(no subject)

[madbaker]

I had an odd dream this morning. I was sort-of-observing the action, and partly reading the novel describing the events. Here's what I remember:

(Name of protagonist) was leading his army of the faithful to storm the gates of the afterlife, in the hope of gathering sufficient power to topple the corrupt emperor. It had been done before, after all.

Well, it wasn't so much an army as about a hundred of his followers. They weren't storming - they were queueing up patiently. And the gates were actually a freight elevator.

But it *did* lead to the afterlife. Of a sort.

Other things I remember - the protagonist is a Huey Long-type who wants to seize power; the emperor isn't really corrupt and evil. By volunteering to die, the group becomes part of the "civil service" of the collector of the dead; sort of like Beetlejuice, but without the special effects. People who are terminally ill, etc, get turned away. Other people get randomly turned away because their names are on a list; it's widely assumed that they have great destinies in store, but actually they're already scheduled to die within a day or two...

(Protagonist) ends up as a sort of special agent for the collector. The hazy stories of the past undead person who toppled the emperor have a basis in history. What actually happened was that an undead civil servant went to collect the emperor, and through a bureaucratic screw-up wasn't able to return to the afterlife for about a week.

...that's all I remember. I wish I knew what happened next.

Comments

[aastg.livejournal.com]

So do I!

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

You should read Liz Williams's Inspector Chen books (the first one is "Snake Agent"). The Chinese afterlife is run by civil servants, and Inspector Chen is a liaison with the demons in the Chinese Hell.

Or maybe not. Who knows what your dreams will be like then?

[seamoose.livejournal.com]

It also reminds me a bit of the Barry Hughart books.