| Title | : | Extinction Hymns |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781957537405 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | ebook |
| Number of Pages | : | 187 |
| Publication | : | Published December 15, 2022 |
Extinction Hymns Reviews
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'She imagined the angel escaping its chains and tearing the office apart, splattering every wall with the viscera of sinners.'
Extinction Hymns is a collection of 18 creepy, profound and troubling short stories. These stories encompass a wide variety of themes and subject matter. Each has its own voice and an underlying message about humanity, and how we treat this wonderful planet and each other.
I believe there is something here for everyone, the themes include cannibalism, various LGBTQ themes, global warming and then to even more obscure subject matter like people who float off into the sky and the mutilation of a captured angel.
'Reality is boiling water trickling between our fingers. The more we try to capture it, the more it burns us. We'll never be able to capture it in our palms and gaze into its liquid truth. Its escape is inevitable'
As with the majority of story collections, there were a couple of stories which didn't quite hit the mark for me, but as a whole, I hugely enjoyed this collection. The writing in each story was well-paced and formulated. Some of the more obscure material was well-married with the real world, which gave a sense of realism or grounding.
A great collection of stories which in my opinion is well worth checking out.
I received this copy from Netgalley for free and I'm leaving this review voluntarily. -
Trigger Warnings Galore!
Includes child abuse, child death, animal cruelty, torture, homophobia, self harm and a ton more. If you pick this up, the author kindly wrote a page detailing TWs for each story.
An absolutely bizarre selection of stories by author, Eric Raglin. Had a lot of “Wtf?” moments but in a good way. You never know what to expect from each story and that was appreciated. It was incredibly fun reading them!
The Resurrection Doll-
Man grieving the loss of his husband buys a sex doll in the likeness of his former lover. This is equal parts bizarre, sad and messed up. It was an interesting take on the parts of grief where you just can’t let a loved one go.
A Most Bulbous Congregation-
A young man sent to conversion therapy that works a little differently than expected. Conversion therapy is a real fear for many and this story brings that fear to life. Truly scary!
‘Til the Sun Wheel Turns No More-
An awesome story involving the occult, metal and nazis that get hunted. Doesn’t really need any other introduction than that. This was my choice for most “fun.”
Thank you to NetGalley and the author for my copy of the book to review! -
These stories are amazing—they move in delightful and unexpected ways, making shifts toward the supernatural and horrific at just the right moments to great effect. I love how some of the pieces open themselves up in the last few paragraphs with some new commentary or observation that I didn't see coming; it made the stories seem wise and alive. I really appreciated how many of these stories are also about characters drive by poverty or the fear of poverty insofar as I don't think there's enough of that going around in fiction these days. Big fan of this book.
Personal favorites: "Floaters," "Boning," "A Most Bulbous Congregation"
5/5 -
A very cool collection of unique short stories! Some were so thought provoking, gross, weird, and creepy. My favourite was Dead Rain… now a longer story that delved into the beginning of the famine and why the ghosts stay at the farm would be interesting.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author, & Brigids Gate Press for a copy. -
Extinction Hymns is a collection of horror fiction that explores weirdness, extinction, and humanity. There's a huge range of stories in the book, from a monstrous angel helping a woman with drug addiction to killing Nazis in the death metal scene with magic (and many with less extreme summaries), but there's a common look at how we treat other people and the planet, as the title of the collection might suggest.
I really enjoyed the variety of the collection, with a lot of fresh concepts, and I never knew where the next story would take me. Some are obviously horror takes on things—like 'A Most Bulbous Congregation' and conversion therapy or 'The Last of Her Kind' and preservation of species—and I really enjoyed these, which all had different vibes but said some interesting things whilst having some horrifying imagery. Some of the other stories were more focused on weirdness, on unnerving things and strange situations. Stories like 'Floaters' and 'Boning' combine violence with sad medical concepts and leave you with things to think about.
As with any short story collection, there's some that jump out and others which blend in more, but Extinction Hymns is a collection with variety that offers a look at some of the darker, weirder sides of life. Having already read Raglin's ''Til the Sun Wheel Turns No More' in Antifa Splatterpunk, I was looking forward to this book, and it didn't disappoint. -
A short horror collection that treads old and new ground.
