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A review by tasharobinson
Mortality Bridge by Steven R. Boyett
4.0
In every book I've read that channels Dante's Inferno (books like Chuck Palahniuk's Damned and Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Inferno), there comes a point where I'm tired of the endless detailed, heavy-handed, gross-out descriptions of the worst hell has to offer — the graphic torture, the endless sadism, the helpless misery, the fear and bafflement of people who don't know why they're being endlessly mutilated and don't have any idea how to make it stop. This retelling of the Orpheus myth in a new era dives deep into that well, and it becomes especially exhausting because there's just so much emphasis on the idea that there are innocents in hell — good people, kind people, young children — but it never offers any explanation of this cosmology, of what hell is, what it's for, and whether there's a way to escape.
The protagonist, Niko, is a junkie rock star who sold his soul to hell in exchange for stardom and an escape from his vices, but he paid when hell took the love of his life. So he bones up on his myths, grabs his trusty Dobro, and heads to hell to get her back. The book does an excellent job of conjuring up his mindset, his character, the selfishness and short-sightedness that drive him, and eventually the dogged determination that propels him through hell after her. There were just so many points where I was exhausted with the grueling trip, the constantly escalating cruelty, and the sense of helplessness Mortality Bridge lays on the entire world. I'm glad I stuck with it — the ending is an extended breathless process of wondering whether Niko, Orpheus' latest avatar, will make Orpheus' mistake, and if so, how. And the book ends in a fascinating place.
But I really felt the lack of reasons or reasoning throughout the book. In this worldview, the cosmos is cruel and random — and yet there are apparently options for a small handful of people who know the right cheat codes and have the right talents? I ended up pretty dissociated from Niko's quest by the end of the book, no matter how thrilling it is, just because saving one beloved soul from hell seemed so meaningless, in the wake of the suffering millions he had to ignore or even actively harm on his quest. In the end, I'm clear on what this book is saying about love and music, but not what it's saying about the world — which it spends a lot more time on laying out, in unremittingly gruesome detail.
The protagonist, Niko, is a junkie rock star who sold his soul to hell in exchange for stardom and an escape from his vices, but he paid when hell took the love of his life. So he bones up on his myths, grabs his trusty Dobro, and heads to hell to get her back. The book does an excellent job of conjuring up his mindset, his character, the selfishness and short-sightedness that drive him, and eventually the dogged determination that propels him through hell after her. There were just so many points where I was exhausted with the grueling trip, the constantly escalating cruelty, and the sense of helplessness Mortality Bridge lays on the entire world. I'm glad I stuck with it — the ending is an extended breathless process of wondering whether Niko, Orpheus' latest avatar, will make Orpheus' mistake, and if so, how. And the book ends in a fascinating place.
But I really felt the lack of reasons or reasoning throughout the book. In this worldview, the cosmos is cruel and random — and yet there are apparently options for a small handful of people who know the right cheat codes and have the right talents? I ended up pretty dissociated from Niko's quest by the end of the book, no matter how thrilling it is, just because saving one beloved soul from hell seemed so meaningless, in the wake of the suffering millions he had to ignore or even actively harm on his quest. In the end, I'm clear on what this book is saying about love and music, but not what it's saying about the world — which it spends a lot more time on laying out, in unremittingly gruesome detail.