Book Review: The Chosen Seed (Dog-faced Gods #3) By Sarah Pinborough

The Chosen Seed (Dog Faced Gods #3) by Sarah Pinborough

Paperback, 384 pages Published February 16th 2012 by Gollancz

Chosen seed is a fantastic final act in a trilogy that is one epic story. Each novel has a distinct story with it’s own strengths. Each one builds off of the previous books but the foundation and atmosphere in the first book “A Matter of Blood” worked on me like being hit by lightening. Pinborough has created a cross genre masterpiece in this trilogy that defies simple classification and is impossible to speak of without hyperbole. It is that good.

Is it horror? Is it a Dytopia? Is it a weird crime mystery? Is it cosmic horror? Is it an alternate history? Yes all those things and then some. Tightly plotted and masterfully told as an author I read every juicy page jealous of Pinborough’s skill.

The story of DCI Cass Jones once an embattled cop now on the run in a near future dystopic London. He has been framed for murder just as he started connect the shadowy banking hyper-capitalist “The Bank” to the kidnapping of his brother’s son Luke. As Jones gets closer to the truth he begins to realize that events he has been investigating connect to a false history of the world. The first book was about a serial killer, the second a series of suicides and the third is about a killer speading a killer virus.

It is hard to write about this novel without spoilers as this is the end of the line. The final reveal is a doozy and I can honestly say I didn’t see it coming. You’ll feel silly you didn’t see it coming. There is some aspects to the alternate history that may bother very serious religious readers.

Is it perfect? Damn near. I don’t think the second and third books sell the dystopic feel of the first book. Perhaps I just couldn’t create the new feeling I had reading the first. Fans of the F.Paul Wilson’s excellent Repairman Jack will enjoy this trilogy which is like a darker English cousin to those books.

Read this series. If you like horror you won’t be disappointed.