HORROR BOOK REVIEW: CHURN THE SOIL BY STEVE STRED (2024)

Take a trip into terror beyond ‘The Border’ with Steve Stred

Since I reviewed Steve Stred for the first time back in early 2019 his star in the horror world has begun to shine very brightly and there a new release brings an exciting feeling of anticipation amongst ‘Stredheads’ everywhere regarding what this prolific Canadian author will unleash upon the horror world next. I count myself as a Stred veteran which began with The Girl Who Hid in the Trees and then The One That Knows No Fear which both made strong impression. Following that, and better still, I was blown away by The Window in the Ground which is both significantly meatier and more complex than those earlier works. If you are new to Stred he has a cool back-catalogue to explore, most of which is also available via Kindle Unlimited.

Although Stred’s new fiction is undoubtedly on a cool upward trajectory, I still enjoy occasional dips into his back-catalogue with his Wagon Buddy novellas being another impressive entry point. The amiable Canadian is astonishingly prolific and in 2021 he effortlessly moved into science fiction with The Future in the Sky, but I found his first release of 2022 Mastodon to be significantly more entertaining, rating this amongst his best work to date. Sales backed this up, with Mastodon being both his biggest seller and a critical hit which took Stred’s work to much larger audiences and showed that he had the literary chops to mix with the indie horror big boys. If you like monsters with your horror Mastodon is unmissable. It is also seriously good fun and does not take itself too seriously.

After the success of Mastodon it must have been tempting to follow the same blueprint and deliver more monster mayhem. Instead, in the earlier stages Churn the Soil relies more heavily upon atmosphere, terrific setting and strong characterisation, whilst presenting creatures which are satisfyingly distinct from those in Mastodon. In usual Stred style, this is a quick and easy read, which is not particularly deep or demanding. It relies upon its swift pace, bloody action sequences and never strays very far from its b-movie style and pulp origins. If you are after something deep and meaningful look elsewhere, but if you want to get temporarily lost in a scary and frozen forest then Churn the Soil is a solid one-way ticket, with frostbite guaranteed (no extra charge).

The story is set two hundred miles north of the town of Basco, in a very remote location called ‘The Border’. This is a quiet, off-the-grid settlement, where the residents have developed a tentative and tense agreement with whatever lives on the other side of the clearing. However, should any wandering visitor or tourist be dumb enough to stray onto the other side they are rarely seen or heard of again and nobody asks any questions. This was a terrific and vividly drawn location, which felt like north Canada or Alaska. The settlement was the perfect location for a cult, which had its own weird routines for dealing with whatever else lived in the forest. The Border reminded me slightly of M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Village where an equally scared community are too fearful of entering the encroaching forest. In the first half of the story Stred provides plenty of details into how The Border ticked, but it was such a striking place it could have had even more layers of detail.

The main part of the story is set in the aftermath of a teenage girl being brutally murdered who looked like she had recently been in the forest. The action follows Basco PD officers Brown and Reynolds who try to find her killer, but the problem is the locals do not want them there (or their help) even though the answers clearly lie in the forest, where most of the second half takes place.The first half of Churn the Soil sets the scene nicely with a nice sense of mystery regarding what exactly lurks in the forest, whilst in the second Stred goes through the gears and the body count quickly mounts. The hunters soon become the hunted and as the search party find themselves in the middle of nowhere (or worse) the Canadian Mounties will not be coming to help anytime soon. And watch out for the cool police dog Bruiser, who I was cheering for all the way!

The villains in Churn the Soil were very cool and the atrocious weather adds an extra dimension of threat until the body horror kicks in. Of course, veteran readers of Steve Stred will know that nothing good ever comes out of venturing into the woods and encroaching forests, but the opportunity to partake in another nightmare trip is just too good to pass-up! A number of questions went unanswered, again more detail could have been provided, but this did not detract from the fun and the origins of the creatures is nicely explored.

Churn the Soil finds Steve Stred doing what he does best by seamlessly blending easy to read action sequences with supernatural horror with a remote and threatening setting. This author continues his seriously cool hot streak, following the superb The Window in the Ground and wild monster novel Mastodon with another page-turning blend of terror where death lurks around every corner. Stred is fast becoming a master of fun, fast-paced, punchy, and pulpy horror fiction which will have you hooked and speed reading in a matter of minutes.

Tony Jones