Benedict Ashforth

Genuinely Great Modern Gothic

CW: Alcoholism, Animal Harm (Dearth of a Dog), Torture (including reference to a child being abused), Pregnant Person Stabbed in Stomach

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this as I tend to find modern horror, particularly gothic horror, and epistolaries are of wildly varying quality, and I can also find epistolaries too slow and unengaging. Abbot's Keep certainly kept me gripped and was an interesting and creepy.

I do think there are some issues with the pacing and arrangement of information and creepy action, which is partly due to the epistolary framing, but could have been managed better. I also found the hammering of the motif in the end, while interesting learning about how names for things can change over time in different languages, felt a bit odd and concentrated. Having more allusions to it throughout the book could have been more effective, which, with the country estate and the dog, could easily have been done. The idea was interesting though. I think my criticism could be distilled into the flow of the story not being as natural, fitting, and effective for the genre.

Regardless, this is still a solid 4 and a genuinely well-written and interesting example of modern gothic horror and I will absolutely be seeking out more from this author. I would recommend it for horror fans and anyone interested in checking the genre out, especially as it is in the Audible Included library.

The performance is really rather good, particularly in the emotional and creepy moments. My only complaint was that there was so little to mark the different correspondents that I was actually a little confused as to who was who and who was writing at times.

I feel like I've been overly critical, but, honestly, that's just because I actually enjoyed and thought about it enough.… (mer)

Some Great Ideas, But Not Quite There

I really enjoyed Abott's Keep, but this felt like a rough draft of that story so I was surprised to see this was originally published in 2015, a year after Abott's Keep. The themes of isolation, hidden secrets (literal and figurative), and the supernatural elements blending with or being created by extreme mundane events, with these horror aspects relentlessly pursuing the unfortunate who happened upon their secret, are all present in both. They both share a modern gothic sensibility with a more contemporary setting and technology than typical with the classic gothic stories. But there's seems to me something less polished, almost amateurish, about The Last Assignment, especially when compared to Abott's Keep. It stands out to me particularly as it appears to be across the entire production, writing, in general prose, horror elements, inclusion of modern elements, and the actual plotting and pacing of the story, and the narration that many have already raised an issue with. I won't harp on about the performance, but some bizarre stresses and pronunciation were really jarring. This is as much the director and producer's fault as the narrator for not picking them up.

There are some really interesting ideas here, particularly in the turning up of the eerie photos and the things seen in the photos, but for me it somewhat fell into the uncanny valley of great concept that could have been implemented better and so it stuck out. I think that really is my takeaway from the whole production -- it's so close to being rather good that its faults are more glaring and more jarring for me personally. There is a sense of top tier amateur work all round when I was expecting something more after Abott's Keep. I am only so critical because I did enjoy aspects and other works by the author.

If you want a super quick bit of horror and you have Audible, I would still recommend it. It's more than worth the free download and half an hour listen. I would just say that of you were only going to listen to one, Abott's Keep is a much better option. I'm certainly still interested in reading more from this author.… (mer)

Verona: A Ghost Story (Kindle Single)
by Benedict Ashforth
This is a pretty good horror ghost story. It starts slow then keeps building up! A couple can't have kids although they have tried and tried. They give up and buy a big home and decide to foster or adopt. They first want to take a vacation to get back the closeness they had before.
As the story unravels, new details emerge that caused this reader to rethink the plot repeatedly! Well played! What I thought was going to be a simple ghost story was certainly a lot more and a lot more complicated!… (mer)