Dirt Upon My Skin (Black Shuck Shadows – Book 37)
Steve Toase
Black Shuck Books
It’s in the very nature of being a book reviewer that I review a wide variety of titles and authors, most of which I won’t actually get around to review. Some of them I just don’t finish because I don’t gel with the writing or the plot; and other’s I’ll finish but find myself not reviewing because they just don’t give me a particular reason to do so. The latter are akin to fast food – satisfying to a degree at times, but not really anything else. I’ll leave my star rating on Amazon and Goodreads and maybe a sentence or two as a passing review, but nothing more detailed than that; I don’t have a lot of time to review books these days, and I only review titles here on The Scifi and Fantasy Reviewer that I want to promote and get the word out about to a wider audience.
Sometimes it will be obvious to me when I pick up a book that I’ll be reviewing it here on the blog – an author I’ve reviewed before, perhaps, or a title I’ve heard good things about and want to read for myself. Or it might be a review copy that I’ve been sent and decided to read, and it’s caught my eye for one reason or another – such as the publisher. I’d say that’s about 75% of the titles I review on the blog – but the other 25% are my favourite part of my hobby as a book reviewer: the titles and authors that I randomly come across when browsing Amazon, or Goodreads, or social media and decide to take a chance with. Sometimes they don’t work out – but then other times, I make a spectacular discovery that I realize I have to review as soon as possible. I need to get that review written and publicized to let people know just how good this author and their book is – it becomes an imperative that takes precedent over everything else.
Such is the case with Steve Toase’s new micro-collection Dirt Upon My Skin recently published by Black Shuck Books as part of the publisher’s on-going Black Shuck Shadows series of micro-collections from modern horror authors. While browsing Twitter, I saw that Dave Jeffery (author of the amazing A Quiet Apocalypse series I’ve reviewed previously) had very recently had his own micro-collection published by Black Shuck Books – Mood Swings – and while making a note to put that collection on my review shortlist, I came across Dirt Upon My Skin. The name intrigued me, and the theme of the collection even more so when I saw that all of the stories were based around the author’s time as an archaeologist. I am a huge fan of horror anthologies and short story collections that have an unusual or unique premise, and I have an amateur’s interest in archaeology so it seemed like a natural fit. The fact that an ebook cost a mere £1.49 only sweetened the deal, particularly as I like to try and support publishers outside of the all-encompassing maw of Amazon; and I also really liked the stylised cover art and branding that the publisher are using for Dirt Upon My Skin, which is also being used across the rest of the Black Shuck Shadows series.
And so I brought my copy and started reading – and I’d only made it a few pages into the first story when I realised that this micro-collection – and Steve Toase as an author – was something special. Very special – like Dave Jeffery and Zachary Ashford and Jon Black special. Instinctively I realised that Toase’s writing was of an extremely high quality, as was his plotting and characterization – a gut instinct that was proven completely right by the time I finished the collection. I finished it within only a couple of days – practically lightning-fast given my distinct lack of reading time these days – and then immediately got to writing this review. To avoid spoilers I’ll focus on some of my favourite tales in the collection – but mark my words, each story is an incredible piece of writing in of itself.
Dirt Upon My Skin opens with The Ercildoun Accord which sets the tone for the collection: it’s a slow, chillingly-paced story that follows an archaeologist who travels from our world to the world of the fae in order to undertake an archaeological dig; the Accord sets out the rules between humanity and the otherwordly inhabitants of this alternate dimension that allow such excursions. Toase masterfully spins a multi-layered tale of both an excavation where the soil can turn into vicious snakes aiming to kill you, and deeply unsettling creatures will try and trick you into breaching the Accord so that they can bound and torture you. It’s a superb piece, with Toase ratcheting up the tension as our unnamed archaeologist struggles with both the fae and the nature of what they uncover during the excavation; and he throws in several twists that I genuinely didn’t see coming.
To Rectify in Silver then moves us back to our reality, and makes fascinating use of stereoscopic images as both a concept and way to move the story forward: archaeologist Marissa, already struggling with bereavement and an unsympathetic manager, finds herself puzzled by two stereoscopic images of a Henge being excavated. As she examines the images day after day, they begin change – at first subtly and then more and more obviously. Is she having a mental health crisis due to her recent past – or is something far more sinister happening, related to that bereavement and her job role? The result is a short but gripping story with some excellent characterization despite the small word-count – an impressive achievement that few authors are able to master to this extent.
With the titular Dirt Upon My Skin, Toase deftly utilizes another lesser-known aspect of his trade – urban archaeology. I grew up around council estates and can testify to the eerie atmosphere they can have at times, an atmosphere that Toase evokes to devastating effect as we follow our protagonist through an abandoned urban estate due for demolition, in search for a colleague suddenly gone missing. It’s a deeply unsettling story that slowly devolves into a chaotic blend of the urban and the profane, and I’d be interested in seeing it expanded into something longer – it has an excellent hook. Tuppence a Bag feels like something that David Lynch might have written if he had taken to writing short-length horror fiction – a visit to an abandoned factory and a ground floor blanketed in avian corpses rapidly turns into a surreal journey into hell for one archaeological student, and has made me distinctly nervous around pigeons of all things.
Breach! is the star tale within the entire collection, and is such an incredible piece of work that by itself it entirely justifies purchasing the collection as a whole; it’s one of the most imaginative and thought-provoking pieces of horror fiction I’ve read in quite some time, and it cries out for development into a novella or something longer given the numerous themes Toase manages to develop in such limited pagination. Madeleine Slofelder is the leader of an archaeological team excavating a shattered industrial site, in a fantasy setting based in an unnamed, deeply repressive kingdom. Watched by armed guards sent by the Royal Commission, Madeleine and her team slowly conduct a chronological excavation, literally cutting through layers of time and space as well as layers of soil and debris, in order to try and uncover the source of strange, unsettled spirits that have appeared around the site. But as the team uncover deeper layers of time, deep in the Kingdom’s past, hidden agendas are slowly revealed and the true nature of the site and its history erupt in an explosive finale. Just an incredible story.
The collection ties up with Horn and Hoof in which archaeological findings, corporate greed and revenge find themselves expertly blended together in a blood-soaked tale; Terminus Post Quem which makes expert use of the archaeological report format – interim reports and appendices and endless footnotes – to slowly detail the horrors found within a seemingly-ordinary excavation; and finally Zaun Konig, the longest story in the collection, in which Toase charts the intricacies of working within a team of archaeologists, and how the usual inter-personal conflicts can have devestating results when blended with a strange, possibly-occult discovery during an otherwise normal excavation.
Dirt Upon My Skin is without a doubt one of the best collections of short-form horror fiction that I have read in 2024, and would also rank highly in a Top Ten listing of all short-form horror collections that I’ve ever read, such as anthologies and individual-author collections. Each story found within the micro-collection is skillfully written and deftly plotted to eke out the maximum amount of tension, before suddenly accelerating into a terrifying and often blood-soaked ending that stays with you long after reading it. The collection as a whole is akin to the processes found within archaeology – slowly and painstakingly uncovering the horrors of a story layer by layer, transfixing both protagonist and reader until the very last sentence. Dirt Upon My Skin is an absolutely incredible accomplishment, being one of the best collections of British horror that I have ever read in my career as a reviewer of horror fiction; and marks Steve Toase as an up-and-coming master of British Horror. I will follow his career and future works with great interest, and hope that his collaboration with Black Shuck Books will not be his last.
The Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer 