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The Dog-Faced Gods #3
The Chosen Seed
The tables have turned, and now Detective Inspector Cass Jones is a wanted man on the streets of London. Framed for murder and hunted by his former colleagues, Cass needs every ally he can get—including a very unexpected figure from his past.
While detectives Hask and Ramsey search for the killer behind the lethal Strain II virus, Mr. Bright continues to pull strings from the shadows, and there are dire warnings of a final battle that could tear everything apart.
As he searches for his kidnapped nephew while eluding his own pursuers, Cass is determined to find the answers—even if he has to confront the darkest secrets of the history of humanity to do it.
While detectives Hask and Ramsey search for the killer behind the lethal Strain II virus, Mr. Bright continues to pull strings from the shadows, and there are dire warnings of a final battle that could tear everything apart.
As he searches for his kidnapped nephew while eluding his own pursuers, Cass is determined to find the answers—even if he has to confront the darkest secrets of the history of humanity to do it.
337 pages, Paperback
First published November 28, 2012
18 people are currently reading
619 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Pinborough
89 books7,957 followersSarah Pinborough is a New York Times bestselling and Sunday Times Number one and Internationally bestselling author who is published in over 30 territories worldwide. Having published more than 25 novels across various genres, her recent books include Behind Her Eyes, now a smash hit Netflix limited series, Dead To Her, now in development with Amazon Studios, and 13 Minutes and The Death House in development with Compelling Pictures. Sarah lives in the historic town of Stony Stratford, the home of the Cock and Bull story, with her dog Ted. Her next novel, Insomnia, is out in 2022. You can follow Sarah on Twitter at @sarahpinborough.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
February 9, 2023
Brilliant blend of suspense, thriller, mystery, and supernatural. Sarah Pinborough’s mastery of twists and turns is on full display here. She elevates every genre she delves into, and she raises the bar for everyone else trying to compete with her.
I always wondered why Cass never seemed to warm up to Mr. Bright. And now we know.
Remember Brian Freeman? There was a point to all of those flashbacks. Because it’s SP—of course there is.
The whole book moves at a breakneck pace. The last chapters and epilogue are phenomenal in terms of resolution.
I love the ending—an incredibly poignant conclusion to this journey.
“Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
I always wondered why Cass never seemed to warm up to Mr. Bright. And now we know.
Remember Brian Freeman? There was a point to all of those flashbacks. Because it’s SP—of course there is.
The whole book moves at a breakneck pace. The last chapters and epilogue are phenomenal in terms of resolution.
I love the ending—an incredibly poignant conclusion to this journey.
“Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
May 26, 2024
I will admit to being a little overwhelmed at the beginning of this one. It has been a few hundred other stores since I read book two of this series, and while I remembered the main points, I had a lot of catching up to do!
On the hunt for his nephew, Luke, former Detective Inspector Cass Jones is in a race against time. He is being hunted from all sides and doesn’t know who to trust. Who exactly is Mr. Bright?
PNR-lite
London setting
Murder/mystery/thriller
Excellent backstories
Spiritual/religious backdrop
The last few chapters blew me away. I wasn’t expecting that ending and honestly, I’m still thinking about it.
Huge thanks to Dan for not only recommending this series, but gifting me this book!! 💜
On the hunt for his nephew, Luke, former Detective Inspector Cass Jones is in a race against time. He is being hunted from all sides and doesn’t know who to trust. Who exactly is Mr. Bright?
PNR-lite
London setting
Murder/mystery/thriller
Excellent backstories
Spiritual/religious backdrop
The last few chapters blew me away. I wasn’t expecting that ending and honestly, I’m still thinking about it.
Huge thanks to Dan for not only recommending this series, but gifting me this book!! 💜
Read
June 5, 2016This book exemplifies why I should read trilogies within a reasonable time frame, not years apart!
I'd forgotten so much from the first two books, and there are no recaps here, so I'd urge readers to read this series in quick succession, lest you mar your enjoyment of the tale.
And it's a good one - I'd just forgotten the details of it, and this series is all about the details.
Cass Jones is a wonderfully well-drawn character, as is the enigmatic Mr. Bright, other characters less so, but this is likely due to the vast gaps I left between reading each book.
The ending is brilliantly done, and a very clever take on religious belief and humankind's need for something greater than itself to look up to.
Top-notch writing, I just spent a lot of this read trying to remember what the Hell had happened before, and this kind of spoiled it for me. So read it all in one yummy book-binge!
I'd forgotten so much from the first two books, and there are no recaps here, so I'd urge readers to read this series in quick succession, lest you mar your enjoyment of the tale.
And it's a good one - I'd just forgotten the details of it, and this series is all about the details.
Cass Jones is a wonderfully well-drawn character, as is the enigmatic Mr. Bright, other characters less so, but this is likely due to the vast gaps I left between reading each book.
The ending is brilliantly done, and a very clever take on religious belief and humankind's need for something greater than itself to look up to.
Top-notch writing, I just spent a lot of this read trying to remember what the Hell had happened before, and this kind of spoiled it for me. So read it all in one yummy book-binge!
July 14, 2014
Note: This review contains spoilers for the first two books in the FORGOTTEN GODS trilogy. The review of the first of the books in the trilogy, A Matter of Blood, is here; the review of the second, The Shadow of the Soul, is here.
