Review: I loved the premise of the story, and immediately was drawn into the historical fiction aspect of the narrative, which toggled from first person to third at times, but not in a terribly confusing way. However, there times when paragraph structure was a drawback as some descriptions and information was a bit hard to understand, especially the order of an event. Perhaps this was the intention of the tale, for it’s written in the style of a journal by the character Martin Clentsworth, but the nature of the interaction caused punctuation issues.
Although Martin’s motivation for his asylum was partially explained in the narrative, I found myself wondering the real reason was behind his allowance of the situation and acts, and his attachment to the interred were-creatures. There were some aspects of the story, if it’s going to be in the proper setting of the time period, which needed more attention in my opinion. Such details could have fleshed out the narrative to a higher level. As far as the ending goes, there was a twist I could see coming, I welcomed it in hopes more might be explained in the resolution, yet that didn’t occur.
All in all, I found Werewolf Asylum fascinating and engaging. The story itself kept me reading until the end, I just would have loved the writing style and grammar to be a little cleaner and I would be interested in reading further works by Gareth Barsby.
Description: “A novelette of lycanthropy and insanity. In Victorian England, there is a special institution where two men intend to help lycanthropes suppress their nocturnal transformations, while searching for a more permanent cure. One evening, they discover a rare type of werewolf – one trapped eternally in a half-human, half-wolf form – that they believe could be beneficial to their research. ‘Martha’, however, believing her shape is due to her being a Messiah to her brethren, wishes to see the other werewolves embrace their curse. Can she be treated and cured? Or will her ‘Lord’ have his way?”
Red Haircrow Review 