Eco-fiction Review | Boreal
by Ben Lockwood
Cover of Boreal from Strange Wilds Press
In Fear and Nature, Christy Tidwell writes, "eco-horror is both a genre and a mode, meaning it has identifiable characteristics of its own while appearing within other genres". Boreal, a recent collection of short eco-horror stories from Strange Wilds Press, perfectly epitomizes this literary duality. Amongst the pages here you'll find challenges to the nature-society binary, examples of nature's agency, unknowable versions of nature, and some good-old-fashioned, pulpy, horrific fun; all set in the boreal habitat of northern latitudinal taiga.
The stories here are atmospheric and eerie. One of my favorites in the bunch is S.J. Townend's "He Has Not Seen a Bird Before". The piece mixes up notions of romanticizes love and nature in unique, fresh, and unsettling ways.
Another standout is "Every Mask, Another Cask", which leverages the eco-weird to dissolve boundaries between the human and the non-human. Or take J.R. Santos's "Cold White Teeth", which portrays the folly of our ambition to conquer nature.
Ultimately, the stories here invite us to redefine our ecological relationships. When our relation to our environment becomes unsustainable, or even antagonistic, there are consequences. But if we open our mind to nature, not as other, but as part of our past, present, and future, nature's mysteries abound.
Everything on offer in Boreal is worth a read. It's a collection of eco-horror for horror genre purists and eco-fiction fans alike. There's literary elements, sci-fi, fantasy settings, and things that simply can't be categorized. So if you're a fan of horror and the speculative supernatural, this one is for you.
Ben Lockwood is the editor-in-chief at Brief Ecology. Ben is an ecologist and geographer in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at The Pennsylvania State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Indiana University, and a M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Biology from Ball State University. Ben’s writing has been published in Nature, Clarkesworld Magazine, Area, Literary Geographies, and elsewhere. He also serves at the editor for both The Eco Update and The Rotting Leaf.