The first two books of Sarah Pinborough’s FORGOTTEN GODS trilogy opened with one of the members of the shadowy group known as The Bank committing murder most foul — and supernatural — and The Chosen Seed continues that pattern. This time, though, the murders are even more explicitly sacrilegious, for the killer is calling his means of infecting people with an amped-up version of AIDS “the word of your God.” The police know that someone is deliberately infecting random people, but they have little to go on to try to catch him.
Cass Jones is no longer in a position to go after the killer, for he is himself on the run from the police, and has been for months, ever since Mr. Bright framed him for murder. At least Cass has begun to recover from the shot he took to the shoulder, and the weight he lost as a result of the injury has helped disguise him so that he can operate in plain sight. Because Cass still has work to do: he needs to find Luke, his nephew, who was stolen by The Bank at birth. He’s turned for help to people who knows on the wrong side of the law, some of whom still have scores to settle with him, but he has little choice.
Pinborough follows these two threads in alternating chapters, deftly building suspense, and then bringing in yet another, that of Mr. Bright and his attempts to keep control of a growing cadre at The Bank who believe that their own control of the world is growing tenuous. In fact, they’re looking for a way home. By now readers will have figured out who these shadowy men are in the grand scheme of things, and that “home” is not in this world or even this universe. But God seems to have abandoned them just as thoroughly as he seems to have abandoned mankind, and he is not opening the Pearly Gates to anyone, it seems, though the members of The Bank will do whatever it takes to find the way.
Deftly moving from this character to that, balancing the tension among all the different threads, and finally weaving them all into a satisfactory and unexpected conclusion, Pinborough has written a series that keeps readers compulsively turning pages. I especially enjoyed the challenges to religious beliefs, or to the lack of them, that Pinborough poses for her readers; no one, regardless of his or her religious affiliation, can feel entirely comfortable throughout this trilogy, fiction though it may be. Endings are difficult to get right, but Pinborough hits this one right on the nose.
With this trilogy, Pinborough has landed herself on my list of horror writers whose books I will purchase without knowing anything about them except that she wrote them. It’s short list, but she has definitely earned her place on it.
Originally published at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi.... 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
The first two books of Sarah Pinborough’s FORGOTTEN GODS trilogy opened with one of the members of the shadowy group known as The Bank committing murder most foul — and supernatural — and The Chosen Seed continues that pattern. This time, though, the murders are even more explicitly sacrilegious, for the killer is calling his means of infecting people with an amped-up version of AIDS “the word of your God.” The police know that someone is deliberately infecting random people, but they have little to go on to try to catch him.
Cass Jones is no longer in a position to go after the killer, for he is himself on the run from the police, and has been for months, ever since Mr. Bright framed him for murder. At least Cass has begun to recover from the shot he took to the shoulder, and the weight he lost as a result of the injury has helped disguise him so that he can operate in plain sight. Because Cass still has work to do: he needs to find Luke, his nephew, who was stolen by The Bank at birth. He’s turned for help to people who knows on the wrong side of the law, some of whom still have scores to settle with him, but he has little choice.
Pinborough follows these two threads in alternating chapters, deftly building suspense, and then bringing in yet another, that of Mr. Bright and his attempts to keep control of a growing cadre at The Bank who believe that their own control of the world is growing tenuous. In fact, they’re looking for a way home. By now readers will have figured out who these shadowy men are in the grand scheme of things, and that “home” is not in this world or even this universe. But God seems to have abandoned them just as thoroughly as he seems to have abandoned mankind, and he is not opening the Pearly Gates to anyone, it seems, though the members of The Bank will do whatever it takes to find the way.
Deftly moving from this character to that, balancing the tension among all the different threads, and finally weaving them all into a satisfactory and unexpected conclusion, Pinborough has written a series that keeps readers compulsively turning pages. I especially enjoyed the challenges to religious beliefs, or to the lack of them, that Pinborough poses for her readers; no one, regardless of his or her religious affiliation, can feel entirely comfortable throughout this trilogy, fiction though it may be. Endings are difficult to get right, but Pinborough hits this one right on the nose.
With this trilogy, Pinborough has landed herself on my list of horror writers whose books I will purchase without knowing anything about them except that she wrote them. It’s short list, but she has definitely earned her place on it.
Originally published at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi.... 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
November 26, 2013
This trilogy seems greatly overrated to me. The first two books are mostly banal police procedural stuff with a modest overlay of the uncanny, and an even smaller amount of speculation about what our society will be like in the near future. Of these, the last struck me as the most intriguing, but after a promising start the sf element received no further development.
The uncanny element, an uneasy mixture of paranoid fantasy, ghosts, and mysterious psychic powers, does offer some fine moments. The bizarre Interventionists, the dark, tantalizing references to a strange Experiment which invariably leaves those who attempt it screaming with madness, are all pretty stimulating. So, while the first two books are uneven, they at least furnish sufficient mystery to keep you reading through the dull bits as policemen argue with each other, and Cass agonizes endlessly (if unproductively) over his assorted misdeeds.
