The Screaming Plague of Ash (A Medical Horror Fantasy)

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

(WARNING: This book contains graphic descriptions of body horror, blood, gore, violence, and trauma based heavily on real-life medicine. There is occasional profanity, alcohol, and drug use at various points.This is not a story for the easily squeamish, pursue at your own risk!)

When a deadly plague arises in a metropolitan desert trading post called Ash, a healer is summoned by the city's oligarchical ruling class to uncover its cause and nature. The healer, AppoIlonnorot, is an intelligent and highly skilled practitioner of the burgeoning field of medicine, though he is challenged both by the almost supernatural nature of the plague and the town's absence of medical literacy. With the help of Jere, a laconic mercenary with a mysterious past, Appo is forced to navigate local politics, ancient superstitions, and even the harsh desert environment in order to contain the plague before it becomes an epidemic.

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Author's Note:This is a slow-burn fantasy horror story I have been writing since 2020. While there are magic and supernatural elements scattered throughout, much of this story is inspired by actual historical medicine, in a foreign world where development is somewhere between Sumerian and Roman times.

Update 3/15/2024: That's a wrap, folks. Full story is here to read. Hope you enjoyed, and for future readers, I hope you enjoy.

-B

Cover art by the insanely talented J. Eddy (insta: gulag_gucci_gang)

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: GLBertrand

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.8/ 5.0
Followers: 573
Views: 415,655