The stories are short and the writing is well-paced and easy to read. I whipped through this one at a fast clip. I really enjoyed the story about Alice the owl and the queer representation throughout. I got a kick out of the new kinds of old horrors ... not a devil this time ... and a rarer species of insect, at least for horror ... part of what kept me reading was the thrill of discovering these novel (re)inventions of horror spectra.
Themes reoccur. Religion and especially Christianity, drug use and abuse, discrimination and unsavoury politics, desperation and vanity ... I can't say I fully grasped the "extinction" theme, though. Stories that featured themes of extinction also featured rebirth, hanging onto life by a thread, unlife, swapped bodies, etc. Less "extinct" and more horrifically savvy at remaining in or returning to the land of the living.
Like all collections, this one has some hits and misses. I didn't fully understand the point of several stories, including the first one. There didn't seem to be a lesson learned or retribution or extinction event. And I resent the portrayal of disability as grounded in the individual rather than society, not to mention disability as an end to the good life and slow careen towards despondency. And the uneasy relationship between recent impairment and resorting to x, y, and z rather than charting a new path in life. I would've loved this story to have been about this guy and the ghost forming an alliance around one-upping the bland masses in society that disable and dehumanize them, and maybe especially the spectators and profiteers involved in ghost-hunting, and profit off it, too. My overall impression is that, aside from some of the queer narratives, the stories include diversity in rather limited, unfulfilled, and at times distasteful ways.
Thank you to NetGalley and Brigids Gate Press for the advance copy. -
This was disgusting. This was disturbing. I freaking loved it.
It's amazing to see this range of horror and story telling all from just one author. I think I've found a new favorite. I also want to give kudos for the full content warning page, detailing items for each individual story. We love to see it.
While I think I loved every story, my favorite was probably Boning. And I have a weird reason for it. This story made me feel mighty nostalgic for a book I used to read as a child about skeletons. I loved it so much and borrowed it all the time from the library. While that book was a children's book and just a little spooky and taught you about bones and skeletons... Boning is my terrifying adult version that I never knew I needed.
A few stories made my stomach literally churn - What to do With Grandpa and Heirlooms. They were fantastic.
Please check this book out! You won't regret it.
**Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for allowing me to read an e-copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest review.** -
Lovely and unusual horror stories. I enjoyed the book very much.
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I first stumbled onto Eric Raglin’s short story collection ‘Extinction Hymns’ because of the Bram Stoker Awards, for which it was nominated in the category of Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. While I enjoyed the collection overall and thought the topics and themes that Raglin explores throughout the various stories within are important and topical, I don’t know if I would go as far as awarding it a Stoker Award, and that mainly comes down to the fleeting nature of most of the stories.
Raglin seeks to explore many different ideas and themes that are becoming ever more horrifying in today’s 21st century America—homelessness, grief, death of a loved one, the past coming back to haunt over the present in deadly ways, homophobia and conversation therapy, farming accidents, family strife, and racism. They are important, and horror fiction is generally an excellent way to explore the nuances of such heavy subjects. And, while Raglin is able to successfully get his messages across in most of the stories, they come off as a little half-baked in some of them, and it mostly has to do with the length of the stories themselves.
Take the short story ‘A Most Bulbous Congregation.’ In this story, a set of parents drops off their gay child at a conversion therapy camp, and it’s soon revealed that it is anything but a ‘normal’ conversion therapy camp (not that any of those exist; the fact that conversion therapy is still even legal is one of the most disgusting, maddening things of our current moment). As I don’t want to give much away, all I can say is that the main pastor who runs the camp uses insects instead of Bible passages to ‘convert’ his young hostages, and the process of ‘converting’ the main character goes horribly awry in the process. While the story has an important message, clearly, it seems only half-sketched out. The action is quick but minimal, the characters are a little flat and clichéd, and there’s an appearance of the boy’s boyfriend from seemingly out of nowhere that gives me a feeling of deus ex machina. By the end of the story, there’s a satisfying conclusion, and the bigots get what’s coming to them, but it felt very rushed and two-dimensional at the same time.
