Raising Hell
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
As an ambitious, alienated, and awesomely talented kid from the Bronx, Norman Spinrad rode the revolutionary “New Wave” of 1960s science fiction to fame, if not fortune. His usually angry, often hilarious, and always radical novels changed the field forever. Once devoted to interplanetary adventure, SF began to explore the uneasy intersection between today’s illusions and tomorrow’s dystopian disasters. It grew dark, grew wild, grew up.
An all-new novella designed to take a poke at both Christian fundamentalists and corporate CEOs, Raising Hell is a rousing account of the fight to improve working conditions in Hell, for both demons and the damned, with the help of such deceased immortals as Jimmy Hoffa, John L. Lewis, and César Chávez.
Plus…
“The Abnormal New Normal,” an impolite inquiry into today’s high-finance low-jinks, which unmasks the manipulations of the 1% and proposes a radical fix.
And Featuring: our Outspoken Interview, the usual mix of intimate revelation, gossip, and tales from the front lines of writing and publishing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jimmy DiAngelo is in Hell, but he's faced worse situations as a disreputable union organizer, and he sets out to make conditions better for the demons in a satire that fails to make a point beyond a banal "life is hell." Spinrad (Osama the Gun) opens with distasteful references to anal penetration as he sets up the bleakness of Hell and how unfair it is to Lucifer and the others. When DiAngelo works with other union leaders to establish a new bargaining agreement between Heaven and Hell, he opens up a rebellion on a celestial scale and provides a opening for corporate monsters to exploit people in the afterlife. The futility of Lucifer's situation matches the oppressively cynical writing, which focuses heavily on Spinrad's disgust both for corporations and for the worst aspects of the labor movement. This feeling extends into the author interview and the more competently written essay about the current economic climate that complete this short, skippable set piece.