Unfortunately, the author resolves her mysteries by recourse to extremely familiar Christian myths. Not only does she show her hand too early, spoiling her "surprise" ending, but her explanation is absurd. The "secret" history of mankind which is finally revealed presupposes that our entire planet is Christian, as it leaves no room for the millions (billions?) whose beliefs have never involved anything like the Judaeo-Christian god, fallen angels, or Jesus Christ. Frankly, it all smacks of cultural chauvinism.
The uncanny element, an uneasy mixture of paranoid fantasy, ghosts, and mysterious psychic powers, does offer some fine moments. The bizarre Interventionists, the dark, tantalizing references to a strange Experiment which invariably leaves those who attempt it screaming with madness, are all pretty stimulating. So, while the first two books are uneven, they at least furnish sufficient mystery to keep you reading through the dull bits as policemen argue with each other, and Cass agonizes endlessly (if unproductively) over his assorted misdeeds.
Unfortunately, the author resolves her mysteries by recourse to extremely familiar Christian myths. Not only does she show her hand too early, spoiling her "surprise" ending, but her explanation is absurd. The "secret" history of mankind which is finally revealed presupposes that our entire planet is Christian, as it leaves no room for the millions (billions?) whose beliefs have never involved anything like the Judaeo-Christian god, fallen angels, or Jesus Christ. Frankly, it all smacks of cultural chauvinism.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 26, 2015
Yes!!!!! The final part of the Dog-Faced Gods trilogy by Sarah Pinborough and how awesome that part 3 is by no means a letdown - in fact it's a cracker read and wraps up the series brilliantly. Quite often it seems that series run out of steam but this just got better and better. Just loved the series. Why had I not heard of this author before now??????
One thing though - whoever edited the book needs a smack! Lol. Too many mistakes throughout.
One thing though - whoever edited the book needs a smack! Lol. Too many mistakes throughout.
February 18, 2014
This book was just too hard for me to get into! Too much going on and too many details from the previous two that I couldn't remember!
June 21, 2019
Apocalyptically good and a suitably powerful end to an excellent trilogy.
December 31, 2017
A grand conclusion to the exceptionally creative Dog-Faced Gods trilogy. DI Cass Jones is a fugitive from both the law, and the secret order which has operated society for its own ends for centuries. Immortal creatures are at large. Jones’s blood is the key to the end, or beginning, of all things. For all of this, we have here a story which still functions primarily on a local level, in intimate conversations and grubby beatings in back alleys, in drug deals and twisted family ties. Having consumed a good deal of supernatural noir in the last couple of years, I’ve found this trilogy to be a thing operating wholly on its own level, giving abeyance to none of the conventions that it’s supposed to ascribe to, and thus offering that rarest of things – something superficially very familiar, which goes on to offer surprises and delights I haven’t found in fiction before. On its own terms, it’s a transcendent piece of work, entirely appropriate given the broader theme of transcendence (or a failure to transcend) that develops through the trilogy.
May 10, 2018
A cracking finale to a bit of a slow-burn trilogy. The pace really picked up & the reveal was excellent. loved it!
June 13, 2020
That was a hell of an ending. I never saw THAT coming, though part of me sorta maybe thinks that maybe I should've.
Also not sure how I feel about reading this book with its corrupt cops and money runs everything secretly and not so secretly themes in this particularly interesting and volatile time. Not to mention the fear of disease and the looming apocalypse. I know this was written well before this year, but it sometimes felt a bit too much like a book that is distilled from many of our current nightmares.
Also not sure how I feel about reading this book with its corrupt cops and money runs everything secretly and not so secretly themes in this particularly interesting and volatile time. Not to mention the fear of disease and the looming apocalypse. I know this was written well before this year, but it sometimes felt a bit too much like a book that is distilled from many of our current nightmares.
April 15, 2015
A rather disappointing end to the trilogy. I was given the answers that I wanted since the first book, but they were the answers I had suspected all along, and didn't want - because those answers were lazy and uninspired.
Also, the epilogue seems to be a complete 180-degree turn for Cass as a character. It seems to be a rushed job at some sort of closure that fails.
Also, the epilogue seems to be a complete 180-degree turn for Cass as a character. It seems to be a rushed job at some sort of closure that fails.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 9, 2012
Bloody bloody good read. The entire trilogy is rip-roaring stuff. Get it, read it.
January 16, 2019
The Chosen Seed, succeeds where the first two books of the trilogy only have moderate appeal. The strength in this final offering from Sarah Pinborough is that the actions and "reveals" move at a more satisfactory pace than books 1 and 2. The previous books I liked, but were just adequate to keep me going from book to book. The concluding novel was just what a finisher should be and makes you almost forget the slowness of the beginning two. Except for the overly spelled out story of the creation of earth and mankind that was ludicrous, not to mention blasphemous this was a good story. Sure it's just a horror story, but our good and gracious God should not mocked (yeah, I'm one of THOSE).
Except for the above mentioned problem, I found this book quite enjoyable and interesting. However, a couple of things others mentioned as strengths, I felt fell short. First, I never felt like I really knew or felt Cass Jones. He seems a bit different in each book and often his brooding and anger made him very one dimensional character. Also, several reviewers raved about the setting and how gritty and dark it was. To me it felt more like it could be next year or two years from now in London. If that's what the Author was shooting for, than mission accomplished. However, I thought she missed dozens of opportunities for us to picture the supposed economic downturns and gloomy aspects that could have been so much more vivid. Again, I really liked this book, I guess I'm just a little peeved that the other two books could been more like this one. Overall I give the trilogy a B-.
