Whistle at Night and They Will Come: Indigenous Horror Stories Volume 2

by Alex Soop

In this followup to his hugely popular Midnight Storm Moonless Indigenous Horror Stories, Blackfoot storyteller Alex Soop plunges us again into enthralling tales that mix reality with dark terror. Within its stories, Whisper at Night and They Will Come reveals ancient theories of the paranormal, post apocalyptic scenarios, impossible wells of grief, and monstrous phobias. Soop scares the wits out of readers, all the while uncovering overlooked social anxieties and racism affecting Indigenous Peoples across North America. This volume features a foreword by actor Eugene Brave Rock and a story by podcaster Cary Thomas Cody.

Genres: Horror, Indigenous, Short Stories

276 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2023

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories behind the stories were interesting and solid but man this could have used a good copy editor for issues like punctuation, spelling, verb agreement, etc. Some of the dialogue also came off as corny and there were minor inconsistencies in places. But overall the actual stories were good, so 3 stars.

[Luke Bishop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe closer to 3.5 stars, but I wanted to round up, as I felt this was an improvement over the previous collection, and I want to honor that. This includes short stories, novellas, and a guest short story. I felt the short stories were all more polished than the previous collection. "Rising Sun" was in particular a solid story with a good twist, and "It Comes at Night" was a good remix on a familiar Native American creature. The novellas also were pretty effective, particularly "Black 'N Blue" which was a visceral portrayal of missing/murdered Indigenous women. The guest story, "Snapping Turtle" was an excellent supernatural horror story that had a somewhat predictable, but still unsettling ending. Once again, the incorporation of tradition and language into these stories was very cool to read, and I think this volume foretells good things for the author's future.

[Jett Wolfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I really enjoyed this! I knocked off some points because the editing was not great, there were a few spots that I noted misspelled words and whatnot. You can also find some signs of a new writer in there, but he’s got a really solid foundation.

The connection to indigenous mythos and history is present in all of Soop’s writing, and in the guest author’s story. It adds a deep, historical nature to all the stories in this collection that really drew me in.

All the stories are well written, although some points a bit fumbly, and have a strong core/message in each of them. The exert from Soop’s novel also had me enthralled and excited to read his next work. All in all, I really enjoyed each of his pieces, and I urge his editors to do better in the future.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the summary of this book was a bit misconstrued. It was in fact Indigenous horror stories but I guess I was under the impression from Hoopla that it was like folk tale type Indigenous stories. This was more real life horror like missing and murdered Indigenous women and children in mass graves in residential schools. More psychological than I originally wanted. However, the stories were very good and unsettled me badly.

[Tiffany Lynn Kramer · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5
I love the ever expanding catalog of Indigenous horror, and while not all has worked from me I will always jump at the chance to check out more. Whistle at Night could have been a great collection had just a little more time been spent on it. The ideas behind many of the stories had promise but only two stood out as being fished.

[Mrs K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of stories. It gets an overall 3 because some I really loved, while others I only barely tolerated.