“Hell is Forever”
Unknown Worlds, August 1942
Most recently reprinted in Redemolished.
Alfred Bester’s birthday was a few days ago. I decided to reread his novella “Hell is Forever” to mark the occasion. Or rather, reread. I’d first read it in the collection Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester way back in 8th grade. I didn’t like the story at the time, but since that was mumblety-mumble years ago, I thought I would give it another try.
I still didn’t care much for it.
The story opens in a bomb shelter in the basement of a manor house during the Blitz. The six people in the basement live to experience new things, and are a pretty jaded group. In the opening scene, they’re putting on a play one of them has written for the benefit of their hostess. During the play, one of the characters summons up a demon, which gets loose. The hostess, who is grossly obese and not in the best of health, dies of a heat attack.
Turns out that was the intention of the other five all along, and the demon wasn’t real. Except he was. Oh, not the actor done up to look like a demon, but the real one who shows up after the hostess dies. He makes a deal with the group, pass through a shimmering wall of flame where the exit used to be and they will each enter a world in which the individual’s greatest desire will be realized. Which sounds like a good deal. The husband of a married couple wants to stay married, while his wife wants to kill him. The artist is in love with a woman who often models for him, but she’s frigid and wants nothing to do with him. Continue reading →
Today’s (April 30) birthday post looks at story by someone who should not exist. Jane Rice(1913-2003) wrote fantasy and horror for the pulps, primarily Unknown. As all right-thinking people know, women weren’t allowed to write for the pulps. They were kept out by chauvinistic such as John W. Campbell, Jr., the editor of Astounding and, well, Unknown. Just goes to show what some right-thinking people don’t know.