Chapters(132 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

WintydunnoRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The Screaming Plague of Ash overlaps multiple factors to weave a unique story and setting. A doctor travels to a city where odd incidents have been occuring, with people exhibiting strange symptoms. Pieces slowly fall into place, expanding the scope of the story both along the original, titular plot as well as the unique politics of the city and how they interact with the disaster slowly building.
The pacing is excellent, introducing new characters and facts slowly, revealing details slowly through the main character's investigation. Who the first infected was, how the plague spread at first, how it will spread in the future, how the authorities react to each development. Each chapter sets up future developments and leaves the reader wanting more.
A V DalcourtRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Style: Writen in 3rd person past tense. Easy to read. Easy to follow. Though at times I feel there's a lack of description to characterize the setting, but I recognize that this is a personal preference, and this may stem from my background in visual storytelling where the subtle details add to the flavour of the culture and world.
Story: Now this part is what hooked me. It starts with a scream that never ends, driving the sufferers into a state of insanity, begging for death. I emediately thought, 'Oh is this going to go into creepy pasta territory?' but it was so much more horrific than that. While the source of the illness is supernatural, the sympthoms are very much grounded in reality, adding a level of horror that was not only unexpected but delightfully ingenious.
Grammar: Nothing to mention here.
Characters: Our main MC is the doctor summoned to investigate the illness, but he's not the only facinating one in the bunch. We are met with a rash of assumptions that are both confirmed and turned on their heads not too far into the story, offering a rich deversity of non-traditional characters that is just a delight to read.
DraddockRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Not following in the trend of litRPG, system apocalypse, or cultivation is a refreshing change from the normal faire of royalroad.
Pretty good overall "epic" fantasy. I only put it in quotes because it's more small time right now, but it's pretty epic. Good characters, unique world, interesting story direction.
IM_MORTALRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Very good story you should read it uh what else do I need maybe a filler
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JR CastleRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is one of those stories that should've probably gotten a traditional paperback release, but I'm not complaining since having it here means I can read some quality stuff for free. Definitely off-genre for a site like this, but I think it more than justifies itself within its own niche and puts 90% of anything else you can find here to shame.
***
Style
The prose is straightforward and efficient, definitely fitting the modern minimalist style you'd expect out of most contemportary traditional novels. It makes the story go deceptively fast, establishing concise imagery that never threatens to overstay its welcome and, more than that, serving well to communicate how characters think and feel. There's really nothing to complain about when taking it on its own terms.
The one thing I would say is that I think the author could benefit from stretching outside their comfort zone a bit. Not totally necssary, but there's promise here for writing that could be more than "efficiently communicative," which admittedly is a hard enough achievement on its own, and entering the realm of "substantive in and of itself." Maybe this is an unfair expectation to have, but having them at all only speaks to how highly I think of the skills on display.
Story
What starts as a character-focused mystery slowly develops into what I would almost call a sociological narrative that encompasses the operations of a whole city. We're given plenty of inividual motivation that works on its own, but I think that broader sense of weight is what makes this story really unique, portraying a disease like this in all its horrific scale and consequence.
So most of the story is spent as a sort of procedural, with our leads investigating both by the book and off of it, coming across clues and putting the pieces together, dealing with the increasingly frustrating politics and religiosity of the social systems in place. This all makes for an incredibly deep setting, one that takes the approach of honing in on si
JonHRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
TL;DR, this is a great one. Probably my favorite recent story that I've read in general, let alone on Royal Road.
Grammar: The writer has an excellent hold on grammar! Don't be dissuaded by my half star mark-off. The only repeat issue I noticed were mispoken phrases. I can provide feedback if wanted, but it truly would just be nitpicking. The prose flows well and is very readable despite bulky paragraphs. Some writers don't know how to write lengthy without tiring the reader (like GRRM, sometimes), but GL doesn't have that problem.
Style: Right off, I want to praise the atmosphere. Things are bleak and you feel it, but it's not suffocatingly bleak. At least, not at the point of the story that I've arrived at. Things are looking bad, don't worry, but yeah, you never feel entirely hopeless. There are glimpses every now and then of folks seeing sense in the healer's advice, for instance. It keeps the reader involved.
Characters: I love Jere. God, I fucking love Jere. I'd leave it there, but it needs to be said that all the characters are interesting in their own rights, and each is motivated by something different, and those motivations are well established and within rhyme and reason with the world they exist in. Jere's the best, though.
Story: This one has something for everyone. Mystery lovers? You're in the right spot. Fantasy nerds? Got it here for you. Horror buffs? Yup, this one is up your alley. The story revolves around a kind of investigation into the source of a disease, or curse, depending on who you ask- and reminds me of the setup of some of Lovecraft's longer stories. The premise keeps you invested and the evolving situation keeps you around hoping to see it resolved. Or, at least, until everything burns down. We'll see!
I'm reviewing this at chapter I.II.II, but I'm not done reading. I plan to finish this one out, which is an extreme rarity for stories I find on this site. This is quality stuff. I'd buy a physical copy, proudly.
MekanipRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm not great at writing reviews, so forgive me if this review is all over the place. (I'm also exhausted as I'm typing this up.) I'll start off by saying I really regret starting a job right after I began to read this, a job that leaves me little time for reading. I regret it because I was hooked from the moment I read the prologue. I'm only 7 chapters in, so I may update this review as I go, but this is the first story on RR that I'm actually interested in.
The premise, while it's been done before, is approached and delivered in a very original way. In a nutshell, a doctor is sent out to a town to investigate an outbreak. Shenanigans ensue. What differs in this approach from most is that while there are fantasy elements, it feels grounded in reality, something that is aided by the author's background knowledge.
The plague is not only graphic, but it is unnerving. I like to make this distinction because it's hard to achieve the two. So often when authors go for grotesque descriptions, it comes off as both cheap and campy. But the plague being dealt with here is eerie as heck and I love it!
The characters so far are mostly well-written. They have believable chemistry, and the author does a great job characterizing the protagonist without succumbing to the pitfall of needless exposition about his background. There's a small scene, a single paragraph that demonstrates the MC's talents and gives us, the readers, everything we need to know about this guy's caliber. I was very impressed by this.
That's all I have for now, I am impressed with what I've read so far, enough to say that when the author releases this on Amazon or wherever, I will be buying it.
MelantheRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I think I can speak for most of us when I say that plagues have been on our minds. Though we call them pandemics today, a good story about a dangerous plague can be quite the cathartic read. If you aren't beholden to illness-related trauma, The Screaming Plague of Ash might be for you. Of course, you should also have a pretty strong stomach!
This story follows Appo, a healer who just arrived in Ash. Together with the extremely interesting Jere, Appo has been summoned as a one man center of disease control. Clearly, there is no way of this ending well. Or at least without a good amount of suffering first!
So far, my favorite thing about this narrative are its characters and world building. Each character we've encountered so far feels like a full person. When they're off the page, I feel like I have an idea of who they are and what they do. As you can probably tell by my first paragraph, Jere is my favorite. He's clever, strong and shifty. And I hope he doesn't die of plague!
The world itself is realistic, for all that it's of a fantasy world. Sure, a man can turn into a bear, but even still it doesn't feel fantastical. What I enjoy the most is that the setting doesn't seem to be mostly inspired by East Asia or Europe, but by the Middle East, India, and possibly Northern Africa. It's so exciting to see a world inspired by these places that isn't bogged down with orientalism to the highest degree!
Something else I like to see is that the author is clearly improving as they write. Commenters make grammar suggestions and fixes, and the author implements them! That's a trait I always love to see. Plus, as I've read, it seems like the author's grammar has improved as well, likely because they've taken more time to proof read.
Either way, I highly recommend giving this story a chance! (If you like gore like I do!)
StainedGlassThreadsRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The protagonist, Appo, is a healer called into the town of Ash, to deal with a mysterious plague which has been running rampant in a dozen or so known infected for three months. Upon arrival, however, Appo is faced with triplet terrors: the awfulness of the affliction, the toxic solution borne when ignorance, superstition, and fear are combined, and the nobles in high places who'd rather Appo help them sweep this whole mess under the rug, so as not to panic the citizens.
The Screaming Plague of Ash is off to a promising start.
Story, style, character, and world are all quite well-written thus far. Characters are introduced with quite distinct personalities and manners of speaking, and play off each other well so far. Motivations of characters are extremely clear from their first scenes, and all seem rather realistic. The world is slowly introduced in bits and pieces, and I'm willing to believe the author has given it quite a lot of thought beyond what we've been shown, giving the impression of a vast, detailed, and colorful world, with its fair share of treacheries of all sorts, from raiders and monsters to bureacracy and good ol' greed and corruption. The world gives the impression of being fairly low-fantasy so far, with certain monsters believed not to exist, and atheism being common enough to be called a severe crime.
Though the story is very well-built thus far, a few areas could be a bit more consistent or well-defined. The main location was initially described as a town in a harsh desert environment, but later on 'town' and 'city were both used to describe it, and a major plot point is that it tends to be quite populated on holy days. A more thorough description of Ash's population size would've set the stakes more thoroughly.
That said, I do greatly appreciate how the story does not pull punches when describing how horrific, disgusting, and humiliating the illness is. This story is not for the faint of stomach, as not only does it go hard on gore and blood,
TheScribeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Let me start by saying that my genre of choice is normally more traditional fantasy, and I don’t have much experience reading stories with more of a horror angle baked in.
That being said, I can’t help but find this world a very compelling one. The central premise, the plague, is a very solid, mysterious foundation for the action, and the characters introduced in the early chapters are clear, realistic, and engaging.
The prose style is simple but very clear, conveying well the abstract observations of the protagonist, Appo, whose profession and personality are tailor-made to bring more context and weight to the story itself. Grammar has the occasional hiccup, but nothing egregious.
The worldbuilding builds steadily, and benefits greatly from it’s underutilised real world inspirations (particularly in fantasy). Real people, in a grounded world, dealing with an extraordinary crisis against the backdrop of their usual betrayals, corruptions, and greediness.
Given my lack of experience with the genre, I struggled a little with the visceral nature of the gore and other descriptions - but as far as I understand it these are done very well for the genre.
Overall, a very promising start with an interesting, unusual premise. Keep up the good work!