Northern Frights 3 (1995): edited by Don Hutchison

Northern Frights 3 (1995): edited by Don Hutchison; contains the following stories:

Wild Things Live There by Michael Rowe

Silver Rings by Rick Hautala

A Debt Unpaid by Tanya Huff 

Imposter by Peter Sellers 

Exodus 22:18 by Nancy Baker 

The Suction Method by Rudy Kremberg 

Sasquatch by Mel D. Ames 

Grist for the Mills of Christmas by James Powell 

Tamar's Leather Pouch by David Shtogryn 

Snow Angel by Nancy Kilpatrick 

The Perseids by Robert Charles Wilson 

Widow's Walk by Carolyn Clink 

If You Know Where to Look by Chris Wiggins 

The Bleeding Tree by Sean Doolittle 

The Dead Go Shopping by Stephanie Bedwell-Grime 

Family Ties by Edo van Belkom 

The Pines by Tia V. Travis

The Summer Worms by David Nickle 

Solid third volume in Canada's Northern Frights series of mostly original anthologies has one moment of editorial fright early on -- not only is the Table of Contents regrettably centre-justified, but it lacks page numbers for the stories. What the H?

The stand-outs include "Wild Things Live There" by Michael Rowe, a dandy bit of horror that anticipates some of the horrors of Laird Barron's terrific series of stories about the Children of Old Leech while remaining steadfastly Canadian -- the story even involves a migration from Ontario to British Columbia by, well, some things. Oh, Canada!

Another fine story is "The Perseids" by Robert Charles Wilson. Wilson is known as a highly regarded Canadian writer of fairly 'hard' science fiction. Here, some of that scientific and astronomical 'hardness' is present in what is otherwise a subtle, unnerving piece of cosmic horror. Or at least cosmic weirdness.

"If You Know Where to Look" by Chris Wiggins is also a nice piece of dread set in the Maritimes and involving a Scottish legend that seems to have migrated to Nova Scotia along with the Scots. And yes, he's that Chris Wiggins, Canadian actor. And he really shows an ear for believable dialogue and dialect in this story.

None of the stories are duds, though there are a few bits of whimsy that don't work as horror, weird, or whimsy. Editor Don Hutchison does his normal good work, even without page numbers on that Table of Contents. Recommended.

CanConned

Northern Horror: Canadian Fiction Magazine: edited by Edo van Belkom, containing the following stories: The Transaction by Scott H. Urban; Wavelength by Terence M. Green and Andrew Weiner; The Spruce Tree by David Shtogryn; Heart by Edo van Belkom; Rideau by Kathryn Ptacek; Vermiculture by Nancy Kilpatrick; Writhe, Damn You by Ed Greenwood; Warmth by Scott H. Urban; Advertising Hell by Peter Sellers; Shadow of My Father by Michael Bracken; Sewage Treatment by Stephanie Bedwell-Grime; Skin by Scott Nicholson; The Party Over There by Nancy Baker; Sitters by Del Stone, Jr.; Comes a Cool Rain by Michael Kelly; Above It All by Robert J. Sawyer; and Mrs. Thurston's Instrument of Justice by David Nickle (2000):

Apparently, there always has to be a point at which Canadian literature announces it has 'arrived' in some area -- lyric poetry, comic writing, or in this case, horror fiction. By 'Canadian literature,' I simply mean those people running literary magazines or university literature departments or reviewing books in The Globe and Mail. They're not all the same people, but the canonizing end of the CanLit pool is shallow enough to be remarkably incestuous, even now.

This 13-year-old issue of Canadian Fiction magazine, as editor Edo van Belkom notes in the introduction, told the world that Canadian horror fiction had arrived. Arrived where? I'm not sure. This is an awfully mediocre selection of stories, representing the best work of none of the writers whose names I already know. There are some traditional CanLit tropes at work throughout, including somebody having sex with either an animal or a tree ("The Spruce Tree", which is I guess the Arabesque companion to Marian Engel's Bear), people trying to survive terrible weather ("Warmth"), and people being sexually assaulted by family members (OK, that's not a Canadian trope, but it sometimes feels like one).

The collection also gives us a comic horror story that would be twice as good at half the length ("Advertising Hell", by the improbably named Peter Sellers, is mildly funny until it overstays its welcome by about 2000 words).

We also get an entry I'll leave un-named in one of my two or three least favourite horror sub-genres, one I've dubbed The Damnation of Nobody because the stories always involve dreadful things happening to a person because the person isn't Excellent enough. It's a sub-genre whose patron saint is Harlan Ellison, and it's deeply unpleasant once one pieces together what an unpunishably excellent life would be (generally, that would involve being a writer, the most Excellent type of being on the planet, and not some stupid accountant or teacher or truck-driver, all of whom lead lives not worth living). Don't punish your characters for having ordinary lives, kids. You don't want to be an insufferable prick.

So, anyway, not a very good collection. There are good Canadian horror writers, and have been for quite some time. But this collection doesn't really announce anything. Not recommended.