An unearthly voice hisses unholy welcome, and the late, great Allen Carpentier begins his one-way journey into the dim nether regions where flame-colored demons wield diabolically sharp pitchforks and tormented vixens reign forever in a pond of sheet ice. Here, in this land of torment and terror, he discovers the amazing truth of the ultimate adventure that lies beyond the grave. After being thrown out of the window of his luxury apartment, science fiction writer Allen Carpentier wakes to find himself at the gates of Hell. Feeling he's landed in a great opportunity for a book, he attempts to follow Dante's road map. Determined to meet Satan himself, Carpentier treks through the nine circles of Hell, led by Benito Mussolini, and encounters countless mental and physical tortures. As he struggles to escape, he's taken through new, puzzling, and outlandish versions of sin recast for the present day. " Inferno is quite literally a cake walk through hell...Pournelle and Niven have had the chutzpah to re-write Dante's Inferno... You are right there in the nether-reaches of the ultimate Sam Peckinpah movie with all the matter-of-fact solidity of a Hal Clement novel. It gets to you, it really does. This being lunacy of a transcendent order." -- "Norman Spinrad, Prix Apollo-winning science fiction writer" "A dazzling tour de force." -- "Poul Anderson, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author" "A fast, amusing, and vivid book, by a writing team noted for intelligence and imagination." -- "Roger Zelazny, Hugo and Nebula Awardwinning author" "Tom Weiner adopts a gruff, cocky, and impatient manner for Carpentier. His strong pace is effective in depicting Carpentier's arrogance and the extent to which that arrogance is modulated as he moves through his journey and develops a fondness for Mussolini. The residents of hell whom Carpentier encounters illustrate various sins relevant to the twentieth century. Weiner relies on a range of expressive accents in portraying them." -- "AudioFile" Larry Niven is the New York Times bestselling and multiple Hugo, Locus, and Nebula Award-winning author of science fiction short stories and novels, including the Ringworld series and The Burning City , as well as many other science fiction masterpieces. Jerry Pournelle (1933-2017) was an American science fiction writer, essayist, and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte . He wrote the popular Janissaries and CoDominium series and was the coauthor of several bestselling science fiction novels, including Lucifer's Hammer, The Mote in God's Eye , and the New York Times bestseller Footfall . He had advanced degrees in engineering, political science, statistics, and psychology and, in addition to his career as a fiction writer, had for many years written columns on both politics and technology. Tom Weiner , a dialogue director and voice artist best known for his roles in video games and television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Transformers , is the winner of eight Earphones Awards and is an Audie Award finalist. He is a former member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.