Title: Hell from the East
Author: Hugh Howey
In: Dead Man’s Hand (John Joseph Adams)
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Weird westerns, Westerns
Dates read: 14th September 2020
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: Titan Books
Year: 2014
5th sentence, 74th page: Their final resting spot was a scrabble of tents and rickety shacks ringed by a shoddy wall of pine stumps where the best that could be said was they fed you twice a day.
He’s supposed to be fighting for his people. But sometimes hell rises in the East and there is just no escaping it…
This was a nice little, short story. It was nothing intense and completely unforgettable. But it was enjoyable and memorable. It also touched on a good topic – the darkness and horror of colonisation and invasion. The damage that is done with the arrival of colonisers and all sorts of horrible people.
One of the aspects of this story that I loved was that you never quite knew what side the narrator of the story was actually on. Whether they were “good” or “bad”. And really, who the “good” and “bad” were. For me, it helped to highlight the confusion that such a time in history could cause and create.
The conclusion of this story helps to highlight the fact that everything comes full circle. That everything will happen again and history constantly repeats. It might be stated in the fact that “hell comes from the east”. But it most certainly does. Actually, in some ways it reminded me very much of some parts of Terra Nullius.
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