Celebrating his twenty-first birthday in Thailand with his best mate Paul, Shane finds the perfect tattoo of a local deity, Nang Tani. He must have her at all costs.
When Nang Tani is unleashed, she comes with vengeance. Shane will learn that sins, like tattoos, cannot be washed away; not even with blood.
Despite having only a short novel and a handful of short stories to her name to date, Lee Franklin has produced an accomplished tale of bloodshed and reprisals in her new extreme horror short, Nang Tani.
Shane is spending his twenty-first birthday in Thailand, with his best mate Paul. There to fight in a kickboxing tournament, he has been quickly and humiliatingly beaten in the first round and is taking his anger out on the locals. When he decides to get a tattoo of a beautiful woman on his forearm, he is warned that the tattoo is actually of Nang Tani, a vengeful local deity who protects women from harm.
When he doesn’t heed the warnings and gets the tattoo, Shane soon finds himself being haunted by strange and violent visions. He is punished in increasingly violent ways by Nang Tani and he begins to realize that the price he has to pay for his sins may be more than he can afford.
While Shane and Paul are both fairly one-dimensional characters of the bigoted and sexist alpha male variety, Franklin is able to make them both come across as suitably despicable and their comeuppance, as horrible as it is, feels thoroughly deserved. It makes for a gleefully fun reading experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
The story ultimately benefits from the underdeveloped characters and familiar set-up, because it allows the books titular supernatural goddess to really shine, and she absolutely steals the show. I’d love to read more stories featuring Nang Tani. It also means that you will go into the story with set expectations what will happen and how things will end, and Franklin takes obvious delight in taking things far further than you would expect. Things get very bad for Shane and Paul very fast, and it only gets worse, up until the grand finale, which is equal parts clever, satisfying, and mind-numbingly horrifying.
A fair warning for the faint of heart, this is an extreme horror story and the violence, of which there is a great deal, is as grim as you would expect. It avoids the silly excess that the genre can often resort to, opting instead for a more grounded take, which makes the story a tough read in parts. As many horror books as I have read, Nang Tani had even me wincing more than once reading some of the inventive unpleasantness in store for some of these characters.
Nang Tani is a fun short story with a fantastic antagonist and lashings of gore. While it isn’t breaking new ground, it takes well-known tropes and uses them to tell an exceptionally well written and unforgettable story. I can’t wait to see what Lee Franklin has in store for us next.
Mort Stone’s Review
A friend’s review got me interested in this one.
It would have been 3 stars for me, if it wasn’t for the great ending.
While the story was good, the main character was a stereotypical, one-dimensional …yes, yes, ladies, it’s not nice what you are thinking right now.
Now, getting that tattoo on your twenty-first birthday in a foreign country while treating the locals like garbage may not have been the best idea…
Richard started reading horror books at a young age, starting with R L Stine’s ‘Goosebumps’ and ‘Point Horror’ series. He traumatised himself at the age of twelve when he read Stephen King’s ‘IT’, and never looked back. He is currently based in the UK, where he lives with his partner, and an inappropriate amount of books.
Mort Stone lives in untamed Africa, where he rides his lion to work every morning to slave away as a scientist who learned how to fake competency.
Reading is his passion…well, the one he can admit to, anyway. As an aggressive pacifist, he chooses to fight vicariously through stories which can bring him no physical harm.
While he is almost confidant that his IQ is in the top 50%, his wife regularly reminds him of all the stupid things he does. He will neither admit nor deny the accusations of sarcasm, but he can act like he cares. Most of the time.
As an avid reader of horror and thrillers, and somewhat of a movie buff in those genres, he still blames his insomnia on Global Warming. Because he can.
He would also like to apologize in advance for any swear words which might slip through…he will blame that on the insomnia.
Joanie Larosa –
Top-notch story, with a such a twist of an ending. I will definitely seek out other works from author.
Kemberly Artis –
What’s not to love? Well written and paced, complicated and interesting characters, solid research, and excellent tension. Highly recommend.