Review: Rare Light Misfire
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 04 17, 2014
First, I am a big fan of Evans Light, one of the most innovative short horror writers on Amazon. His stories are a mix of cleverness, wit, and genuine creepiness that almost always delight. Having said that, however, nobody's perfect, and "Don't Need No Water" sacrifices his usual cleverness for a heavy dose of torture porn and a "surprise" ending that readers will see coming a mile away."Water" is a tale of revenge set in a small Southern town. Iverson, the narrator, has a grudge against a lot of the people in his hometown, and, with his brothers and a friend, sets out to wreak havoc on those he feels wronged him. As the story unfolds, we learn that Iverson is upset about the death of his girlfriend, Sissy, who had been arrested on very minor charges, and brutally raped and eventually killed while in the local jail. Now, Iverson wants the sheriff and everyone else responsible to pay.Iverson's chosen method of revenge involves fire... namely burning as much of the town down as possible. Along the way, Iverson and company brutalize, torture, and murder several people, all of which Light describes in fairly graphic fashion. Light is a good writer, so there are some clever turns of phrase and his depictions of the violence are fairly vivid (and, although graphic, not quite as bad as some torture porn turns out to be). However, one scene  seems pretty much like the next, and by the time Iverson gets to the sheriff himself, most readers will probably be jaded.Perhaps to make up for the somewhat rote storytelling, Light attempts a surprise ending. Unfortunately, he telegraphs it quite early in the story, and most readers will figure it out well before the final confrontation between Iverson and the sheriff, at which time the sheriff reveals it to Iverson. Even more unfortunately, Light has constructed the story so that the ending serves as a major emotional counterweight to what Iverson and his friends had been going through during the preceding 30 pages or so. Without an effective surprise, the story doesn't have the emotional effect Light intended.Although some readers may enjoy torture porn and, for that reason, rate the story higher, I am not a big fan. Torture porn may be a lot of things, but it's rarely actually scary, and it isn't scary here. Too many pedestrian writers fall back on torture porn and try to put as many graphic details as possible in the body of the story  to shock readers. As a result, as with regular porn in a story, the torture porn becomes the story.Unlike the hacks who routinely dish out the gruesome details in their stories, Evans Light knows how to write and can construct a compelling story without having to resort to an appeal to the disgusting. Although his depiction of the various horror scenes is vivid, the story becomes more repetitive than scary. Light normally charges for this story, which is one more reason for horror fans to pass on it.  There are lots better (and scarier) examples of Light's storytelling prowess than this very routine tale.