The Forgotten Island

Unless you're particularly skillful, or lucky maybe, there comes a point in most horror books where the action ramps up but the immersion can slacken as events get unrealistic and too far-fetched, when authors stop considering all the hard work they put into world building and character development and throw caution to the wind while opting for jumps and screams at various levels of diabolical violence. It takes incredible strength of character to pause, back off, calm down and reset. Plus a big dollop of writing skill.

A bit like jumping off a skyscraper: there's no way to stop the descent before splattering onto the pavement and you're dead by then anyway.

Thankfully, David Sodergren manages to break the fall, which is why even though his style of horror is incredibly silly and sarcastic, it retains just enough credibility to keep on track before going too far, before throwing your arms in the air and chucking the book at the wall in guffawing disgust.

This is another fun read by DS and my fourth so far. Although far from perfect and not his best book - Maggie's Grave is better - his mix of gore and humor just somehow do it for me.

This is an impressive debut novel and I'll be buddy reading Night Shoot next, his second novel and my fifth.

The Forgotten Island has surprisingly accomplished character development with really strong and identifiable protagonists, weaselly moral weaklings and a good array of annoyingly disposable cannon fodder, as well as lots of gritty wit and cynicism, possibly even misanthropic tendencies in a world filled with creatures screaming out to mutilate, be mutilated and get good and gone.

David Sodergren knows how to write gruesome horror from a local and colloquial perspective that boomerangs back real fears and banal truths such as how do I look in this silly blouse or is my hair a mess tonight, being able to nip the gore in the bud and come back to earth when he feels like it.

The Forgotten Island is set in sweltering Thailand, with parallels to many other books: The Beach by Alex Garland; The Island of Dr Moreau; The Troop; and even The Lord of the Rings and a slice of arachnophobia.

I recommend this and other books by the author.

They're:

👉 Inexpensive

👉 Accessible

👉 Gory

👉 Fun and fantastically sarcastic

There's something about the disposable silliness of these books that makes them curiously essential.