Except for the above mentioned problem, I found this book quite enjoyable and interesting. However, a couple of things others mentioned as strengths, I felt fell short. First, I never felt like I really knew or felt Cass Jones. He seems a bit different in each book and often his brooding and anger made him very one dimensional character. Also, several reviewers raved about the setting and how gritty and dark it was. To me it felt more like it could be next year or two years from now in London. If that's what the Author was shooting for, than mission accomplished. However, I thought she missed dozens of opportunities for us to picture the supposed economic downturns and gloomy aspects that could have been so much more vivid. Again, I really liked this book, I guess I'm just a little peeved that the other two books could been more like this one. Overall I give the trilogy a B-.
October 30, 2020
This third book was better than the first two, and that's saying a lot. At first I thought this was a crime story with a touch of the supernatural. Then I thought it was a crime story and science fiction. Now, it is definitely a mystery/suspense/supernatural fantasy. I guess I could just say it has a lot of facets. The suspense continued to build all through this last book, and the little hints here and there just added to it. The answers are given at the end, and it is not what I was expecting at all. No let downs here! An excellent read!
February 5, 2018
This was a very decent mystery up until the conclusion. You had many clues that the behind the scenes creatures were the bases for the angel myth and I had hopes it would end with aliens or Eldritch Gods. Sadly it just fell into a twist on Abrahamic creation myth. God is a despot, his human creations made in his image, cruel and self serving just like his winged subjects, the angels, that revolt because he's such a cruel bastard. All very myopic as a world creation story.
August 18, 2020
Phenomenal.
April 19, 2022
Solid final entry in a supernatural horror trilogy. Marked it down a little because the middle drags a bit.
July 21, 2024
🤯🤯🤯
I don’t know when I’ll crawl out from this book hangover.
I don’t know when I’ll crawl out from this book hangover.
September 7, 2025
Bit of a let down ☹️
February 13, 2014
Note: this review for "The Chosen Seed" contains spoilers for "The Shadow of the Soul" and "A Matter of Blood".
"The Chosen Seed" is the final book of Sarah Pinborough's "Dog-Faced Gods" trilogy (also known as the "Forgotten Gods" trilogy in the US) and concludes the story of Detective Inspector Cassius Jones following the frantic conclusion of "The Shadow of the Soul".
Dr Hask and DI Ramsay are hunting for the newest killer stalking London, one who is murdering people using the lethal Strain II virus, a stronger derivative of HIV. A dying victim recalls a clean-cut man in his early thirties saying to her "For this is the word of your God. Spread it." Shortly afterwards she began to display symptoms.
Meanwhile Cass Jones is on the run following the murder of a man linked to the disappearance of his nephew, Luke, and also that of Adam Bradley (the real murderer). While his former colleagues, Hask and Ramsay, have a hard time accepting his guilt, Jones' former partner, DS Armstrong, has no such concerns. He is hell-bent on bringing Jones to justice.
Jones lies low while his underworld contacts arrange a new identity for him, but his mind is alive with the mysterious Mr Bright, a man who has long pulled his strings and those of his family, and someone who most certainly knows what happened to Luke. Events take an unusual turn, however, when Jones' murky undercover past comes back to haunt him.
All is not well within Mr Bright's world and those of the Cohort - his fellow eternal, otherworldly beings. Not only do some find themselves dying, but now it appears an emissary has appeared, having seemingly come to Jones' rescue at the end of the previous book. Her presence is a bad omen that suggests the imminent arrival of Him and the onset of the Rapture. At the same time the first of their kind has finally woken from his comatose state and is found to be in no fit state to lead the Cohort as hoped. He has woken an old man, meek and scared.
So here we have it, the final part of "The Dog-Faced Gods" trilogy, and while it's better than "A Matter of Blood", I didn't find it quite as good as "The Shadow of the Soul". The pages fly just as fast, the plot keeps on coming like a flood, the characters are just as good, and - yay! - there are no passwords being guessed, but... I don't know... there were a few things that kept the book tantalisingly short of excellent.
For example, the underlying threat of revenge hanging over Jones and his undercover past, touched upon several times during the previous two books, comes to very little. Any bad blood is all too quickly forgotten. The brutal cruelty meted out to one of the characters (you'll know when you get to it) also left a bad taste in the mouth. (The same could be said of Mr Craven's exploits in the previous book.) Finally, and this is for me a minor point, when you take a step back from the trilogy and consider it as a whole you could be left wondering why no other religions were touched upon at all, though this was perhaps a conscious decision to keep an already huge story as lean as possible.
That said, there are some excellent scenes too. The finale is well worked, with a real sense of urgency and impending doom in the run-up. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough once it got going. The epilogue gives some real satisfying closure to the story. Yes, the story could be re-opened later down the line, but you at least feel there is no need to do so (i.e. there is no "Meanwhile at Camp Crystal..." bullshit to contend with at the end).
