Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories by Aviaq JohnstonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
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As with any short story collection, there will be some stories that work better than others for each reader. When I chose this volume, I was remembering a previous collection that I read in 2014, Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction. In that book, it was the stories by indigenous authors that really scared the socks off me. Possibly that experience inflated my expectations for this book.
All the stories were very readable and entertaining, but it was the last four that I enjoyed the most. The most horrifying (to me) was The Wildest Game by Jay Bulckaert. In a word (and I'm not giving away anything that the author doesn't in the first paragraphs) cannibalism. Eek! I was also impressed with Sila by K.C. Carthew, a zombie tale with governmental complications, and Strays by Repo Kempt in which a vet is haunted by her lack of success.
Many of the tales seem to show that true horror is being irrevocably separated from family and community, something that indigenous peoples know too much about.
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