Yesterday, Melissa and I went to Barnes and Noble. I had a great conversation about books and authors with someone that worked there, and he recommend this book to me. I wouldn’t have found it otherwise, since I mostly hang out in the Fantasy and Science Fiction sections, and this was in General Fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What if there is one true religion, and it’s Zoroastrianism? The main character, Soren Johansson, a devout Mormon, discovers the truth the hard way, when he dies and goes to Hell. The story is about his journey through a particular hell, in which he must find the book of his life before he can move on to heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ll try to do this without spoilers, though apparently the book has been out for 13 years or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s very good! I recommend it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I appreciate the craft of it. The prose, and the execution. It manages to cover a nearly unimaginable scope of time and space, without losing track of the character and emotional journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ll say it again: It’s very good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s written in first person. It’s short. Probably around 25,000 words. I easily read it one sitting, with gray daylight streaming in the window and a cat on my lap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While reading it, I thought I could see something of a puzzle in the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I finished reading it, I sat back and thought about it for a little while. I’m not sure the conclusion is satisfying, but then, I don’t know that there is a satisfying way to conclude this kind of story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hadn’t looked at blurbs on the back until I finished. When I did, I discovered a familiar name: Dan Wells. In his blurb, he says ‘it will haunt you, fittingly, for a very, very long time.’ The next time I see Dan, I’ll ask if he still thinks about this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think Michael Gallowglas will enjoy this book. The next time I see him, I’ll give him this copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m not sure I’m particularly good at book reviews. I’ve only done a couple, and I feel like I should do more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem is that I’m critical about some things that most people don’t care about, and I’m more forgiving about some things that other people complain about. I want to fall into a story and feel something, and if the prose is too cheap or lazy, I’m going to be distracted by that and fail to engage. Once I’m into the story, though, I can forgive and ignore plot holes or inconsistencies, as long as the emotions I’m feeling are real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn’t have those problems reading A Short Stay in Hell<\/em>. The writing was far from lazy, and the emotions I felt were profound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’ve read it, let me know, and maybe we can talk about it. If you’d like to see more reviews from me, let me know that, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday, Melissa and I went to Barnes and Noble. I had a great conversation about books and authors with someone that worked there, and he recommend this book to me. I wouldn’t have found it otherwise, since I mostly hang out in the Fantasy and Science Fiction sections, and this was in General Fiction. Brian’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65719,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65718\/revisions\/65719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}