I think the faults I have with the trilogy mostly stem from the incredibly complex plot that spans all three books - nearly 1200 pages' worth. Beneath the main plot threads touched upon in my reviews you will find a ton of subplots, incidents and secondary characters. Given all that, it is perhaps inevitable that some panel-beating would be required to fit it all in. Taken as a whole, I'd suggest not looking too hard at the few niggles that exist and tuck in, folks. There's a lot of good stuff here to chew over.
The Dog-Faced Gods marked my first foray into Sarah Pinborough's work. Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to seek out "Mayhem".
4/5
"The Chosen Seed" is the final book of Sarah Pinborough's "Dog-Faced Gods" trilogy (also known as the "Forgotten Gods" trilogy in the US) and concludes the story of Detective Inspector Cassius Jones following the frantic conclusion of "The Shadow of the Soul".
Dr Hask and DI Ramsay are hunting for the newest killer stalking London, one who is murdering people using the lethal Strain II virus, a stronger derivative of HIV. A dying victim recalls a clean-cut man in his early thirties saying to her "For this is the word of your God. Spread it." Shortly afterwards she began to display symptoms.
Meanwhile Cass Jones is on the run following the murder of a man linked to the disappearance of his nephew, Luke, and also that of Adam Bradley (the real murderer). While his former colleagues, Hask and Ramsay, have a hard time accepting his guilt, Jones' former partner, DS Armstrong, has no such concerns. He is hell-bent on bringing Jones to justice.
Jones lies low while his underworld contacts arrange a new identity for him, but his mind is alive with the mysterious Mr Bright, a man who has long pulled his strings and those of his family, and someone who most certainly knows what happened to Luke. Events take an unusual turn, however, when Jones' murky undercover past comes back to haunt him.
All is not well within Mr Bright's world and those of the Cohort - his fellow eternal, otherworldly beings. Not only do some find themselves dying, but now it appears an emissary has appeared, having seemingly come to Jones' rescue at the end of the previous book. Her presence is a bad omen that suggests the imminent arrival of Him and the onset of the Rapture. At the same time the first of their kind has finally woken from his comatose state and is found to be in no fit state to lead the Cohort as hoped. He has woken an old man, meek and scared.
So here we have it, the final part of "The Dog-Faced Gods" trilogy, and while it's better than "A Matter of Blood", I didn't find it quite as good as "The Shadow of the Soul". The pages fly just as fast, the plot keeps on coming like a flood, the characters are just as good, and - yay! - there are no passwords being guessed, but... I don't know... there were a few things that kept the book tantalisingly short of excellent.
For example, the underlying threat of revenge hanging over Jones and his undercover past, touched upon several times during the previous two books, comes to very little. Any bad blood is all too quickly forgotten. The brutal cruelty meted out to one of the characters (you'll know when you get to it) also left a bad taste in the mouth. (The same could be said of Mr Craven's exploits in the previous book.) Finally, and this is for me a minor point, when you take a step back from the trilogy and consider it as a whole you could be left wondering why no other religions were touched upon at all, though this was perhaps a conscious decision to keep an already huge story as lean as possible.
That said, there are some excellent scenes too. The finale is well worked, with a real sense of urgency and impending doom in the run-up. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough once it got going. The epilogue gives some real satisfying closure to the story. Yes, the story could be re-opened later down the line, but you at least feel there is no need to do so (i.e. there is no "Meanwhile at Camp Crystal..." bullshit to contend with at the end).
I think the faults I have with the trilogy mostly stem from the incredibly complex plot that spans all three books - nearly 1200 pages' worth. Beneath the main plot threads touched upon in my reviews you will find a ton of subplots, incidents and secondary characters. Given all that, it is perhaps inevitable that some panel-beating would be required to fit it all in. Taken as a whole, I'd suggest not looking too hard at the few niggles that exist and tuck in, folks. There's a lot of good stuff here to chew over.
The Dog-Faced Gods marked my first foray into Sarah Pinborough's work. Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to seek out "Mayhem".
4/5
April 2, 2012
THE CHOSEN SEED is the third book in Sarah Pinborough's "Dog-Faced Gods" trilogy. And the main point I want to make is it is a trilogy. This book is not so much a book in itself as Act 3 in a three act play, and I would urge you to go and read A MATTER OF BLOOD (#1) and SHADOWS OF THE SOUL (#2) before you come to this one.
When I read the first book I was a little confused about what genre I was reading. The setting is London in a near-future dystopia. It's a London that's familiar, but considerably worse than the one we know. The only definitive reference to timescale we have is that 2011 was the year everything went wrong, and society has now completely broken down, with mass unemployment, no prospects and no hope. In the midst of this a disillusioned cop, Cassius Jones, deals with a series of apparently gang-related murders. But there's something strange about the set-up, and then Cass has to investigate the apparent suicide of his brother, who killed his wife and child before killing himself. The ghost of Cass's brother Christian appears to Cass, and it becomes evident that things are not as they seem. I had a bit of trouble by this point pinning the genre of this series down (and I do like to make sure all my books are on the right Goodreads shelves). Is it SF? Horror? Crime? A combination of all three?
