City Infernal

By: Edward Lee

Narrated by: Michael T. Bradley

Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's Summary

When Cassie's twin sister, Lissa, commits suicide, Cassie discovers she can travel to Hell to retrieve her sister's soul. Cassie thought she knew all about the Hell of legend, but finds Hell has evolved over the millennia into a bustling city full of the damned with looming skyscrapers, crowded streets, systemized evil, and atrocity as the status quo.

Hell is a city. It stretches, literally, without end-a labyrinth of smoke and waking nightmare. Just as endlessly, sewer grates belch flame from the sulfur fires that have raged beneath the streets for millennia. Clock towers spire in every district, by public law, but their faces have no hands; time is not measured here in seconds or hours but in atrocity and despair. In the center of this morass of stone and smoke and butchery and horror stands the 666-floor Mephisto Building, where Gargoyles prowl the wind-blown ledges and from whose highest garrets the innocent are hung from gibbets and left to rot for eons. The lone occupant of the very top floor looks down upon his dominion and smiles a smile that is brighter than 1,000 suns. Here, yes, everyone is dead yet everyone lives forever. Welcome to the Mephistopolis. Welcome to the city of Hell. Welcome.

©2016 Necro Publications (P)2017 Necro Publications

The Awesome Edward Lee

I read all the Edward Lee books. Yes there horrifying, yes there gory and yes they leave you disturbing images but why else would you read Edward Lee! Awesome as usual. Audible needs to get off their butts and add the rest of the collection!!!

noise reduction is a thing

these narrators call themselves professionals, and rightly so. That is why I get so annoyed when I purchase an audiobook only to hear background room noise in the "finalized" narration. Getting rid of background noise is audio editing 101. There are absolutely ZERO excuses for the horrible quality of this audiobook!! This guy should be ashamed to have put this out the way it is. Ridiculous!

Better than Clive Barker

This reminded me a little of The Scarlet Gospels, but I enjoyed it much more. The performance was a little shaky; some lousy voices, blips in room tone, etc., but the story made up for it. Really good!

I LOVE BOTH ARTHUR AND NARRATOR!! 10⭐️

I LOVE BOTH ARTHUR AND NARRATOR!! 10⭐️
Im new to this audiobook stuff but let me tell you im big on podcast! Mr Michael Bradley has a phenomenal talent and OMG Mr Lee you seem to be the most perfect story writer iv ever come across! Dont change a thing!🖤

A really bad YA fantasy story, set in a modern hellscape

Edward Lee is a name that pops up sometimes on review sites, so I figured he must have some kind of reputation among horror readers. This is the first book of his that I’ve read/listened to and I honestly don’t know how he even gets published. The characters were flat, the plot was paper thin, most of the dialogue was just exposition dumps, and I’m not really sure what’s horrific about this book. It features a lot of depictions of gore early on, especially when we first enter hell, but it’s so cartoonishly over the top that I couldn’t take it seriously at all. It’s all just non-threatening. The book itself reads like something a 16 year old edge lord put together, thinking they’re doing something revolutionary to the horror genre. I’d probably have less to say if this was posted online as a creepypasta series or something, but since subscription fees are involved I’m kind of mad about it and I wish I could get my credit back.

The narration is okay. The guy mispronounces some words and some of the voices are grating. I wouldn’t feel disinclined to listen to something else he narrated.

Not good, not awful, but not good

The reader’s attempt at female voices is best compared to nails on a chalkboard. Apparently all females sound like nasally chain smoking children. I tried hard to like this book but honestly the story is just okay and when you combine that with the hell (pun intended) that is the voice work… it’s a no.

Engaging but not much horror, bad performance

The story was enjoyable enough for me to finish, which is only the case about half the time. There was far less horror than I expected; there's more horror in most Warhammer 40K novels. Nevertheless, the concept was fairly original and engaging, though some details regarding the concept are a bit contrived or preposterous.

This Michael Bradley mook can NOT do a female voice that isn't grating, and the voice of one of the male protagonists - the reformed fallen angel - sounds like a special ed Boris Karloff. That character voice was the most annoying I've ever heard on Audible.

terrible narration

I really had a hard time finishing this. The narration was horrible. story was ok, but spent too much time trying to gross out the reader with pointless tangents.

Interesting As Hell

It’s difficult to review this book because it’s so bizarre. Since I read this genre quite a bit the horrific events didn’t bother me at all. The story was enjoyable and the characters were beyond description. One annoying thing was Vea’s voice. It sounded like Marge from Family Guy. The narration was good from the perspective of the words pronounced but the voices weren’t very good. If you like this genre, try it out.

Unique take on hell

Fantastic book. The narrator could use some work on his character voices but other than that he was ok. Such an interesting and unique take on Hell

Loved the book

I love the concept of this book. It’s so well thought out and clever. A hell very much like our own only twisted and churned into plausible evil workings. The plot is also a great one, with a brilliant twist at the end. In a bit she’ll (and with no spoilers) it’s about a girl who goes to hell to find her sister. If I say anything else I would just spoil it.
The only negative is the narrator. Through no fault of his own he has a real American drawl which I found initially very very off putting. I wanted to wind him up and inject him with a shot of the dramatics. However, luckily I persevered and eventually, after about twenty minutes or so, I forgave him and let the story just take me. Read the book first and then try this audiobook, it will make you want to hang in there all the more. In conclusion, I loved the book and I liked this audiobook. Give it a go x

So so ...

Premise is interesting and the start is good. But it turns out the city in hell is just a warped version of the normal cities. And there is to much explaining of how things work in hell, machines and social constructs among other things. Dry explanations, like in a text book about how to build an engine or repair a vacuum cleaner. But I'm not dissapointed, I knew what to expect; the story is what it is, written by Edward Lee. And despite shortcomings, worth one credit and a readthrough.

Not my taste at all

Too much a YA story for my liking. Too may stuff were too convenient. One positive thing I can say is that there is a lot of imagination in there, but I felt it lacked substance.