And that’s the issue with a lot of the stories—some of them are only a few pages long, and their ends are ambiguous in a way that leaves too much to the reader’s imagination. I’m all for ambiguous endings (Paul Tremblay’s ending of ‘The Cabin at the End of the World’ is one of the greatest endings in fiction in my opinion, and the movie adaption ruined it, but that’s for another time and place), but too many of the stories here fall prone to the feeling that they just end, and that’s that. There’s one story in here, ‘A Creature Nailed Upon the Corridor of Time,’ that is very interesting and enjoyable to read—it’s told in the form of field entries from a paleontologist who’s discovered a kind of ancient cryptid, and we watch as both the paleontologist and the entire field expedition comes unraveled, due mainly to the fact that the creature itself might still be alive. But, when we get to the climax, the story abruptly ends, and it’s not exactly clear what happens to our main narrator or the creature itself. It’s a frustrating ending, and one that felt like it could’ve been expanded upon a little bit more.
But, just because some of the stories are a little too short or the endings are a little too ambiguous doesn’t mean this collection isn’t still worth reading and enjoying. The first story of the collection, ‘Silver Dollar Eyes,’ sees a man struggling to hold onto his home, and he tries to make enough money to save his home by giving tours of the house that features the ghost that resides within. It has a rather depressing ending, but it’s a definitive ending, and there is hope for the character in the end. The way that Raglin explores this character’s grief and disillusionment with society while also pointing out the ravages of the American health care and housing systems is near masterclass, and it’s a brilliant short story.
And that’s the thing to take away here in the end—these stories are all very enjoyable to read, even if they feel more like sketches than stories at times, but the horror elements contained within all of them are more than enough to satiate people who love to read horror short fiction, myself included. This seems like the start of a very promising career for Raglin, and I both recommend picking up this collection and giving it a shot if you haven’t and following what Raglin puts out into the literary world in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley, Brigids Gate Press, and Eric Raglin for the digital ARC of ‘Extinction Hymns’ in exchange for an honest review. -
Thank you so much to Brigids Gate Press and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC; it is greatly appreciated.
I have read my fair share of horror anthologies this year, and I must say this is one of the better ones ! I have found that I have a particular fondness for stories that are only a few pages long, but can still pack such a punch, and most of these delivered. I will admit, I did not realize these were all written by the same author until the end; not sure how I managed that !
Usually for a short story collection I will list out each title, give a summary, and my personal rating for each story, but with 18 titles here I feel that's a bit much. The end of the book lists the content warnings, so this time I am just going to stick to sharing those.
Silver Dollar Eyes: Child death by cancer
The Resurrection Doll: Suicide, Self-Harm
Angel Teeth: Drug Addiction, Torture
Transubstantiation: Graphic Child Death
In His Youth: Brief non-explicit mention of child sexual assault
A Most bulbous Congregation: Child Torture, Conversion Therapy
The Last Summer: None
Elevator Boys: Child Death
Dead Rain: Suicide, Death of a Parent, Child Death
A Coarse Yellow Sea: Child Endangerment and Death, Animal Neglect, Attempted Suicide, Internalized Biphobia, Homophobic Language, Spouse Incarceration, Drug Use
What to Do with Grandpa: Self-Harm, Dementia
A Creature Nailed upon the Corridor of Time: None
The Strangling Ash: Mother death in childbirth, Verbal and physical child abuse
Floaters: Suicide, Extreme Violence, Workplace Misogyny
Boning: Torture, Extreme Violence, Cancer
Heirlooms: Cancer, Self-Harm
'Til the Sun Wheel Turns No More: Self-Harm, Extreme Violence, Parent rejecting gay child, Nazism
The Last of her Kind: Animal Death
Most of these stories felt so fresh and original. Each one was unique from all the others. There were multiple moments where I just sat there for a moment after finishing a story just to process what I just read. I think the first several stories are the ones that will stick with me the most.