As Cass delves deeper into his family history, trying to get to the bottom of what happened to his brother, his discoveries raise more questions than they answer. I got to the end of the first book feeling that the story wasn't actually finished. And indeed, it isn't. In order to get to the end of the story you have to read all three books, in order. But I would recommend you do this because it's an awesome story. At the very end of THE CHOSEN SEED, everything falls into place, and it all makes perfect sense. The final revelation, when it comes, makes so much sense you start to wonder why you didn't see it coming, even though there's no way you could have. I was also left with the feeling that maybe Sarah Pinborough knows something we don't - and maybe this isn't quite so far removed from the world we know as we were initially led to believe.
Having got to the end of the series, I can also say with confidence that this is a horror story. It's the sort of horror story we don't see enough of these days. I am left in awe of the author's skill in weaving this tightly-plotted and dense story, and also slightly envious. Because I know I'm never going to be able to write anything this good.
When I read the first book I was a little confused about what genre I was reading. The setting is London in a near-future dystopia. It's a London that's familiar, but considerably worse than the one we know. The only definitive reference to timescale we have is that 2011 was the year everything went wrong, and society has now completely broken down, with mass unemployment, no prospects and no hope. In the midst of this a disillusioned cop, Cassius Jones, deals with a series of apparently gang-related murders. But there's something strange about the set-up, and then Cass has to investigate the apparent suicide of his brother, who killed his wife and child before killing himself. The ghost of Cass's brother Christian appears to Cass, and it becomes evident that things are not as they seem. I had a bit of trouble by this point pinning the genre of this series down (and I do like to make sure all my books are on the right Goodreads shelves). Is it SF? Horror? Crime? A combination of all three?
As Cass delves deeper into his family history, trying to get to the bottom of what happened to his brother, his discoveries raise more questions than they answer. I got to the end of the first book feeling that the story wasn't actually finished. And indeed, it isn't. In order to get to the end of the story you have to read all three books, in order. But I would recommend you do this because it's an awesome story. At the very end of THE CHOSEN SEED, everything falls into place, and it all makes perfect sense. The final revelation, when it comes, makes so much sense you start to wonder why you didn't see it coming, even though there's no way you could have. I was also left with the feeling that maybe Sarah Pinborough knows something we don't - and maybe this isn't quite so far removed from the world we know as we were initially led to believe.
Having got to the end of the series, I can also say with confidence that this is a horror story. It's the sort of horror story we don't see enough of these days. I am left in awe of the author's skill in weaving this tightly-plotted and dense story, and also slightly envious. Because I know I'm never going to be able to write anything this good.
March 17, 2014
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Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
the-chosen-seed-the-forgotten-gods-sarah-pinboroughCass Jones is a man on the run. Wanted for a pair of murders he didn’t commit. But he knows his fellow police officers will never believe his innocence, they all think he cracked after his brother’s death. So now he’s forced to live in the shadows, depending on a few solid friends to help him along the way.
But while living the invisible life he also is still hunting down Mr. Bright and trying to find his kidnapped nephew. He WILL find Luke, even if saving him costs Cass his own life. He owes Christian that much; to see his boy safe.
The first book in this series blew me away, it was just soooo good. But I’ve found that I’ve liked each of the following two installments a little bit less than the one before it. I think a lot of it has to do with just forgetting so much of what happened from book to book, there are no refreshers in this series! These last two have had so many characters narrating and being involved in general that I just can’t keep them all straight!
But I have finally gotten used to the U.K. spellings of things! I know, took me long enough! It didn’t bother me in this installment in the least!
This book was so detailed oriented and had so much going on that a majority of the book really did go in one ear and out the other. I would read something, especially in the first half of the book, and have no clue what I read when I was done. It took a lot longer than usual to get into it, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember who Cass was accused of murdering until pretty late in the book, when they said something about the knife.
Once Cass found what he thought was his nephew the book got interesting and I enjoyed it. But it took so long to get to that point. I just wish the book could have started there!
I found the ending of this novel to be pretty interesting. Cass becoming what he never in a million years would have expected. The series completely came full-circle with this ending.
I highly recommend reading this trilogy back-to-back so that you don’t miss any of the details. I unfortunately had to wait between books for the installments to be released, and I think it really did hamper my enjoyment of the series as a whole.
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
the-chosen-seed-the-forgotten-gods-sarah-pinboroughCass Jones is a man on the run. Wanted for a pair of murders he didn’t commit. But he knows his fellow police officers will never believe his innocence, they all think he cracked after his brother’s death. So now he’s forced to live in the shadows, depending on a few solid friends to help him along the way.
But while living the invisible life he also is still hunting down Mr. Bright and trying to find his kidnapped nephew. He WILL find Luke, even if saving him costs Cass his own life. He owes Christian that much; to see his boy safe.
The first book in this series blew me away, it was just soooo good. But I’ve found that I’ve liked each of the following two installments a little bit less than the one before it. I think a lot of it has to do with just forgetting so much of what happened from book to book, there are no refreshers in this series! These last two have had so many characters narrating and being involved in general that I just can’t keep them all straight!
But I have finally gotten used to the U.K. spellings of things! I know, took me long enough! It didn’t bother me in this installment in the least!
This book was so detailed oriented and had so much going on that a majority of the book really did go in one ear and out the other. I would read something, especially in the first half of the book, and have no clue what I read when I was done. It took a lot longer than usual to get into it, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember who Cass was accused of murdering until pretty late in the book, when they said something about the knife.
