Northern Nights

by Michael Kelly (Editor), Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Premee Mohamed

Something stirs in the boundless dark of the Canadian north. Listen. Can you hear it?

Northern Nights is an anthology of strange stories, featuring the dark dreams and feverish imaginations of Canada's finest speculative authors. Steel yourself for a journey through these northern nights.

Featuring all new original stories from Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Camilla Grudova, Premee Mohamed, David Demchuk, Senaa Ahmad, A.C. Wise, Naben Ruthnum, Simon Strantzas, Richard Gavin, Rich Larson, Hiron Ennes, Siobhan Carroll, Lynn Hutchinson Lee, Rory Say, David Nickle, Marc A. Godin, EC Dorgan, K.L. Schroeder, Nayani Jensen, and David Neil Lee.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy

296 pages, Paperback

Published September 23, 2024

About the author

Michael Kelly is the Series Editor for the Year's Best Weird Fiction, and author of Undertow and Other Laments, and Scratching the Surface; as well as co-author of the novel Ouroboros.

His short fiction has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including All Hallows, Best New Horror, Black Static, Dark Arts, the Hint Fiction Anthology, PostScripts, Space & Time, Supernatural Tales, Tesseracts 13, and Weird Fiction Review.

Michael is a World Fantasy Award, Shirley Jackson Award and British Fantasy Award Nominee.

Reviews

[Tracey Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have mentioned this many times before, but a new release from Undertow Publications is a cause for celebration. Northern Nights, a new anthology of Canadian fiction, is of the incredibly high caliber I have come to expect from Undertow’s output. Lovingly edited by Michael Kelly, this is a collection of uncanny darkness.

Award-winning young writer Nayani Jensen kicks things off incredibly with Rescue Station, where we find a family struggling with isolation, illness, and death. A well-meaning father makes a deal with god. One line in this absolutely destroyed me. I cannot wait to read more of Jensen’s work.

Things get very disturbing in Prairie Teeth by E.C. Dorgan, when an aging woman gets a visit from the devil on halloween. There are more unwelcome visitors in The Black Fox, in which a father’s violent history is revealed.

I am a huge Camilla Grudova fan, so I was delighted to read her new story, The Fragments of an Earlier World, featuring some strange Scottish children on their first trip to visit their Canadian family. Such horrific imagery; I loved it.

Hiron Ennes’s story, The Breath of Kannask, was incredibly memorable. Every year, a small Canadian town receives visitors in the form of small, mysterious lights. People flock to try and solve the mystery, and not all of them leave. Very creepy and atmospheric.

There are also great stories from favorites Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Premee Mohamed, and A.C. Wise. I was so impressed by pretty much all of these stories; Michael Kelly has created an incredibly strong collection, which is a testament to the current level of talent in Canadian fiction.

[Becky Spratford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review in Booklist Online and on the blog: https://raforall.blogspot.com/2024/07...

Three Words That Describe This Book: Strong Sense of Place, range of fears, theme anthology

From Draft:
The stories themselves range from creepy to visceral, as two standout stories showcase– David Demchuck’s deceptively atmospheric “The Black Fox'' and Premee Mohamed’s abjectly terrifying, “The Night Birds.”

[Kiera ☠ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 (rounded up for GoodReads)

I made my way down to the launch/signing of this anthology hosted by Little Ghosts in Toronto. If there’s something I’m passionate about, it’s indie Canadian horror. David Demchuck let me know he would be there and so I made the trip. I’m so glad I did (though I would have bought this anthology regardless). I had the opportunity to meet a lot of the authors and listen to them do readings of their short stories within these pages and it was wonderful.

Once I got home, I started reading this right away. I will preface with the fact that ‘speculative horror’ is not my normal preference. I tend to prefer and read horror that leans more extreme. With that being said, I found this collection to be refreshing as a result. Not every in here was a hit for me but I enjoyed all of them in one way or another. There was one short story in here in particular which made me immediately research the author as I felt like I needed more and that was ‘PRAIRIE TEETH’ by E.C Dorgan. Hands down my favourite story of the bunch.

The body horror in PRAIRIE TEETH was absolutely immaculate. It made me audibly gasp. Hand to mouth. It left me so impressed I had to put the book down to properly digest it in fact, before I could continue reading more. Other stand outs for me were; RESCUE STATION, FANCY DAD, THE BLACK FOX, THE CHURCH AND THE WESTBOUND TRAIN and WHAT IS WAITING FOR HER. All of the short stories are worth the read, those are just the ones that have stuck with me over the days I’ve been reading and have thought about multiple times.

