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weaselweader's review
3.0
Great story-telling that builds on a uniquely Canadian understanding of our own character!
Northern Frights 2 is a short, entertaining collection of stories that beautifully covers the entire spectrum of emotions that well written horror and dark fantasy can elicit. These stories are moody, thought-provoking, frightening, darkly humorous and just plain old creepy! To my pleasure, these Canadian stories were also written in that distinct, uniquely Canadian flavour with a quiet and unerringly accurate pride of place and setting.
Having read the first three in Don Hutchison’s Northern Frights series that, as of today, extends to five volumes, I have to report that Northern Frights 2 is the weakest and least consistent of the first trio. BUT, that’s by no means a suggestion that I’m disappointed in the time spent overall. There was plenty of raw meat to please the palate of any horror fan. For example:
In Other Errors, Other Times, the ghost of a WW II platoon leader, haunted by the magnitude of a mistake that he had made, offers life lessons on mental perspective in the Canadian back country to a disgruntled professional baseball player. The Polargeist, a maritime version of 2001: A Space Odyssey's wayward HAL, offers a stunning and atmospheric close-up description of the travails of marine small craft navigation in the open waters of the north Pacific and the Bering Strait. The Sloan Men has to qualify as one of the creepiest, most gruesome, and downright disturbing tales of demonic possession that has ever had the opportunity to grip me by the throat and scare my pants off!
One might close by echoing the sentiment found in the introduction to Northern Frights 4:
“I don’t usually read horror but Northern Frights is good".
Definitely recommended.
Paul Weiss
Northern Frights 2 is a short, entertaining collection of stories that beautifully covers the entire spectrum of emotions that well written horror and dark fantasy can elicit. These stories are moody, thought-provoking, frightening, darkly humorous and just plain old creepy! To my pleasure, these Canadian stories were also written in that distinct, uniquely Canadian flavour with a quiet and unerringly accurate pride of place and setting.
Having read the first three in Don Hutchison’s Northern Frights series that, as of today, extends to five volumes, I have to report that Northern Frights 2 is the weakest and least consistent of the first trio. BUT, that’s by no means a suggestion that I’m disappointed in the time spent overall. There was plenty of raw meat to please the palate of any horror fan. For example:
In Other Errors, Other Times, the ghost of a WW II platoon leader, haunted by the magnitude of a mistake that he had made, offers life lessons on mental perspective in the Canadian back country to a disgruntled professional baseball player. The Polargeist, a maritime version of 2001: A Space Odyssey's wayward HAL, offers a stunning and atmospheric close-up description of the travails of marine small craft navigation in the open waters of the north Pacific and the Bering Strait. The Sloan Men has to qualify as one of the creepiest, most gruesome, and downright disturbing tales of demonic possession that has ever had the opportunity to grip me by the throat and scare my pants off!
One might close by echoing the sentiment found in the introduction to Northern Frights 4:
“I don’t usually read horror but Northern Frights is good".
Definitely recommended.
Paul Weiss
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