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

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.

A great read

This book keeps nudging my mind even days after I finished it. This is how I know I really got into a book.
I got caught up in the characters and the scheming was devilish!

great

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

Thought Provoking Concepts with a bit of Whimsy

Some very intriguing imaginings of what might have been going on in Heaven. Theologically, don't even try and decompile this. It's not that kind of story. The Holy Spirit is missing, Lucifer and Satan are different people, and Lilith is the love interest instead of a plurality of monsters as the original Hebrew clearly indicates. This is a very light-hearted take on Heavenly affairs in some ways and if you approach it from any fundamentalist view you will find it entirely heretical. As a good story though, it does the trick and has some very fantastic exploratory eschatological concepts that are worth mulling over. It held my attention very well. The narrator does an excellent job overall, except maybe between Lilith and Leviathan. I couldn't tell these voices apart. I don't think that's worth dinging a whole star though. The subtleties of most of the other voices are incredible, especially Kyriel and Sith. For some reason I really found their interactions entertaining.

I recommend this book!

This is a great book and the narrator Jiraiya Adams brought a lot to this reading.

Everyone in Heaven were friends, and well loved to begin with. Then there's doubts, a misunderstanding, and a friend that's trying to figure out how he feels and some jerk is causing problems just to get a promotion.

Brust also examines more philosophical points, such as should you do the right thing no matter what, or should you do something the right way even if you won't be guaranteed the best result?

I love this book because of the way Brust shows that neither side was exactly wrong, and gives some foundation to their actions. Ultimately, do you do the right thing or act the right way? This is a book I will always recommend.

Fantastic

A brilliant fantasy reinterpretation of the War in Heaven. Every character is well-defined and fleshed out, it was a delight to read. Five stars.

Story was amazing, narrator sold it.

I loved the narrator! I'll be looking for his other works. Brust is also amazing.

I regret getting this

What's in could not get past is that the characters in general are way too naive to be Angels. For bring millenias old they read as high school teenagers. I couldn't make it through the book. On the sixth hour of listening it is was gritting my teeth.

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.

Unique take on the rebellion in heaven

The story is that of the casting out of Satan and his followers from heaven but in a unique way. The angels, including God, are essentially human. There's a misunderstanding, there's a war, and some people get kicked out. (There are also "days" although the Earth and sun haven't been created yet, so not sure how that works, and the angels need to eat and sleep, and they can die, which really made it hard to not just see them as human.) God isn't the "good guy" and Satan isn't the "bad guy". In fact, I was rooting for Satan and his "team" for much of the book! I couldn't wait to see how they resolved it. I loved the story, but anyone who is offended by God being portrayed as anything other than perfect probably should stay away from this one!

The narrator was amazing. There are about a million different characters but he came up with different voices for all of them. Not so great with the women, though. Especially when trying to be sexy. But I haven't found a male narrator yet who's good at that!

So if I loved the story and I loved the narrator, why did I give it only 4 stars overall? It has to do with the writing style. Almost everything is dialogue. You have to work to figure out what's going on from short snippets of dialogue. It seemed like there would only be a couple of minutes of people talking, then it would jump to other people talking, never staying with one group very long. And each time the scene changed, there was a harp riff which quickly got annoying with frequent scene changes. I also had trouble keeping the characters apart at first because there were so many of them and some had very similar names.

I saw another review that said the lack of exposition, internal dialogue, and narration was what they loved about the book. It's the one thing I didn't love about the book. But as time went on and you became more familiar with the characters, it became easier to follow and didn't bother me that much. I even stopped noticing the harp. So give it a try. I think you'll like it.

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