Inferno (Dante) with his sons and grandsons in the Torre dei Gualandi. In March 1289, the Archbishop condemned the prisoners to death by starvation in the tower. Canto XXXIV In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing the ultimate sin (personal treachery against God), is the Devil, referred to by Virgil as Dis (the Roman god of the underworld; the name "Dis" was often used for Pluto in antiquity, such as in Virgil's "Aeneid"). The arch-traitor, Lucifer was once held by God to be fairest of the angels before his pride led him to rebel against God, resulting in his expulsion
The Nine Billion Names of God time that the monks are pasting the final printed names into their holy books. Then they notice that "overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out." In 2004, "The Nine Billion Names of God" won the retrospective Hugo Award for Best Short Story for the year 1954. "Kirkus Reviews" called it "quietly remarkable" and "the Guardian" considered it to be a "wonderful apocalyptic rib-tickler". Stating that the story "introduced many Western readers to an intriguing speculation in Oriental religions", Carl Sagan in 1978 listed "The Nine Billion Names of God" as among the "rare few science‐fiction [stories that] combine