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“The 11th Plague & Other Tales of Satanic Terror”
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“Videatur undecimae plagae!”
The anthology opens with its featured novella, “The 11th Plague” – a story about a teenager named Hunter who interrupts a Satanic Ritual while out hunting. It’s not every day you see some satanic crazies dressed in robes carrying a goat into the woods in order to transform it into the dark lord himself. In a heroic attempt to stop the group from unleashing an unstoppable evil upon his hometown of Mountain View Kentucky, Hunter fires an arrow into the goat’s wicked heart before it can fully transform. The sinister congregation then surround the fallen beast and one of them decides to lick the creature’s blood off the arrow. Chaos ensues as Hunter and other less fortunate citizens of Mountain View discover that the beast carried a kind of bloodborne pathogen that takes on a life of its own. Once ingested, it causes the carriers to become self-mutilating masochists that end up dying in horrific ways meant to make your skin crawl.
The anthology opens with its featured novella, “The 11th Plague” – a story about a teenager named Hunter who interrupts a Satanic Ritual while out hunting. It’s not every day you see some satanic crazies dressed in robes carrying a goat into the woods in order to transform it into the dark lord himself. In a heroic attempt to stop the group from unleashing an unstoppable evil upon his hometown of Mountain View Kentucky, Hunter fires an arrow into the goat’s wicked heart before it can fully transform. The sinister congregation then surround the fallen beast and one of them decides to lick the creature’s blood off the arrow. Chaos ensues as Hunter and other less fortunate citizens of Mountain View discover that the beast carried a kind of bloodborne pathogen that takes on a life of its own. Once ingested, it causes the carriers to become self-mutilating masochists that end up dying in horrific ways meant to make your skin crawl.
Readability
The first novella contained some typos here and there, but nothing major. There were a couple times when I stopped reading to figure out sentences that had a missing word, however there were no critical errors in the writing that negatively impacted my ability to comprehend the story. The only thing that was difficult to follow at times was the dialogue between multiple characters. There were unnecessary new lines for quotes that came from the same character (instead of all being in a single paragraph), which left me trying to remember who was saying what at times.
Creativity
Evan’s writing is very descriptive in the “The 11th Plague”, there is very little that is left to the reader’s imagination. In some parts of the story the detail is gruesome and satisfying, but in other parts it just feels drawn out and slows down the action. He did manage to put that slow and descriptive style to clever use a couple times in the story in order to build tension before a new character made a surprise entrance into the scene. There are some notable metaphors in the story like “…the man plunged his hand down his pants and scratched with the ferociousness of a dog trying to get at his fleas” which works very well within the context of the scene and sets the reader up for events that come later on in the story. However, later in the story there was some questionable use of simile, that did succeed in painting a picture, but took away from the atmosphere of the scene; for example, “Small bulges formed at first, sliding between bone and flesh like a cat scooting around under a blanket on a freshly made bed…”. Imagining a playful kitty cat doesn't typically make for a frightening scene.
Delivery
I would say that “The 11th Plague” is pretty good at being grotesque but not so much when it comes to spreading terror. Even the characters in the story itself react unconvincingly. There were times when I laughed when I think it was meant for me to be afraid or shocked, but the characters in the story acted like they just couldn’t be bothered. Even when absolutely horrible shit was happening all around them and they were facing sudden death or even after committing murder, the character's actions seemed mostly apathetic to what was going on in the scenes. The dialogue however was often overzealous and felt like it was forced, by comparison. The way the characters would react in the scenes was indicative of b-movie horror, which is fine for an independent piece of work, but it was so repetitive. If I took a shot of tequila for every time something was described as crazy, I would have been hospitalized before the epilogue. There was a minor plot hole: how did the crazy man from the ritual make it to the hospital on foot (and cause all that chaos) before Hunter and his dad could by truck? Although the action fell flat, there were several satisfying scenes with gratuitous violence throughout the story, but overall - the characters failed to sell me on a plot that I thought had potential.
The first novella contained some typos here and there, but nothing major. There were a couple times when I stopped reading to figure out sentences that had a missing word, however there were no critical errors in the writing that negatively impacted my ability to comprehend the story. The only thing that was difficult to follow at times was the dialogue between multiple characters. There were unnecessary new lines for quotes that came from the same character (instead of all being in a single paragraph), which left me trying to remember who was saying what at times.
Creativity
Evan’s writing is very descriptive in the “The 11th Plague”, there is very little that is left to the reader’s imagination. In some parts of the story the detail is gruesome and satisfying, but in other parts it just feels drawn out and slows down the action. He did manage to put that slow and descriptive style to clever use a couple times in the story in order to build tension before a new character made a surprise entrance into the scene. There are some notable metaphors in the story like “…the man plunged his hand down his pants and scratched with the ferociousness of a dog trying to get at his fleas” which works very well within the context of the scene and sets the reader up for events that come later on in the story. However, later in the story there was some questionable use of simile, that did succeed in painting a picture, but took away from the atmosphere of the scene; for example, “Small bulges formed at first, sliding between bone and flesh like a cat scooting around under a blanket on a freshly made bed…”. Imagining a playful kitty cat doesn't typically make for a frightening scene.
Delivery
I would say that “The 11th Plague” is pretty good at being grotesque but not so much when it comes to spreading terror. Even the characters in the story itself react unconvincingly. There were times when I laughed when I think it was meant for me to be afraid or shocked, but the characters in the story acted like they just couldn’t be bothered. Even when absolutely horrible shit was happening all around them and they were facing sudden death or even after committing murder, the character's actions seemed mostly apathetic to what was going on in the scenes. The dialogue however was often overzealous and felt like it was forced, by comparison. The way the characters would react in the scenes was indicative of b-movie horror, which is fine for an independent piece of work, but it was so repetitive. If I took a shot of tequila for every time something was described as crazy, I would have been hospitalized before the epilogue. There was a minor plot hole: how did the crazy man from the ritual make it to the hospital on foot (and cause all that chaos) before Hunter and his dad could by truck? Although the action fell flat, there were several satisfying scenes with gratuitous violence throughout the story, but overall - the characters failed to sell me on a plot that I thought had potential.
#LFLR Indie Rating: 5/10
If you regularly consume a lot of pulp fiction then “The 11th Plague” is something you may enjoy as an evening read. The epilogue felt out of place and the story itself could have been a bit shorter in my opinion, but if you enjoy descriptive gore with a simple storyline then Tony Evans gets the job done with this release. The book also includes an additional novella and three short stories I didn’t cover in this breakdown, which makes for a total of over two hundred pages worth of content that you can discover for yourself at a very generous price and add to your Kindle library. “The 11th Plague and Other Tales of Satanic Terror” is also available in paperback.
If you regularly consume a lot of pulp fiction then “The 11th Plague” is something you may enjoy as an evening read. The epilogue felt out of place and the story itself could have been a bit shorter in my opinion, but if you enjoy descriptive gore with a simple storyline then Tony Evans gets the job done with this release. The book also includes an additional novella and three short stories I didn’t cover in this breakdown, which makes for a total of over two hundred pages worth of content that you can discover for yourself at a very generous price and add to your Kindle library. “The 11th Plague and Other Tales of Satanic Terror” is also available in paperback.
THIS BREAKDOWN IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE #LFLR NETWORK.
