The Hell of It.

As a young nerd I played a lot of role playing games. Yes, yes a la Dungeons & Dragons. Today, I don't play but I still read them as they are excellent examples of the imagination They certainly can be seen at works of art in the best cases, and at least diverting at other times. I've enjoyed recently reading through a collection called "The Infernium."

As the title might suggest it is a game set in of all places, Hell. It makes no bones about it, this is Hell. There is a God, and he's not here. Just lots and lots of demons. Survival is certainly an issue even if you are playing one of the demons. What I enjoyed reading was the back story and how the authors played with what hell would be like.

For example, there was the issue with time. When the angels were first cast down there was no time in hell. Which makes it truly, pardon the term hellish. Imagine, you've basically just been through an orbital reentry, after the most crushing rejection in all of creation. You've hit the ground so hard you've made the pit of hell. Now there is no time, so that's it. That is your now. Forever.

Or it would have been except that the Devil was able to use his own will to make time, but even he couldn't keep that up. So now hell steals time from us. All those seconds we aren't really doing anything go to hell. As one can imagine second hand time isn't all that great. It's spongey and not that precise. Here it is 2010, in hell it's around 1600 to 2010. That's the sort of concept I love and would certainly make good stories.

Another example is that there was also no light in hell so the devil built his own sun that rises from the pit then lowers. The authors in truly wonderful geekness worked out how such a day would work, how basically there would be two points each day where the sun is closest to you depending on where you are in the pit. It's that sort of effort I can applaud.

Overall, I enjoyed a little tour of hell, but I wouldn't want to live there certainly.