Bobby Dollar, also known as the angel Doloriel, is still longing for Casmira, Caz for short, also known as the Countess of the Cold Hands, the demon with whom he shared a passionate affair. The problem is that she’s being held against her will by the demon Eligor in one of the highest levels of Hell; Eligor is a Duke of Hell. Bobby can’t go on without thinking about her so he does what any sane man would do, he enters Hell in an attempt to rescue her.

Add to that, the “corporate evaluation” he received from his superiors after not finding his best friend Sam, who following the events of the previous novel, is not in the good graces of Heaven. More insult to injury is the demon Smyler, a demon who Bobby thought to be dead, is stalking him. Luckily for Bobby, his supervisors in Heaven have just granted him a vacation/leave of absence from his job as an advocate for souls of the dying.

Superficially, Happy Hour in Hell is very much a travelogue through Tad Williams’ version of Hell, itself informed by Dante and Milton to a large degree. Whereas the first installment in this series was more of a mystery, Happy Hour is more of a quest tale, with Bobby traversing Hell in the guise of a demon. While Dirty Streets of Heaven set up, initially, a dichotomy between Heaven and Hell only to reveal a Third Way by novel’s end, in Happy Hour Tad Williams shakes up the rule book on Bobby (and the reader) suggesting the rules of Heaven and Hell aren’t quite what they are classically thought to be.

The tour through Hell is truly fascinating; Williams evokes some very gruesome imagery in both the inhabitants of Hell as well as the vast landscapes Bobby traverses. One group of demons he encounters reminded me a bit of the folks in Michael Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time sequence which itself is set in Moorcock’s Eternal Champion mythos. A combination of decadence and high societal cruelty marked this particularly strange and ultimately uncomfortable episode in Bobby’s odyssey through Hell. On the whole for Bobby’s journey, I was also reminded of Tad’s own Otherland novels for the layers of worlds explored by the characters. The literary winks nods are all over the place, but don’t weigh down the narrative in the least.

As much of the plot involves Bobby’s misadventures and encounters with the denizens of Hell, the story plot is not quite as deep and layered as the previous installment – it is fairly straight-forward which is a strength. Rather, Williams’s powerful imagination is on full display. What makes the novel such a treat is seeing the Hellish landscape with Bobby’s acerbic and snarky commentary. He constantly has to outwit the demons of hell until he is eventually outwitted himself and is subjected to some squelchy and horrific tortures.

As Bobby becomes more acclimated to Hell during his journey, to his dismay, he realizes people in Hell while quite monstrous and tortured, are still eking out an existence. Even aside from the major figures in Hell like Duke Eligor, some demons and lost souls are existing quite well, all things considered. By novel’s end, Bobby seriously questions the upper management of both Heaven and Hell. Furthermore, the Third Way about which his pal Sam informed him about in Dirty Streets seems a more questionable alternative to the Heaven/Hell dichotomy.

While Sam sort of bookends the story, meeting with Bobby in the beginning of the novel before Bobby goes to Hell and after his return, much of the Third Way storyline is jettisoned (though mentioned enough throughout the novel) for Bobby’s quest for Caz.

Happy Hour in Hell is another terrific entry in Tad Williams ouvere and a fine addition to the Bobby Dollar series, even if it is almost a sidestep from the main story introduced in the first volume. An important and enjoyable sidestep, at that.

Highly Recommended

© 2013 Rob H. Bedford

Originally published in Hardcover, September 2013

Hardcover 400 pages, 9780756408152

Bobby Dollar #2 http://www.tadwilliams.com/tag/happy-hour-in-hell/

http://www.tadwilliams.com

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