Happy hour in hell

Happy Hour is the sequel to Dirty Streets of Heaven
What a disappointment. This has none of the charm of the first book. Dirty Streets has an intriguing mystery at its center: the main character ( an angel called Bobby Dollar) is an advocate to the recently dead, arguing for the release of their souls to heaven. When a client's soul goes missing, he gets framed. That was a great premise, and I was happy to spend time with Bobby as he tried to make sense of it all.

In Happy Hour, the plot is that Bobby Dollar is obsessed with getting his demon girlfriend Caz out of hell. Why? Because a) she's beautiful, b) she's beautiful, c) she's beautiful and d) they had great sex. Oh, and he is sorry for her.

In Dirty Streets, Bobby was a great character. A tough guy with a unexpected sensitive and thoughtful side, who never took himself too seriously. He was funny. In Happy Hour, Bobby comes across as an infatuated, self-pitying drunk.

His demonic crush Caz, or the Countess Cazimira of the Cold Hands, seems to have lost most of her personality. In Dirty Streets she was an impressive lady, scary, angry, cold, clever, and infinitely dangerous. In Happy Hour she spends all her time looking sad, or dangling limply from the hand of her captor. Caz from the first book didn't need to wait around for some drunken angel to rescue her.

Most of Happy Hour is about Bobby travelling through hell and encountering various yucky, horrid, stinky, nasty things. Some of this was interesting. The best part is when Bobby gets his brain back for a moment and wonders why hell and heaven work the way they do, or when he tries to make sense of the ideas of punishment, morality, and guilt. For example, he encounters my favourite character in the book, a monster called Riprash. Riprash is convinced that even the damned can still be forgiven and ascend to heaven, and holds little prayer meetings with other damned. That stuff was interesting!

Also, hell was boring. Compared to, for example, Ursula Le Guin's depiction of the afterlife in The Farthest Shore, which was truly frightening, this was just yucky. Williams falls back on old favorite techniques, and hell is pretty much just disgusting combinations of body parts sewn together /insecty thingies / eyeballs in jelly with the occasional "ew, genitals are gross" bits thrown in to spice things up.

There's a glimpse of hope when one of (the many, many, many) torture scenes takes place in what looks like a Holiday Inn conference room. That's more like it! But other than that, its watered down Hieronymus Bosch territory all the way.

Tad Williams is one of my favorite writers, but something went badly wrong here. I won't be reading the third book.

Bobby Dollar is back, the angel that is sometimes known as Doloriel has advocated for the humans on heaven’s behalf more times than he can count. He goes to hell and back to fight for the souls of earth but this time he actually has to go to hell. His girlfriend a demon called Casimira (the Countess of Cold Hands) is been held hostage by one of the most powerful demons in hell, Eligor the Grand Duke of Hell.

First off let’s talk about the first question people are asking; why is an angel dating a demon? This is a question I’ve asked myself too, even in the first novel it seems weird. Best not to think of Bobby Dollar as an angel, he walks that fine line between good and evil but if you need an advocate you would want him on your side.

This is the second book in the Bobby Dollar series and if you haven’t read The Dirty Streets of Heaven then you really should. Bobby Dollar is as hard-boiled as they come. He will fight for good but he is not afraid to get down to a fight. I really enjoyed the first novel in the series and can’t recommend it enough, if you are looking for a dark gritty urban fantasy.

The thing I didn’t like about Happy Hour in Hell is there is a huge chunk of the novel set in hell, rather San Judas. I loved the world Tad Williams built and I’m just annoyed that he left it. Hell made for an interesting backdrop; the torture, violence and unspeakable acts that happen in this book really gives you a sense of what Hell must be like. Williams knows how to build a world but Hell isn’t as original as San Judas and not as interesting.

The other thing that bothered me about this book is that Bobby Dollar didn’t seem as hard-boiled as before. He used to be a strong, uncompromising type that would go to hell to rescue a damsel in distress but having a girlfriend made him a little soft. I’m not saying this is a bad thing but you look at the great hard-boiled detectives in history and there is always that flirtation with a femme fatale but they never seem to be the kind of person that settles down. They don’t want to put someone in the position where the woman could be in danger as a way to get control of them. They are often loners for this reason, better a woman is safe from harm than being happy. Having said that, I would love to know if there are any hard-boiled detectives that are in a relationship and are happy (that don’t end badly for the woman), I know people would probably say Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man) but I think of them as a crime fighting duo.

I liked Bobby Dollar when he was cold and bitter; I’m not sure if Tad Williams was trying to make him more likable or accessible but it made me hate him. So much so I’m not sure if I want to read book three when it comes out. I will see how a feel when it is closer to the release date in 2014. I love the hard-boiled urban fantasy blend and for me this was moving away from that style to the straight fantasy style he is better known for. Bobby Dollar is a great character and I hate seeing what has happened to him; hopefully book three is different.

This review originally appeared on my blog; literary-exploration.com/2013/10/09/book-review-happy-hour-in-hell/

Happy Hour In Hell is the second Bobby Dollar book and it picks up pretty directly from where the second left off, so it's not the best starting point.

The Bobby Dollar books are a sort of noir urban fantasy with a major focus on heaven and hell. In fact this second book doesn't really quite meet the urban fantasy criteria since it's 90% set in Hell.

Tad Williams has a firm grip on the noir character and voice and his vision of hell is most certainly grotesque. He manages to steer clear of most of the stereotypes and creates a multi-leveled hell that really feels like it could be the ultimate torture chamber.

He also doesn't, I'm pleased to say, duck the substantial question of why God would create such a place and doom people to exist there. He doesn't answer the question mind you, but at least his characters ask it.

This book isn't going to sit well with people who are sensitive about their religion, because it does fall back on the old notion that Heaven and angels are sort of like a collection of politicians and bureaucrats. So they don't come off very well really. It's not a remotely original idea, but to be fair, for the core conceit of the series to work you really need that sort of set up.

I always enjoy Williams' writing. It's crisp and effective. He doesn't belabor things but he uses descriptions effectively. There are a few problems here though.

The biggest is the "twist" ending which you will see coming a mile off. I guess it sets the stage for book three, but it makes our hero look like and idiot because it's so obvious to the reader what is going on.

But the other problem is more of a nagging one. Hell as presented by Williams is unpleasant. And we spend a lot of time in that unpleasant environment. Honestly I have to say it wore on me and I enjoyed the present day city scenes much more.

That said, and with the caveat that Tad Williams does not shy away from the sexually explicit any more than he does from the gore, I do recommend reading this series if you enjoy this sort of urban fantasy material.

I can't say I was too happy with the ending of this, and I agree with some other reviews which pointed out that the amount of description of Tad's version of hell overwhelmed the plot and disrupted the pacing, but that description was different than some of the other takes I've read, so I was nonetheless entertained throughout, and didn't feel like putting it down until I was finished.