Once Cass found what he thought was his nephew the book got interesting and I enjoyed it. But it took so long to get to that point. I just wish the book could have started there!
I found the ending of this novel to be pretty interesting. Cass becoming what he never in a million years would have expected. The series completely came full-circle with this ending.
I highly recommend reading this trilogy back-to-back so that you don’t miss any of the details. I unfortunately had to wait between books for the installments to be released, and I think it really did hamper my enjoyment of the series as a whole.
July 25, 2012
The Dog-Faced Gods trilogy comes to an end in assured and satisfying fashion. Picking up from where The Shadow of the Soul left off, we are presented with another crazed killer on the loose but this device is used here more to ground the reader with familiar structure than to form the main thread of the plot as the elements that have remained in the background up until now come to the fore. That said, the Angel of Death is as effectively macabre an avatar as the Man of Flies - his means of bestowing death fuses Bibilical horror with contemporary pandemic fears to stomach-churning and deeply disturbing effect.
But the focus here is Cass Jones as he approaches his final confrontation with Mr Bright and the Network. This trilogy has always been his story as he drags himself out of the personal mire his life had sunken into at the beginning and makes his faltering way towards a redemption he is not sure he really wants any part of. The Chosen Seed is where he truly shines, or shall I say Glows, in his determined quest to track down his nephew. Here, he is more driven than he has been before and, as a reader, you are with him every step of the way.
It is also in the mythic aspects that The Chosen Seed really works for me. There are some highly effective episodes of surrealism and nightmare here echoing with a convincing sense of cosmic horror that I admit I was not expecting to find in this trilogy. To tell of the revelations that explain what has really been going on behind the scenes in the world of the Dog-Faced Gods would, of course, constitute a massive spoiler so all I will say is that I found, when they were presented, that they formed a well-crafted coda to everything that had gone before after the dust settled and the battle was done.
And yes, you do get to find out just what the Dog-Faced Gods actually means, at last.
Recommended.
But the focus here is Cass Jones as he approaches his final confrontation with Mr Bright and the Network. This trilogy has always been his story as he drags himself out of the personal mire his life had sunken into at the beginning and makes his faltering way towards a redemption he is not sure he really wants any part of. The Chosen Seed is where he truly shines, or shall I say Glows, in his determined quest to track down his nephew. Here, he is more driven than he has been before and, as a reader, you are with him every step of the way.
It is also in the mythic aspects that The Chosen Seed really works for me. There are some highly effective episodes of surrealism and nightmare here echoing with a convincing sense of cosmic horror that I admit I was not expecting to find in this trilogy. To tell of the revelations that explain what has really been going on behind the scenes in the world of the Dog-Faced Gods would, of course, constitute a massive spoiler so all I will say is that I found, when they were presented, that they formed a well-crafted coda to everything that had gone before after the dust settled and the battle was done.
And yes, you do get to find out just what the Dog-Faced Gods actually means, at last.
Recommended.
June 10, 2012
This is the final book in The Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy, and after really enjoying A MATTER OF BLOOD and THE SHADOW OF THE SOUL I was looking forward to finding out how everything would turn out for Detective Inspector Cass Jones.
The festive season is approaching, but the people of London have good reason to stay off the streets. There's a new killer on the loose, and he's infecting people with the lethal Strain II virus. Everyone's worried, paranoid, and desperate not to become another victim.
Former DI Cass Jones is on the run after he was framed for murder. But he won't be stopped from searching for his kidnapped nephew. No matter what it takes, and what he has to risk, he's determined to find the child. And if it means taking down the manipulative and mysterious Mr. Bright, that's even better.
At the same time, things within the Network are falling apart. The strong and shadowy members of this group become involved in a power struggle that will destroy the world, literally bringing Armageddon.
When Cass finds himself getting help from an unlikely source, he begins to dig deeper and deeper into The Bank and just how much they seem to control the world. As all these events quickly culminate to an explosive conclusion with some amazing answers, he also realises his family plays a big part in everything.
The Chosen Seed turned out to be an amazing conclusion to this dark and gritty trilogy. I absolutely loved every second of it. The tension kept me on the edge of my seat as bit by bit, the truth behind the mystery Cass has been chasing for so long was slowly revealed.
BTW, I loved the outstanding revelation. Wow.
The festive season is approaching, but the people of London have good reason to stay off the streets. There's a new killer on the loose, and he's infecting people with the lethal Strain II virus. Everyone's worried, paranoid, and desperate not to become another victim.
Former DI Cass Jones is on the run after he was framed for murder. But he won't be stopped from searching for his kidnapped nephew. No matter what it takes, and what he has to risk, he's determined to find the child. And if it means taking down the manipulative and mysterious Mr. Bright, that's even better.
At the same time, things within the Network are falling apart. The strong and shadowy members of this group become involved in a power struggle that will destroy the world, literally bringing Armageddon.
When Cass finds himself getting help from an unlikely source, he begins to dig deeper and deeper into The Bank and just how much they seem to control the world. As all these events quickly culminate to an explosive conclusion with some amazing answers, he also realises his family plays a big part in everything.
The Chosen Seed turned out to be an amazing conclusion to this dark and gritty trilogy. I absolutely loved every second of it. The tension kept me on the edge of my seat as bit by bit, the truth behind the mystery Cass has been chasing for so long was slowly revealed.
