To Reign in Hell

By: Steven Brust

Narrated by: Jiraiya Addams

Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's Summary

The time is the beginning. The place is heaven. The story is the revolt of the angels - a war of magic, corruption, and intrigue that could destroy the universe. To Reign in Hell was Stephen Brust's second novel, and it's a thrilling retelling of the revolt of the angels, through the lens of epic fantasy.

©1984 Steven Brust (P)2019 Steven Brust

Excellent re-telling of the creation story!

I've always loved Steven Brust and especially his Dragaeran books -- both the Taltos stories and the Khaavren romances. It's an absolute joy to revisit his books, which I've done again and again.

I first read To Reign In Hell when I was a teenager, and it holds up today. The premise is a re-imagining of the Creation story, told from the various perspectives of the major characters. I never expected to consider Mephistopheles one of my favorite characters, but... here I am. The order of the universe is very well constructed, with simple rules -- each successive wave of creation is less powerful than the last, entropy is the ultimate enemy, and the introduction of disorder through the political manipulations of an ambitious angel led to the divide between Heaven and Hell.

The narrator presents this excellent story well, with clear enunciation and a good sense of dramatic tension. The story was every bit as enjoyable in audio format as it was on the page, and I really can't recommend this enough to anyone interested. Brust is a marvelous author of rogues, and I urge everyone to try his Dragaera books as well if you liked To Reign In Hell.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

One of the great fantasies, finally an audio book.

The first sentence of To Reign in Hell hooked me when I read it, having found it in a wire rack the year it was first published. That "overwritten" sentence showed the humor and love for words that fills this book. Only someone crazy would tackle telling the tale of the rebellion in Heaven. Only one of the finest authors could pull it off, and Steven Brust does. The characters are deep and relatable, the intrigue and politics insightful, and the whole thing tons of fun.

Jiralya Addams does a great job narrating. His voice works well for the mythic figures portrayed, though perhaps a bit off for the female parts.

Overall highly recommended.

Rendition as a story of Satan's fall from heaven

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review ...

This was long. But so is Milton's "Paradise Lost". This did remind me of a more Hellenistic take of the Greek's Gods in Mythology bickering with and fighting among themselves as in this story the Angels have power and free will and think they can challenge the supreme God --- the stories of Olympus et al WRT Greek Mytholgy told in that vein it seems to me.

So this book was interesting if read from that vein but with Bible/Milton/Poetic references as a sort of setting in a way for each chapter.

Spoiler ... and the end you can guess as I did ... and we see and suspect Satan has designs on that.

A highly engaging novel

I think this was a brilliant book. Highly ambitious and well written. The author tackles Christian mythology with brilliance and wit. The narrator did an excellent job with the characters giving each a distinct voice. This is the first of Steven Brust’s novels that I have read and it was a wonderful introduction to a writer of quality.

Not what you're expecting.

Probably one of my all-time favorites. If not a must have, then certainly a must read.

Crucial Conversations at their Worst

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. This review is for the audio copy of To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust, and narrated by Jiraiya Addams. A great take on a story that will be argued about forever. This was very entertaining and expressed the short comings and downfalls of interpersonal communications. You do have to stick with it as stated in some previous reviews. It is slow starting and tedious at first but well worth hanging in there. The narrator did a superlative job with all the different voices and inflections. He made this story a success for being an audio book.

Adonai breaking bad

Jiraiya Addams's variety of booming to sultry voices makes the storytelling that much more spellbinding:

A creative imagining of interpersonal events proposing an explanation to the most famous contradictory myth in the western world. The story tells of a descent from noble caretaker to paranoid despot, the corruption of power, how a self-proclaimed god of mercy and love becomes one who commands genocide and unquestioning subservience.

great

this is my first audiobook. and it has got me hooked. highly recommend this biblical fantasy for anyone

Absolutely loved it 💜💜

Awesome book. Brilliant and well written it captures the imagination. A really cool look at Christian mythology.

Loved the narrator. Great performance.

-I received a free review copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.-

Not the War in Heaven You're Expecting

This is a story of crisis and betrayal, miscommunication and lies, and a brewing civil war. The characters are vivid and the action is filled with tension and quite enjoyable. Written in a different context it would have been a four-star novel. Unfortunately, To Reign in Hell is an effort to retell the story of the war between God (called Yahweh in this novel) and Satan but it accomplishes this by flipping the expectations of who is good and who is evil. Yahweh is described as a dimwitted, small minded, easily manipulated, quick to violence fool who surrounds himself with equally stupid angels who are disturbingly quick to agree to attack their fellow angels who they apparently still consider to be their friends. On the other side, Satan and those who will become known as demons and devils, are portrayed as honorable, brilliant people who suffer from naiveite. Whereas Yahweh acts with cruelty throughout the novel eventually becoming genocidal, the demons never do so. It is a bizarre twisting of the story that makes listening to it highly disturbing, even though the basic action is still enjoyable.

In addition, there is a major flaw that greatly weakens the credibility of the story. I’ll leave out names so that I don’t spoil the action, but the angel who is the arch manipulator of Yahweh kills another angel and is caught in the act. This murder occurs well before the breach between Yahweh and Satan has become certain and it is the act that inspires most of the rest of the misunderstandings in the story. Again and again, Satan tries to kill the offending angel and is stopped by forces of Yahweh who do not know they are defending a murderer. But never once does Satan or his allies think of yelling—"He killed (fill in the name of the angel).” Those three words would have ended the immediate threat of violence and permitted the discussion that would have healed the accidental rift between Yahweh and Satan. I realize that the rift is necessary to the story, but couldn’t a believable problem have been created?

Perhaps the real problem is that Brust wants Satan and the “fallen angels” to be the heroes of his tale and Yahweh and the heavenly host to be a bunch of homicidal (in Yahweh’s case, genocidal) maniacs. It would have been a much more interesting story if Satan had actually been the bad guy trying to gain dominance in heaven. There are numerous novels that manage to make the bad guy an interesting protagonist. It’s unfortunate that Brust decided to go in the opposite direction.

I would like to end on a positive note. Narrator Jiraiyah Addams has a wonderful vocal range which permits him to create a large number of individual characters in this audio book. That greatly enhanced the rendition of this tale.

I received this book from Audiobook Boom in exchange for an honest review.

Heaven v hell. at its inception .

Using terminology that conjours the depth of this book, in the telling of how the battle of heaven created hell. I am no religious person quite the anti. but this book (I was given this to review so wanted to respect the Authors time given to it so continued)
But it became so compulsive, I found myself rooting for the what we would say bad guys, backstabbing and pride causing the ultimate downfall. It was narrated with a style that felt part of the scene,
A very entertaining read, flawlessly delivered and worth the read. jim