand their own time much more urgently. She works constantly, researches mostly on the internet, and has books stacked up and waiting to be written.

Reviews

[A.L. Butcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up in print, intrigued as I loved Rogues in Hell and I am trying to get through all the Heroes in Hell books. Gates of Hell is the second of the series – and a novel not an anthology. It is a lot of fun.
Where else would one find Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Machiavelli and a whole host of characters from ancient times, medieval times and modern times trying to escape together from Hell, armed with tanks, ancient weapons, Uzis and cavalry? The ancient and modern seamlessly woven together as if it was perfectly natural to consider Julius Caesar riding a jeep.

For me it was a game of spot the ancient hero and the historical figure. There are many egos among the players and of course, being Hell, not all goes to plan and that plan itself has more twists and turns than the every changing river of Hell. Apparently there is a way out of Hell if only one can find it. Or so the rumour is. A rumour in hell? That will not end well.

There was humour, adventure, great characters, rogues and heroes and a wonderfully crafted universe. Each character has his or her own agenda – Julius believes Alexander and Achilles are part of him, Hatshepsut the female Pharoah wants a kingdom, Alexander wants, among other things his dead lover and the others – well that would be telling. This is a complex story with alliances and betrayal at every turn. They have their memories, their prejudices and their affiliations. Lies abound.
In places perhaps it was too convoluted – and keeping track of what everyone was doing makes the brain flip, but that too is fun. Such an adventure is not for the faint hearted or those who want an easy, simple read. The ending leads to a cliff-hanger – and thus on to the next in the series.

If you can get your hands on this, which is out of print but can be sourced, I’d recommend it for fans of fantasy, adventure and historical fiction.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whenever I see a book that says "By Famous Author - with Some Guy You Never Heard Of" - I assume that the guy you never heard of did all the writing and Famous Author just put their name on it. Or maybe offered some ideas over coffee. Call me cynical.

In this case, I hope it's true, because much of the magic of Cherryh's Heroes in Hell is gone. There are battles and chases galore in this book, and yet nothing really happens. I felt like the author had some plot in mind, but never revealed it. Also there were far too many hints of actual supernatural crap, and what I loved about Heroes in Hell was the very mundanity of Hell. The Devil did his dirty work by messing with the power grid so your computers crashed all the time. This book has oracles - mother luvin' oracles! BAH!

I still might read more of the series, though, since I am madly in love with the concept of setting up a world where you can just play with all your favorite historical characters.

[Clara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is fun, filled with adventure, intrigue, and nods to Dante's 'Inferno,' 'Paradise Lost' and other, more intellectually-heavyweight Hell-based stories. The narrative did seem to be missing some threads: I could usually tell which sections Cherryh wrote and which Morris did, and I noticed inconsistencies between them. But still I found this an enjoyable book, and I recommend it to fellow diversion-seeking nerds and literati.

[Mark Smiley · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the second book in a series..

I did not read the first and was a little lost. This was in the bargain bin and I should have left it there.

War fought in Hell and if you die, you et reanimated after a while. So why fight and wage war?

Maybe it was explained in the first book which I will not read.

Just not interesting.

[John Devlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inventive looks at famous personages thrown together in Hell for some interesting and amusing reasons.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Readable and passable novel which is apparently part of a series. The idea is interesting with notable figures in hell and the mundanity of what is going on and with the mix of people and technology from assorted time periods. The problem is it just stops and nothing feels resolved. The chapter from an upcoming book in the series though now published a long time ago sounds interesting but being so old will I ever find it and will it actually feel substantial?

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great series.
Rereading 2018 and enjoying it still.

Alexander of Macedon, Julius Caesar, the Pharaohs Hatshepsut and Cleopatra, Niccolo Machiavelli, Judah Macabee, and other damned adventurers brave the River of Fire and the River of Forgetfulness on a daring journey back to the land of the living

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this first one up on a whim just because it looked interested, and it was. Just for pure entertainment, it was good. Nothing monumental though. I read the second and third for the same reason.

[Nancy Raines]

Hell Book 2