
A Short Stay in Hell
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Narrated by:
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Sergei Burbank
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By:
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Steven L. Peck
About this listen
An ordinary family man, geologist, and Mormon, Soren Johansson has always believed he'll be reunited with his loved ones after death in an eternal hereafter. Then, he dies. Soren wakes to find himself cast by a God he has never heard of into a Hell whose dimensions he can barely grasp: a vast library he can only escape from by finding the book that contains the story of his life.
In this haunting existential novella, author, philosopher, and ecologist Steven L. Peck explores a subversive vision of eternity, taking the reader on a journey through the afterlife of a world where everything everyone believed in turns out to be wrong.
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When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency.
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A solid, just not great social network dystopia
- By Darwin8u on 10-10-13
By: Dave Eggers
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I Who Have Never Known Men
- By: Jacqueline Harpman
- Narrated by: Nikki Massoud
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Deep underground, 39 women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before. As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the 40th prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others’ escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.
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WOW, a powerful performance and an incredible book
- By Audible Listener on 09-18-23
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Between Two Fires
- By: Christopher Buehlman
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm - that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict. Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon.
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Mesmerizing Knight Errant Tale
- By Tango on 05-01-13
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Temporary
- By: Hilary Leichter
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Temporary, a young woman’s workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements in search of steadiness, connection, and something, at last, to call her own. Whether it’s shining an endless closet of shoes, swabbing the deck of a pirate ship, assisting an assassin, or filling in for the Chairman of the Board, for the mythical Temporary, “there is nothing more personal than doing your job.”
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Brilliant
- By E.K. Lanier on 03-06-20
By: Hilary Leichter
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Sour Candy
- By: Kealan Patrick Burke
- Narrated by: Andrew Gibson
- Length: 2 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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At first glance, Phil Pendleton and his son Adam are just an ordinary father and son, no different from any other. What no one knows is that Phil is a prisoner, and that up until a few weeks ago and a chance encounter at a grocery store, he had never seen the child before in his life.
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Wast of time
- By ashley jarrett on 12-05-24
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There Is No Antimemetics Division
- A Novel
- By: qntm
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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They’re all around us, hiding in plain sight. One could be in the room with you, now, just to your left. You could be seeing it right now—but from this second to the next, you’ll forget that you did. If you managed to jot down a note, the paper would look blank to you afterwards. These entities can feed on your most cherished memories, the things that make you you—and you’ll never even know anything changed. They can turn you into a living ghost—make it so that you’re standing next to your spouse, screaming in their ear, and they won’t know you’re there.
By: qntm
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Earthlings
- A Novel
- By: Sayaka Murata
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth.
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Intriguing but disturbing
- By C. Parham on 01-01-21
By: Sayaka Murata
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The Fisherman
- By: John Langan
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story.
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The Horror of Loss
- By Jim N on 04-20-17
By: John Langan
What listeners say about A Short Stay in Hell
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- Brian PDX
- 11-24-15
Will keep me thinking for quite a while
as an atheist who was raised Mormon I found this to be a fascinating book-almost impossible to imagine it as a reality.
Be the listener devoutly religious, atheist or agnostic, this book should arouse some thoughts about personal belief systems.
I'll be listening to it again and again, I'm sure.
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- Debra B
- 04-29-14
Riveting and somewhat depressing
I liked this book. It is one view of what Hell could be like, and I have to warn you, the more you think about A Short Stay in Hell, the more you realize what a total drag it would be to be there, and the thought is a little depressing. It is so well written, though, and the characters come through so well, that you may not be able to get it out of your head for a while. I particularly liked the demon at the start of the book, and the way the narrator caught the character.
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1 person found this helpful
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- just me
- 02-10-14
Wonderfully mind-bending
I love this book and am haunted by its implications. This is a hell that seems real and is motivating. An eternity of monotony, limitations and a death of expectation would indeed be hell.
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1 person found this helpful
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- John Strange
- 12-25-17
A Book Lover's Hell
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would recommend this book. I liked the open-ended questions it raised about religion, authority, God, and the afterlife. I enjoyed the book's pacing; it didn't meander or attempt to philosophize for you. The story's rather ambiguous in fact.
What other book might you compare A Short Stay in Hell to and why?
There is J L Borges short story The Library of Babel. I highly recommend that.Recent books I was reminded of include Drew Magary's The Hike (an odd quest/life journey) and Michael Poore's Reincarnation Blues.
All of them concern life and the afterlife in non-preachy, mysterious ways. They're also fun reads.
Which character – as performed by Sergei Burbank – was your favorite?
There was only one main character. He was relatively opaque. More of an outsider to his own emotions.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
No
Any additional comments?
The book might've been better longer. Maybe. The author told the story with minimal characterizations, background, descriptions, and events. In some ways it's like a sketch.It worked for me. I'm a bit pleased I didn't have to listen to three 22-hour audios to be told an interesting story.
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- Lindsey
- 04-18-24
A short stay in hell
I found this book overall to be super entertaining and also very thought-provoking, regardless of what your spiritual beliefs are. Definitely recommend checking this one out.
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- cloreep
- 05-09-17
Are you sure?
no matter what you believe about life and life hereafter this book gives you something to think about!!
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- Melissa Tapia
- 04-03-18
Interesting concept
This book is a unique take on what comes after life. I found the idea of a Mormon man finding out he wasn’t right about heaven just too delicious. The book is short and you may be left with many questions... then again that’s pretty fitting when talking about the afterlife.
If you like to expand your consciousness or like me just needed a short cheap book to read until your next credits hit check it out.
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- Anon
- 02-22-16
Interesting concept, nice short listen
I had a short haul and I wanted to listen to a full book during that time. This was a great book for that purpose. A friend who was also in the car called it "weird" and maybe it is, but she's also weird, so... whatever.
The narrator was a bit monotonous and not great to be honest but I think the story compensated for that enough.
I bought this for $6. Worth the price.
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- Roger Glenn Duncan
- 02-17-21
Surprisingly good
Really enjoyed this short novel...the reviews didn’t do it justice. Very original, very entertaining. Hoping for a sequel!
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- Wendy K.
- 03-15-22
One of my favorite stories of all time.
One of my favorite stories of all time. Unfortunately it always leaves me in an existential funk.
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