If you’re a Canadian who loves horror, you won’t want to miss this collection. And if you’re a horror reader who’s thinking “do I read enough Canadian horror?” Add a bunch of authors to your list by picking this one up.

[Jessica]

Anthology of short stories by Canadian writers, set in Canada, all with a supernatural bent. I didn't love that the first two stories featured children dying . . . but loved the sense of cold and the creeping menace of the cold and dark. Silvia Moreno-Garcia's story, and Premee Mohamed's, were both standouts for me.

*I am not rating books read for the World Fantasy Award.*

[Danielle (Danni) Vinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology, edited by Michael Kelly, is an all-Canadian treasure trove of excellent short fiction. I really enjoyed discovering all the literary riches written by excellent authors from my country. My favourites...

~The Key to Black Creek by Rory Say
(brilliant)
~Jane Doe's Tongue by Lynn
Hutchinson Lee (glorious writing)
~The Slow Music Of Drums by
A.C. Wise (phenomenal)
~The Night Birds by Premee Mohamed
(WOW!)
~Banquets Of Embertide by
Richard Gavin (stunning!)
~The Black Fox by David Demchuk
(wonderful writing)
~The Needle Song by Simon Strantzas
(damn)

I loved this. Highly recommended.

[Chuck Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fine collection of fiction from some of Canada’s best writers. Some of the stories in this collection were hard to understand (for me), but were still well written. Most of them, however, were just the right mix of horror, mystery, and character growth and really kept me engaged.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

a collection of short stories, all bite sized, but each one packs a punch! i went in on a whim and completely blind — the synopsis says “strange fiction” written by “speculative authors” who are all canadian (a detail i find overly amusing) — and that just seemed like something i would either hate or love. with 20 different stories by 20 different authors, surely there’s something for everyone.

the first two stories (rescue station, the needle song) had me absolutely floored. chest heaving, mouth open, ohmygodthisissogoodhowhaveineverreadthis kind of floored. honestly i think it’s one of the reasons i find myself attracted to these short story compilations, these niche anthologies, because of the gems like this. it is the perfect combination of creepy and memorable because those two stories could be real, real in a very unsettling way that the generic horror trope could not replicate. to distill that into a dozen pages, between the writing styles and the character building and the heartbreak, makes it some of the best stuff i’ve read probably this whole semester.

and then afterwards it kind of died down… i didn’t fall in love with the handful of tales that came after. this definitely ruined the mood a bit because then i felt like i overreacted with the first two… but that’s okay because then came “the black fox” and “the key to black creek”which i really liked. “the breath of kannask” was also very good, written by the only author on the list that i recognize (hiron ennes). then it kind of petered out to nothing too memorable and i’m left with a slight disappointment because i really loved the start and now i’m realizing that was just some insane fluke and this was just your average anthology, the ups and downs and roundabouts that you get with every collection of amazing writers.

oh and i can’t forget that Kelly threw in that obligatory “what the fuck is going on” story with medical horror, human experiments, eyeball consumption, and worst of all (in my opinion) the peeing scene… sometimes i stumble upon stories that are really good examples of why freedom of speech is a privilege. this is one of them.

lighthouse doctor, needle struck by lightning, teeth dice, fox and fingers, child sacrifice, killer northern lights, human-eating tentacles

4/5, but it would have been easy 2.5 without the first two stories

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe like, I dunno, 3.8? The weird thing for me about reading Canadian authors is that I so rarely notice they're Canadian. Maybe some Gemma Files story is set in Toronto (though her great Spectral Evidence is more clearly Canadian in focus), but Simon Strantzas, for instance, or Silvia Moreno-Garcia just don't register as "Canadian" to me. The only author I can think of who ever did so is Howard Norman, oddly. So it's a tribute to editor Kelly's vision and the writers' execution here that there's something identifiably Canadian in pretty much all of these--and I suppose the lesson is how many different genres count as "Canadian." We've got a bunch that are almost polar-horror, or polar-weird, set in icy northern climes; there are what feel like westerns (the western half of the country being fully as prairie'd and cowboyish as in the US), unless that term can only be used for its standard US version and we need something else farther north; a lot of folk-horror tales, many featuring some local legend come to the door. And also several oddball religious cults, not to be judgy--clearly, for Canadians there's a shared assumption that beneath the placid-seeming surface, their country teems with madcap prophecy.