This collection was also incredibly easy to read. I could not stop myself from turning the page to read more. This just felt completely up my alley, and what I've been looking for when it comes to anthologies, so I will definitely be picking up Eric Raglin's other work ! -
I had a lot of fun with this collection! A lot of the stories had a religious horror theme to it, which I don’t think I’ve read a lot of prior but really enjoyed. For example “Transubstantiation” is a tale about a young child obsessively concerned with the purity of their own soul as a religious event approaches. Raglin handles the theme of religion well in his tales without anything feeling too heavy handed.
Many of the stories, like “Dead Rain” and “What to Do with Grandpa”, deal with a post-apocalyptic worlds and the people struggling within them. I really admired Raglin’s ability to create a world with a lot of depth without overburdening the plot with too much info dumping.
Let’s talk about my favourite stories (without spoilers!):
“Angel Teeth”: a eerie, heart-breaking tale of an addict who wants to get clean so she can meet her newborn nephew. Her dealer offers a miracle that seems too good to be true. I was not expecting how this tale as going to go and end. Loved it.
“Dead Rain”: the world is parched, the crops are withered, but the dead are helping. Still, it’s not enough for a father and son duo struggling to survive. This version of the end of the world was just so deliciously unsettlingly!
“A Creature Nailed Upon the Corridor of Time”: a newly discovered, nearly perfectly preserved prehistoric creature proves to be more than it seems. This was my favourite story of the bunch. I mean that title alone is stellar.
“The Last of Her Kind”: a man desperate to keep his failing business alive goes to extreme measures to save it. I loved how this story gave me Tales from the Crypt Keeper vibes.
I highly recommend this collection for those looking for some great horror centered around the end of the world or religion! Every single story was unique and dripped with suspense and horror. I honestly couldn’t put it down and read it all in one sitting! -
Again, Eric Raglin delivers some deliciously bizarre and disturbingly horrific stories. Eighteen stories in all, some brilliant, some less so, though all eighteen elegantly written, with their own distinctive style, sometimes emotionally draining and with very unexpected punches at the end. ‘Angel Teeth,’ the third story, deserves special mention: Raglin does an excellent job of combining the uncanny with some very down-to-earth concerns, focusing mostly on addiction, both to ordinary substances and some supernatural ones! The name of the story should be taken literally: would you go so far as to torture an angel in order to get your life back? ‘Transubstantiation,’ the fourth story, though sketchy, was very impressive: told from the first point of view of a child to receive communion, there were alarm bells ringing right from the start, but you never get any solid confirmation in that regard until the very end. The horror stories touching LGBT issues were handled adequately, most of the twists were not easily predictable and some stories (‘The Strangling Ash,’ ‘Floaters,’ ‘Boning’) were even overwhelmingly troubling. Trigger warnings have been (wisely) put in the end, so as not to spoil the tales’ content! Recommended.
An ARC was kindly provided by Brigids Gate Press via Netgalley, to whom I’m grateful. -
The Review
This is both an emotional and frightening collection of stories. The author does an incredible job of capturing the grief and emotional weight of these characters and their circumstances, all without shying away from the terrifying and haunting atmosphere these stories instill in the reader. The equally haunting imagery that these tales conjure up captures the chilling nature of these stories, and reflects the horrors of humanity and our world in general, from grief and loss to addiction and greed.
The heart of all of the author’s stories has to be the world-building and character development that these stories brought to life. Whether it was the injured workman using the ghost in his home to bring him much-needed money, or the man desperate to understand his husband’s tragic loss, the decisions made in desperation and grief added depth to the author’s plunge into horror. The variety of supernatural occurrences made this an equally entertaining and chilling collection as much as it was poignant.
The Verdict
Haunting, thrilling, and engaging, author Eric Raglin’s “Extinction Hymns” is a must-read horror short story collection. The inclusion of LGBTQ+ themes and characters throughout these stories added more layers to this growing collection and kept the collection more relatable and engaging for readers overall. -
A solid collection of the bittersweet relationships, of coming-of-age, of gore as quick and brutal as a turn of a knife, and of social criticism. I liked that we get varying lengths of stories with lots of short ones in there.
Some of my favourites were:
"Dead Rain" - which I had actually read before, but it hit just as hard. Eco-conscious and far (hopefully not near) future.
"A Coarse Yellow Sea" - for the corn silo, and the agonized family relationship. This one notes it was originally published in the Midwest Gothic anthology, which I'd seen and puzzled over. How do you combine those things? Well, this is how.
