A Short Stay in Hell

My name is Johnny Compton.

I'm the author of The Spite House, Devils Kill Devils, Dead First, a short story collection called Middle of Somewhere.

I've been writing short stories in the horror space, um, roughly since, let's say, 2006 or so, and then my first novel came out in 2023.

Right on.

That's just, that's so funny.

It also makes me think of that Roald Dahl, and bringing it back to Willy Wonka, if we will, if I'm remembering correctly.

Roald Dahl has the short story that, like, altered my brain chemistry when I was a teen.

We learned about it at school, and it was Lamb to the Slaughter, and it's a very similar premise of this woman kills her husband with a frozen lamb leg and then feeds it to the cops when they come to investigate.

Mm-hmm.

But it actually really reminded me of another book I read quite recently, which was, uh, called A Short Stay in Hell by Stephen L. Peck.

Mm-hmm.

Basically, it's, uh, premised on the Georges Le Borgne short story, The Library of Babylon.

Yeah, it's not bad.

Just while we're on the topic, I know we're getting closer, but in terms of just like Mormon written material that kind of revolves around it, have you read A Short Stay in Hell by Stephen O'Keefe? I've been wanting

to.

My mother-in-law was talking about it.

So we take turns, we'll lay in bed before we go to bed and we'll read, we'll pick a book and we'll read it to each other.

So this book is called A Short Stay in Hell.

And it's by a guy named, I think, Steven Peck.

So he's a Mormon at BYU, teaches evolutionary biology.

Here we go.

What's the

book called again? Yeah, what is the book called again? Oh, the book is called A Short Stay in Hell.

A

Ever wonder what goes on in them things? Well, I reckon this has to be pretty close to the truth.

But even better, as far as I'm concerned, my number one pick, another perfect book for my very favourites of all time, it's Stephen L. Peck's A Short Stay in Hell.

Now, this one is novella size, so it's not a big, fat, chunky read.

With this one, a guy dies, then he goes to hell, but it's all right because it's okay.

Emily B sent in three titles.

First up, there's A Short Stay in Hell by Stephen L. Peck.

And this is about a guy who dies and is sent to an infinite library hell where he has to find his life story to escape.

This has actually been on my list forever, and I really want to get to it soon.