Was in the mood for a short horror story and had already enjoyed Peter Fugazzotto's The Witch of the Sands. So when Skin released with an Andreas Vesalius cover--I knew I had to track it down (Vesalius was a 16th French Anatomist famous for posing his dissected subjects in his Fabrica).

Fugazzotto explains in an afterword that he intended to write a "Thing with swords," the call-out being to the 1982 movie (novelized by Alan Dean Foster: The Thing). He succeeded. This short story is well polished Sword & Sorcery novel, fully in the Grimdark flavor with tons of grittiness filling in a military milieu. The book blurb is pretty accurate, so I'll just copy it here to summarize.

Book Blurb: "SKIN: Horror in a snow-bound medieval fortress.

Former soldier Hemming spends his days drinking and avoiding his companions at the isolated border keep where he has been posted. But his world is turned upside down when a naked, bloody woman shows up outside the walls of the keep. Soon a monster is hiding among them, and it’s up to Hemming to figure out which one of them is the monster before it kills them all.

Skin by author Peter Fugazzotto blends fantasy with horror in a way you’ve never seen before. If you enjoy horror movies like The Thing and the medieval world of the Game of Thrones, then you’ll love this novella as you race along on a terrifying journey of fear and paranoia in a medieval world right up to the shocking ending.

Buy this book today to begin a terrifying journey of horror set in a medieval world." ( )