Asylum (Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena #3) by Sarah Hans

Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2024

ISBN:: 9781947879683

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

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Asylum is a quick, less than 100 page novella that seem to be all the rage nowadays.  It’s fast fun, and good enough for a couple hours of escapism.  This one could have gone on longer, if it had been fleshed out in a few places.

When you have four meth junkies (Ashleigh, Connor, Dean, and Kayla) on the run from the cops, what’s the logical place for them to hide out?  Why, an abandoned asylum on a mountain, of course!  Most of the story takes place in the asylum, as the four of them wind up with more than they expected.  For the necessary supernatural element, it’s the legend of Perry the Panther, some sort of cat-man that supposedly resides in the area.  As might be expected, four addicts who soon run out of meth will be at each other’s throats, and they quickly are.  Naturally, a creepy asylum needs something to make it abnormal, and in this case it’s the large number of cats who inhabit the building.  A feral colony, or servants of Perry?  Everything quickly devolves into survival, as the four humans not only have themselves to contend with, but the weird things happening at the asylum as well.

The writing is fine, and good enough to keep your attention through the 93 pages.  There aren’t really any unexpected twists, and the plot can be guessed reasonably well as you go along.  But, as long as it’s written well enough, and this is, it really doesn’t matter.  As noted earlier, this is one that actually had the potential to be a longer and better story.   Most of the book focuses on the characters, and there isn’t a ton of attention paid to the cats and Perry.  Developing that angle further would have given a nice boost to the story, as they are the big unknown in the story, and part of what keeps you interested.  Furthering that backstory would have increased the ‘fear of the unknown’ factor, and given the story more lift.  As it is, it’s a good book, but it could have been better..

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If you need a quick horror story to pass an evening or two, this will do it, but let’s hope for further development of Perry and the cats at some point.  They are intriguing enough to warrant revisiting.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson