What is the number just short of infinite? What does hellish eternity look like? This novella will stretch and baffle and distress your mind until you find yourself staring at the ceiling afterward as you try to comprehend what you have just read.

As an earlier review states, “Dante’s Inferno is a kids amusement park compared to this.”

Why? Are there bloody horrors and burning and pain and all the other things you might expect of eternal torture? Oh, no, no, that’s not the problem here. Such things almost seem a mercy compared to the absolute monotony of a hell this book presents.

Our main character finds himself sorted into a particular hell where everyone there must find the book detailing their life exactly to escape. You will eventually find such a book. You will escape, in theory. But in this library lies every book that could ever be written. Almost every book is gibberish. It takes hundreds of years to find a book with a coherent phrase.

Sure, it doesn’t seem all that bad at first. There are kiosks where you can order whatever food you want. If you die or get hurt, you’ll just regenerate the next day. There are some people out and about (although everyone happens to be white, American, English-speaking, and dead within similar times to each other), and you can even fall in love.

But what happens when you spend thousands of years with someone and become separated? It’s not like death on earth, where you know they are gone from the world. No, you know they are somewhere in the library where you will never, ever find them again.

Because did I mention the exact dimensions of the library? Just how many floors and books such a hell could have? It’s calculated for us.

7.16^1,297,369 light years wide and deep.

Let me try put this in an ounce of perspective. There are only 46 light years in the observable universe. Let’s say, like our main character, you want to see how long it takes to reach the bottom by falling 120 mph. That’s 2,958 years to reach the distance of ONE light year.

I actually want to cry thinking about that. I can’t do any further math for you. Please just try to imagine for yourselves. (Or don’t, for your own sanity.)

You’ve never imagined a hell like this, and upon finishing, you’ll pray that such an atrocity couldn’t exist anywhere. Billions and billions of years of your own monotonous existence with only a speck of hope on the horizon. Although, the main character is better than I am, because if it were me, I couldn’t even count on such a speck.

Is this an incredible book on existentialism? Absolutely. Will it stick with me for a long, long time? Even more so. Can I recommend you read it? I have absolutely no idea. It’s a horrifying concept that is numbing my mind. Do you want to think about numbers so high and incomprehensible? If you’re up for the challenge, be my guest.

Also, what a cruel title. It's genius, honestly, since even a trillion years is a drop in the ocean of eternity, but after reading this book, it's an ironic and horrid title.

A Short Stay in Hell - Likewise Book Reviews

8 Reviews