Rating: 4/5
Review:
A very enjoyable read
I enjoyed this book. It is a very good, well-written adventure story, which is very amusing in places and with a good deal of thoughtful and erudite stuff, too.
This book has a distinct voice of its own, but there are echoes of Terry Pratchett, Radio 4's Old Harry's Game, Tolkien and even Philip Pullman in places. The story, of a young teenage boy with his dog and a motley assortment of friends lost in Hell and trying to prevent its demons invading Earth, got off to a rather slow start and I found some of the humour at the beginning a bit laboured, too. I certainly kept reading, though, and once it got going the book was excellent - very exciting, full of remarkable imagination, genuinely laugh-out-loud funny in places and with some important things to say about good, evil and what it is to be a decent human being.
I thought that the most enduring passages were some Dante-esque encounters which Samuel (our hero) has with people in Hell being punished for their sins by being forced to live them out for all eternity. I found his encounter with the Void very powerful and the episode with The Blacksmith genuinely moving. To include all this in such a gripping and amusing story is quite something, and I think this book will appeal to older children and adults alike. Warmly recommended.
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