A Room of Steve's Own, or Give Us Some Space!

Circles in Hell, Book 9

By: Mark Cain

Narrated by: Michael Gilboe

Length: 3 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

“Everything is relative, especially where Einstein is concerned!”

Steve Minion, Heaven’s Emissary to Hell, reunites with his pal Orson Welles to catch a supernatural thief in this comedic “catch me if you can” tale. Go with them on a wild ride through the Circles of Hell, outer space, inner space, even the lower dimensions. Can the guys measure up? For that matter, can they measure anything, when nothing seems constant except their friendship?

The action is nonstop. Wrestling, rodeo tricks, hurtling through the sky, even hiking through perhaps the creepiest valley ever known.

A Room of Steve’s Own, or Give Us Some Space! is the ninth volume in the satire/fantasy comedy series Circles in Hell. It has been compared to other works of “Hell Fiction” including The Screwtape Letters and Good Omens and to the paranormal humor of Tom Holt, Christopher Moore, Gary Larson, and Douglas Adams.

Comedy fiction book categories:

• Satire and humor
• Fantasy comedy books
• Science-fiction comedy
• Hell fiction
• Humorous fantasy books
• Devils and demons
• Humorous fiction
• Paranormal humor

©2021 Mark E Cain (P)2022 Mark E Cain

Orson is large and in charge - in every sense.

First, if you have never read or heard the original books in Circles in Hell series, do yourself a huge favor and start from the first book. You can enjoy this without listening to the previous book but as is true with any good series, there is a lot of back stories and Easter eggs and relationships that developed and changed over time that you will not really get or appreciate unless you start at the beginning.

Second; This story matches the tone and characters that have developed previously and the humor we love is also still very much in evidence. Story wise and for entertainment value this is a great entry.

Third; there is only one downside- the pacing is very fast which means this is an incredibly short book for this series (about 5 hours shorter). it is a great story, it is a funny story and it is worth listening to, but the pacing meant no new deeper development of characters is present. this story is focused on the action and the scenes and not in trying to bring in new elements or new characters or provide any deeper elements to these characters than we have already come to know.

Honestly, this is the only downside. if you are a fan and have listened to the rest of the series, definitely get it. If you have never heard the rest of this series- skip this one until you have listened to the first 4 books at the very least, though I HIGHLY recommend you listen to them all in order to know who is who, what is what, and how these characters relate to each other because that understanding does have a heavy bearing on how much will you will be able to enjoy this one. You will still likely be entertained, but not as much as you otherwise would be.

short but good.

The book was a little short but as good as always. The narrator was great as well. I liked seeing Orsen be a bigger part as well.

Dante meets Mel Brooks

Another hit from Mark Cain and the amazing narrator Michael Gilboe. Only wish it was about 10x longer. Listening to this book is like catching up with old friends

The book has a continuity issue

The author has stated in a previous book that Albert Einstein was in Hell. In this book Mortimore, the guy in charge of death, says that Einstein when strait to Heaven. Other than this major continuity issue. The plot is solid, and the story is great fun to read.

Poor Audio editing mars an otherwise fun experience.

Lots of dropped words due to bad cuts and variations in volume. Still a fun, if short, story in the series.

Too short

First off, it is really too short to be worth a credit unless it's on a sale. The story itself also feels short and uneventful. Not much happens and then it's over. kind of a disappointing entry in the series.