My hesitation is just that this feels more like a sampler than a full-fledged collection. The intention was inclusivity, and so we have quite a lot of pieces in 288 pages, such that many of the stories feel like quick little blurts of idea rather than full-fledged expressions. I did quite enjoy the "vampire as extension of British imperial control in a western" setup, for instance (I always mean to read more weird westerns; Joe R. Lansdale needs to write a full period piece for the ultimate expression of this form), but that story is in and done so quickly it reads as a teaser; a few of the standouts, like A.C. Wise's musical cosmic-horror tale that closes the collection, or David Nickle's folk-horror "Fancy Dad," get a whole idea across in a short-story contest, but for a lot of these, I turned to the last page and felt surprised. I wanted twice as much. That speaks well of the collection as a whole, but many of these stories leave me feeling like I've just eaten a plate of appetizers.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

My assertion that I don't really read horror is somewhat belied by the number of books I have reviewed here to which I have applied the "horror" tag. Though a lot of that is "soft" horror, stories which contain horror elements (ghosts, vampires, eldritch monstrosities, eerie events invading normal life, etc.) but perhaps only as a sort of dressing to a tale that is more focused on other elements. As a whole, I feel the same could be said of this collection, especially given the incredible variety of setting, tone, and subject in these stories. Some definitely lean more towards horror, others are more strange fiction.

I enjoyed this collection more than I had anticipated. I think there's a natural synergy between short stories and speculative fiction of all varieties. Short stories work sort of like jokes: there's a set-up and a pay-off, a twist or a call-back to something earlier in the story, maybe something that changes the meaning of what happened earlier. The length of the stories in this collection contributes to the feel: just long enough to develop their theme, deliver a punch at the end, and then leave you slightly haunted by all that is unresolved.

[Elias Eells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nights are getting darker. I'd intended this October to bounce around my horror anthologies, reading this story & that day by day, but found myself captivated by NORTHERN NIGHTS, which I began on Canadian Thanksgiving & finished on the cusp of standard time; I had to read through to the very end. A collection of stories with both a wide range of approaches & a tremendously precise sense of place, from coast to coast, past to long-distant future, touched by Scots-English, French, & indigeneity, NORTHERN NIGHTS is a thoughtful & a vital addition to my library. Personal highlights include "The Breath of Kannask" by Hiron Ennes, "The Black Fox" by David Demchuk, and "The Needle Song" by Simon Strantzas.

[Liza_lo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most anthologies this was a mixed bag. For a lot of the bigger authors especially it felt like they tossed one of their "B" stories at this anthology where it was more a wisp of an idea or something vaguely on theme from their archives they thought would fit.

That said like every anthology readers will find something to love. I literally bought this because I am obsessed with Camilla Grudova and her story about Canadians in the 1800s with Scottish roots was a standout and full of her trademark body horror. My other favourite was Do Not Open by Rich Larson, an author I had never heard of but will be sure to seek out after this.

Others I particularly enjoyed: The Black Fox, The Mi-Carême, and The Breath of Kannask.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine collection, with a lot of variety, and a slight weighting toward quiet literary horror (my favorite kind). The main character throughout is Canada, with vast, empty prairie where the mind plays tricks on the senses, sub-polar regions where the sun barely touches for part of the year, and dark maritime regions where who knows what might come out of the water...

[Trish Graboske · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of dark speculative fiction. Twenty stories, strong on people's decisions and relationships, as well as dark weirdness. Only a couple didn't grab me.

[Lewis Housley · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. Thanks to the Undertow Publishing team for putting it together!

[ThatBookMoth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short Canadian stories all set at night. Involving the unknown and spooky things that hide out in the dark.

[Pamela · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. These stories were incredibly boring and not scary or disturbing at all.

[Mario Guslandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Canadian horror doesn’t seem very frequently available nowadays ( unless I’m mistaken) so it’s a pleasure to read an anthology of horror stories penned by a bunch of authors from Canada, collected under the expert editing hand of Michael Kelly.
All in all a solid anthology of standard horror fiction graced by the inclusion of two real stand-outs.
The first one is “ The Needle Song” by the talented Simon Strantzas, an excellent, emotional piece where horror merges with the ordinary events in the life of a young boy discovering the real meaning of death.
The other one is “ The Black Fox” a well told story by David Demchuck ,where a fox is instrumental in revealing some family secrets.

[Sarah Butland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review to be posted on https://miramichireader.ca/ but this is a creepy collection of carefully crafted chilling stories. While I liked them all, I admittedly loved some more. If you like the unknown and good writing, this is a must read!