From Publishers Weekly
Flamboyantly irreverent depictions of the afterlife give the two semi-satirical fantasy novels in this compilation considerable energy, if little direction. In Mellick's (Satan Burger) "Ugly Heaven," two recently dead souls awaken with new identities in a perplexingly denatured Heaven populated by voracious shadows, unholy angels and strange life forms of inexplicable origin. As they struggle to find safe haven in this hostile environment, they make unsettling discoveries about their mortal lives and their peculiar deaths. Thomas's (Punktown) "Beautiful Hell," a semi-sequel to his Letters from Hades (2003), is set in a Hell where a once-human sinner conspires with his demon lover to prevent wholesale elimination of Hell's satanic overseers by the Creator during one of His periodic visits to the underworld. Although wildly imagined, both novels are aimlessly episodic and revel long and discursively in their idiosyncracies. Only fans of the authors are likely to appreciate this book, and even then they may wish that each title had been fleshed out more fully as a stand-alone volume.
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Product Description
Jeffrey Thomas and Carlton Mellick III collaborate on their own twisted visions of heaven and hell. UGLY HEAVEN At one point in time, Heaven was a paradise. It was a blissful utopia full of wonders far beyond human comprehension. But that was a long, long time ago. The afterlife is now in ruins. It has become an ugly, lonely wasteland populated by strange monstrous beasts, masturbating angels, and sad man-like beings wallowing in the remains of the once-great Kingdom of God. As two recently departed souls arrive in Heaven, they discover their eternal home is not one of divine peace but of nightmarish ugliness. So they go on a quest to explore this dead alien landscape, desperately seeking answers, allies, and some sort of place they can forever call home. BEAUTIFUL HELL A writer named Frank Lyre finds himself damned to an afterlife where Demons and Angels are equally sadistic and conflicted, where torturers become seducers, where Jesus likes to sit for a pleasant chat and God is not only going through monstrous changes to His body, but a personal crisis that might forever change His vision of creation. Beautiful Hell is a sequel of sorts to Jeffrey Thomas's acclaimed novel Letters From Hades, but stands on its own as a harrowing study of damnation and regeneration, physical passion and emotional pain, faith and rebellion, and the conflict between the spirit and the flesh.