BTW, I loved the outstanding revelation. Wow.
June 21, 2015
My thoughts on the end of this trilogy are complicated. On the one hand, I desperately wanted to find out what happened at the end, and the mysteries were all satisfactorily explained, and I felt satisfied by the ending. On the other hand, things were wrapped up rather more easily than I wanted them to be. Cass's quest for vengeance against Mr. Bright was circumvented in a way that was interesting, but wasn't emotionally fulfilling. I liked the note the book ended on, but I tend to resent plots where the resolution falls into the category of "the villain isn't really that bad actually". And I became abruptly aware of how few women there are in the trilogy-- and that all but one of them were either dead or out of the picture by book 3. No queer representation either. None of this is to say that the book wasn't good, or that I don't whole-heartedly recommend the series to fans of sci-fi/fantasy crossovers or things in the "scary plausible future" genre. I really liked it overall, I had a good experience reading it-- which is what ticks this review over from 3 stars to 3.5, rounding up to 4 because of how much I like the series as a whole. Just be aware that the first two books are superior in that they set up a scenario that I find more interesting in theory than the way the third book played out in reality.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 2, 2012
The first two books in the series have gradually built and built towards this last entry in Cass Jones' struggle to find out the truth about the Network, Mr. Bright and the whereabouts of his nephew Luke.
Throughout the first two books Sarah Pinborough has scattered breadcrumbs about the true nature of Mr. Bright and his associates, but when the final reveal came along it was more of a shock than I at first imagined. I can guess anyone really religious might have been a bit upset by one of the reveals (I'd guessed who the First was but I'd never guessed he'd played another role in history as well). With masterful plotting the reader is drawn along from one crisis to another, the closing half dozen or so chapters leave the reader breathless as Cass races to not only save his nephew, but the World as well.
I've read a lot of alternative history books, but this is the first time I've ever read an alternative history of creation itself.
This trilogy was my first experience of Sarah Pinborough. It won't be my last.
Throughout the first two books Sarah Pinborough has scattered breadcrumbs about the true nature of Mr. Bright and his associates, but when the final reveal came along it was more of a shock than I at first imagined. I can guess anyone really religious might have been a bit upset by one of the reveals (I'd guessed who the First was but I'd never guessed he'd played another role in history as well). With masterful plotting the reader is drawn along from one crisis to another, the closing half dozen or so chapters leave the reader breathless as Cass races to not only save his nephew, but the World as well.
I've read a lot of alternative history books, but this is the first time I've ever read an alternative history of creation itself.
This trilogy was my first experience of Sarah Pinborough. It won't be my last.
April 16, 2013
Wow.
Readers may remember that I waxed lyrical over the 1st 2 books of this trilogy: Well, the 3rd is a worthy successor. Sarah Pinborough (who's 1 of the best writers working today) not only delivers a cracking tale, but effectively answers all the questions she had set up in the earlier books.
The world she creates is an incredibly convincing dystopia, near enough to the world we currently inhabit to be believable. In many ways this reminds me of a hi-tech version of "The Sweeney", with grim sardonic coppers beaten down by procedure, & having good relations with those on the wrong side of the law.
Characterisation is strong, with everyone in the book having believable motives: Sarah's characters are nuanced & credible. The pace of the story doesn't let up, & the use of quite short chapters enables the story to move on efficiently.
Buy this book. But the trilogy. Do it NOW.
Readers may remember that I waxed lyrical over the 1st 2 books of this trilogy: Well, the 3rd is a worthy successor. Sarah Pinborough (who's 1 of the best writers working today) not only delivers a cracking tale, but effectively answers all the questions she had set up in the earlier books.
The world she creates is an incredibly convincing dystopia, near enough to the world we currently inhabit to be believable. In many ways this reminds me of a hi-tech version of "The Sweeney", with grim sardonic coppers beaten down by procedure, & having good relations with those on the wrong side of the law.
Characterisation is strong, with everyone in the book having believable motives: Sarah's characters are nuanced & credible. The pace of the story doesn't let up, & the use of quite short chapters enables the story to move on efficiently.
Buy this book. But the trilogy. Do it NOW.
January 23, 2016
Now, that's my idea of a happy ending! I admire this trilogy, its style and craft and mythic engineering. The way in which Pinborough creates a seamless continuum between the grind, grit and pettiness of day to day life at the Paddington Green police station, the personal tragedies of lost families and children, and the sweep of the overarching tale, is something I simply cannot finger. But. Even in the end, the pattern holds. Even in the end, this is one "hell" of a sausage fest and the only excuse provided for this takes less than a sentence, with no indication that things will ever change. So unless you have the right genitals, not a happy ending at all.
June 5, 2016
I was so eager to find out if my theory was valid (it was) that I actually bought this when the library turned out not to carry it yet. Yes, we get all the answers; yes, it fits in just like the Famous Poet said it would. Cass is on the run,having been framed at the end of the last book; he is trying to find Luke, and that almost will be a mistake. If you are an easily offended member of one of the People of The Book religions, you won't like this series (you may wish to burn it at the stake); if you lean towards Zoroastrianism you may fist pump. But know your 17th century epics if you want the full flavor.
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