Fets, sewage, deformities … something gross for everyone! – review of “Children Forgotten by God”

The skeleton of the novel looks more or less as I have already suggested. We observe the parallel development of several threads that mix with each other over time. On the one hand, there is a mysterious incident in a large sewer artery in the Peckham area that is clogged with a giant clot of fat and debris, leaving a member of the Crane’s Drains canalers’ crew missing. On the other hand, more and more women are sent to local hospitals, tormented by enormous pains in the lower abdomen, connected, as it turns out, with the unexpected appearance of incredibly distorted fetuses in their bodies. All this is soon accompanied by creatures resembling phantoms and ghostly, emerald-green light.Virus ) that no one else could cope with.

A strong stomach will be more useful than nerves of steel

As we are dealing here with a horror movie, some of you may be asking yourself whether God’s Forgotten Children can scare and how they do it. In my opinion, the story itself and the antagonists presented in it are not particularly terrifying. What I mean here is that reading is unlikely to freeze our blood in our veins and make us fear a lonely trip to the toilet at night. This does not mean, however, that we will not feel anxiety or real terror while reading. Masterton strikes here primarily macabre and disgusting tones, showing us what we definitely would not like to see. It forces us to associate with things and phenomena that we try very hard not to remember, so as not to pollute our consciousness with the most down-to-earth aspects of humanity.

So we will visit the sewers to come face to face with faeces, used tampons, toilet paper, garbage, kitchen grease, dead pets and any other objects and substances that people are willing to flush in the toilet bowl. Together with the characters, we will literally immerse ourselves in everything that each of us gets rid of day after day without a moment’s thought. For us, these things just disappear in the pipes, but they do not cease to exist then – the microworld of the sewers is filled to the brim with what we consider quite hideous, embarrassing or simply unnecessary to get rid of it in the toilet. The author does not spare us quite detailed descriptions of these impurities and the microclimate they create in the sewage tunnels, at the same time skilfully using the contrast in their perception by detectives and professional sewers from Crane’s Drains, who are not used to such realities. The latter, moreover, became more and more impressive for me with each page turned, growing almost to the rank of astronauts, able to survive and work where an ordinary man could not venture.

In turn, the macabre deformed fetuses and creatures that seem to haunt the protagonists in the underground corridors are here an image of another part of human fate that we displace from our consciousness every day. We are talking about the fear of ugliness, weakness, disability, or even simply being different. The novel repeatedly asks “is it a human being at all?”, And whether such creatures are worth keeping alive, since they will most likely be short and marked by suffering. These are the children of the title forgotten not only by God, but also by other people. However, it is not an empty pro-life manifesto that tries to play on emotionsor rather a series of doubts and questions spoken out into space to resonate unpleasantly within it without any answer. The author does not offer solutions, he does not put forward theses. It only touches on an uncomfortable subject so that we can reflect on it ourselves, and I think he succeeds very well.

It does so in a style appropriate to the genre of horror, so (as in the case of sewage waste) it focuses on accurate, creative descriptions. We will find here a galaxy of deformities, mutilations, underdevelopment and damage to the body, and we will have to bend over all of them. Regardless of whether the greatest discomfort is caused by the vision of an excruciatingly swollen head, the absence or excess of limbs, the transformation of hands into tentacles or tongs, or the entrails pouring out of the open abdominal cavity – sooner or later we will find something “for ourselves”, from what our skin feels like. Anyway, the whole thing can be even more unpleasant for women, who will probably be able to imagine more vividly the pregnancy ailments of the heroines with monstrous fetuses than it was in my case.

Heroes with a soul needed immediately!

In fact, the only real drawback of this novel are – in my opinion – the characters. Many of them just scroll in the background, playing out the scenes they are necessary for and… nothing else, in fact. Apparently each of them gets a bit of personality – some characteristic element of appearance, manner of speaking, etc. – but it is rather done on the word of honor, as if specifically so that we would not be able to accuse them of being completely bland. Only Gemma Bright, a charming sewer who supports the policemen with her expertise, stands out from this not very glorious group.

Unfortunately, the protagonists also leave a lot to be desired. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that they are impossible to like or that they spoil the perception of the whole story – absolutely not! I just expected a bit more from a piece of work that is quite high in other respects. Most of all, I was surprised by the imbalance between the two detectives. Of these, Jamila is the senior, and it is more up to the investigators to decide what to do next. She is also, it seems, a much more interesting heroine than Jerry; knowledgeable, analytical mind, and at the same time surrounded by a certain aura of mystery. However, most of the events are seen from Jerry’s perspective, including perhaps all scenes where the duo performs together. This means that we do not get any insight into the thoughts and feelings of Detective Patel,

Jerry Pardoe himself becomes here almost an auxiliary narrator, because many descriptions are marked by his ironical point of view, which unfortunately – despite its humorous qualities – limits our perception of many things, after all, the man is neither objective nor omniscient.

Once again, a crime story turns into a horror film

Overall, the story itself is skillfully written and engaging. The first chapters are a bit of a drag, but don’t get discouraged – soon the pace will accelerate sharply and won’t slow down until the very end! The beginning of the story and the way it unfolds later reminded me a bit of the scheme used in OutterStephen King, whose serial version I had the pleasure to review recently. The police are forced to face a case where standard methods simply do not apply, and investigators, whether they like it or not, face the need to accept the prospect of supernatural interference. Like King’s Ralph Anderson, the Patel and Pardoe duo first instinctively rationalize the evidence and phenomena they encounter, then they sense the worst, but still do not want to give up hard logic and proven procedures, and at the end they jump head-on into supernatural madness, trying to play according to the new rules.

W perspektywie całej powieści intryga jest dobrze rozpisana, różne wątki łączą się w spójną całość, a wszystkie części składowe historii pozostają interesujące w każdym momencie. To jest zdecydowanie ogromny plus Dzieci zapomnianych przez Boga, dzięki któremu kartki będziemy przewracać tylko szybciej i szybciej, aż nagle zdamy sobie sprawę, że nie wiedzieć kiedy dotarliśmy do tylnej okładki. Jedyny zarzut, jaki przychodzi mi w tym kontekście do głowy, to nieprzyjemnie zalatujący ex machiną moment odkrycia przez Jerry’ego jedynej prawdziwej słabości sił zła. Wybaczam to jednak autorowi bez chwili zawahania, biorąc pod uwagę, iż jest to zaledwie pojedyncze potknięcie na gruncie fabuły.