"The Last of Her Kind" - the ender of the collection, and the reason there's an owl on the front of the book. It's a painful one for the nature lover, but it's a good vengeance piece. It was originally published in
Field Notes from a Nightmare: An Anthology of Ecological Horror which I have to look into! -
I want to start by saying that I am not a fan of bodily horror - which this book is FLUSH with. Which is the reason for 4 stars - it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but I had to admit the author wrote well!
But Eric Raglan did an amazing, and poetic job, of painting a story around the bodily horror pieces.
Each of these 18 stories stands apart from the others, and there are some that stand out (personally) a bit more than others.
“Silver Dollar Eyes”, “Angel Teeth”, “Dead Rain”, and “Floaters” were my personal favorites.
Although, I will say I had to skim some parts to not get too “yucked” out, it was still an interesting read! Mr. Raglan does provide a list of trigger warnings in the back of the book with each story listed and it’s potential triggers. Much appreciated!
(I was provided a copy of this story collection via BookSirens for free for an honest review - and this is it!) -
This is a book in my favorite genre short story horror in OMG it starts with a bang and doesn’t slow down. From the strangest way I’ve ever heard of getting clean and its ramifications to to an old man’s confession and his trip to the levee to so many more. This book does not let up when it comes to entertainment I thoroughly enjoyed every story but I think What To Do About Grandpa it’s my favorite. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it it is a definite five star read. I received this book from Book sirens and the author but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.
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This book is an amazing collection of horror and weird stories that vary in themes, settings, and characters, but all of them leave you wanting more. I enjoy the way Eric writes, his words are easy to follow, and the characters he creates are diverse, realistic, and leave you thinking about how you can be in their shoes at any point in life. It touches on themes like poverty, fascism, conversion therapy, and grief, all of them through a horror lens and with empathy. My favorite story was Angel Teeth because of the body horror, but all the stories are fantastic. I really recommend this book, it's great.
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I received an advance review copy for free via Book Sirens and I am leaving this honest review voluntarily.
I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. Varied, original and showing great imagination, they are well written and kept me reading when I had other things I should be doing. The author shows a deep understanding of the human psyche with characters being well drawn and believable. -
Wonderful stuff. Every story here is surprising, engaging, and smart. The best kind of horror fiction. Highly recommended for anyone who loves scary stories, fun stories, queer stories, or just great stories in general. Eric Raglin is clearly one to watch, and I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.
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I often find myself reading short story collections in shorter bursts so I can absorb each story on it's own and this collection is no different. Not all resonated with me which is why I am giving it 4 stars but I definitely enjoyed this collection and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoy's body horror.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. -
Raglin’s aptly-titled collection is all about endings, from characters who bend and break themselves trying to stop them, to those who race head first into them. There’s a through-line of destruction—of our world, others, ourselves—in Extinction Hymns, but also beauty in the uncomfortably familiar desperation. Extra shoutout for "The Resurrection Doll", a uniquely beautiful story.
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Gloriously strange with a lot of heart
Eric Raglin does it again. I was a huge fan of NIGHTMARE YEARNINGS, which I wholly recommend checking out as well, and this collection was no different in my admiration for it. These stories are weird, queer, and they bleed. -
Liked the variety in this one, ranging from a modern take on a classic ghost story to pre-apocalyptic fiction that verges on the bizarre.
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Great variety of horror, and Eric knows not to overstay his welcome his stories, creating evocative, succinct terrors
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great collection!
i think NIGHTMARE YEARNINGS hit a little harder for me, but this was still a great book. -
Raglin's Extinction Hymns explore themes like queerness, gender, and other aspects of identity that unfortunately leave people feeling--like the owl on the cover--like the last of one's kind. Like any compilation of short stories, some were stellar and others left some potential on the table--and by that, I mean that I wish they had gone on longer and more deeply explored the questions they raised. The conceptual standout to me (I could totally see it as an episode of Black Mirror) was The Strangling Ash. I'd love to see what the author could do in a longer novel!
Thank you to NetGalley for access to an eARC in exchange for my honest review.
