Three Days in Ashford – Ty Tracey

Rating: 4 stars

The short: A well written horror book that gets the reader through quickly but contains some unnecessary elements

The long: I want to start by saying how much I enjoyed the writing and the pacing in the book. I think it’s undersold, but I used to watch bad movies when I was teenager for some reason, and the number one problem common to them was pacing. They didn’t know when to intensify action, and they told ideas, not stories. Reading an Indy that follows a structure that keeps the audience’s attention reminds me of how much this type of writing needs not be looked down upon.

The story is of Daniel Hallowell, a paranormal investigator and his three days in Ashford, Ohio, hence the title. The city may or may not exist, and the mystery is right up Danny’s alley. A work of fiction usually has people start in the realistic and slowly edge them towards the more unreal. By definition, the characters and the setting will be disconnected from reality, but there’s a choice in how far away from the mundane you get. The first half of the book is kinda rote and has only one exceptional thing, that ghosts haunt the world and Danny has proven their existence with no doubt. Then the second half cranks up the dial and goes from the somewhat spectacular paranormal to a complete breakdown of metaphysics as far as the author is trying.

My problems with the book are twofold. One are some small errors that need to be cleaned up, but they’re pretty rare. There are more of them towards the end, but these kinds of problems happen all the time, especially with a book that’s more than 100k words. The second is that I’m not convinced this is a good medium to consider metaphysical problems in. Most authors, when addressing it in fiction, tend to use metaphor or the like, and only having about a quarter of the book’s length to discuss ideas that have far-reaching implications makes it feel a bit superfluous. I think the book would’ve had a better flow and understandability if the author had left these ideas entirely unexplained but present.

Addendum: This is added a year or so later. I would like to address another problem with the book. I think there is a great amount of acceleration. It goes from small scale to larger and larger until it ends with the life, the universe and everything. I guess if you’re going up to up the scales, go large, eh?