The Little Helliad

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In the Heroes in Hell fictional universe, The Little Helliad is a full-length novel based structurally on The Little Iliad. In The Little Helliad, Satan calls Homer to him and demands that Homer write a great epic poem aggrandizing Satan's glory. Homer says he must travel throughout all the hells of creation to understand the scope of Satan's importance while, in reality, Homer seizes this chance to hunt for Odysseus, whom Homer believed was his grandfather. Many historical characters appear and are enlisted on this quest for Odysseus. The book includes Hesiod's trip to New York at the end of the 20th Century, on a special dispensation, where Hesiod finds he cannot interest an American publisher in his "Works and Days." Homer teams up with Confucius and Alexander of Macedon and an American intelligence agent, and even encounters Heraclitus of Ephesus. As in The Little Iliad, tales nest and smaller are often told by characters encountered on the journey through all the hells.