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A review by madarauchiha
The Colony by F.G. Cottam
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.25
✨🌠 my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara 🌠✨
EDIT 2/8/2021 Hi. I'm from the future. Or past, however you wanna read this. So here's the thing, right? I kinda thought we left evil Black people / Magical N*gro shit back in the 1950s or whatever with TinTin Goes To The Congo and all the African stereotypes with the big red rubber circle mouths and chicken bones in their hair.
Yeah, sorry, medium spoilers but this book is that. All of the books are that. It never changes, there's no plot twist of oh, the slave ship captain actually was just christian evil, possessed by the devil, the other plot thing was a misdirection. I can't rec these books, and I'm leaving these reviews as a fair warning. Are they well writen? I guess. Were they scary? Not at all, to me. I'd say Pessl's Night Film or Nevill's Last Days novels were scarier. And even then those kinda dragged. If you must read a book from this trilogy, just read the last one. IT fills you in on the first two books so you don't have to waste 4-6 hours reading those, wherein jack shit really happens until the very end. And yes, that does consistently happen.
It was an interesting plot, but maybe a little disappointing. I started the book expecting a haunted island with paranormal themes going on. What I got was a mystery focused plot with rotating characters on and off the island. It was very slow paced and takes its time setting up the characters while it's unraveling the plot.
The paranormal plot twist? Pretty much antiblack racism. As you might've seen in the plot, Seamus Ballantyne was a slave ship captain until he had a 'sudden change' of heart. If you guessed that was due to the horrors of the slave trade, you're half correct. If you guess Magical N*gro, you'd be fully correct. Yes, it's that trope employed by Cottam.
The full spoilers for the plot is as follows. Minor slavery, antiblack racism. This is narrated by the ship's temporary[?] medical officer. The ship Ballantyne commands has stopped at a port to load up on 'human cargo'. All the people who are being loaded into the ship are scared and cowering. Except for one man. He has tattoos and a strong unscared gaze and his teeth are sharpened into points and dyed crimson. This is the 'shaman' aka 'magical n word'. Long story short, the man says he's a magician and that they should treat him like a royal guest or else. Ballantyne abuses and kills this man. The man curses Ballantyne so his future daughter will be born then die young and become a demon to haunt him forever. However the man on his death bed admits he regrets this decision but cannot remove the curse. He dies, the curse comes true. Site note. The medical officer who is witness to all this is One Of The Good White Peoples, btw. To the point where he wraps the man's body in a bedsheet before he too is thrown over board like other people who were enslaved.
The thing that's irritating is that Cottam has to do this stupid magical brown person thing in the first place. The concept of the slave ship captain getting involved with Black Magic and potentially summoning something he shouldn't have, or couldn't control was RIGHT THERE. Hell, you could have made it that the Hope Colony disappearance was Ballantyne doing some human sacrifice with his followers to ensure that the Evil Demon never left the island and ravage the rest of the world. It's really amazing how authors can plot out entire worlds, but it never occurs to them hey, this shit is racist, and it's not the 1950s anymore. Maybe try something refreshingly new and interesting.
re African Slave Trade.
▪ Capture would signal the same fate because captives are routinely sacrificed to their pagan Gods. The king ruling one country in West Africa will not trade a single slave with the white merchants, Captain Ballantyne told me. All of his war captives become victims of human sacrifice instead. This king is called Simonal. The land he rules is called Albache.
None of this is real / non fictional as far as I know. Like this just doesn't exist, historically. It's literally magical n word.
The one thing that does irritate me about this is how scenes abruptly changing and smoosh together. At least put a visual line break because goddanm it gets confusing to read about a lady smooching a man and abruptly we're in the POV of a discharged military man getting his ass beat by a ghost. Is the military man getting smooched suddenly? wth?! For non spoiler example, I mean.
It's very slow paced, but not because it's padded or doesn't know how to move the plot. It has a large rotating cast and in order to move the plot forward without feel like a deus ex machina info dump it needs to visit each one when it can. I don't mind this because it kinda maintains the tension and keeps things interesting.
Like another [disappointed] reviewer mentioned it takes a while to get going, and the haunted island location doesn't feature too heavily until the last third of the book.
The fucking weird thing is the racist / antisemitic character who thinks aliens abducted / recruited human beings away. Like... lok at this stupid shit.
"▪ ‘No. It was really the other way around. I looked, as a child, at the anomalies of history. The Aztecs constructed buildings of breathtaking intricacy yet an invention as fundamental as the wheel apparently never even occurred to them. Colossal sarsens hewn from a Welsh quarry somehow got to Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire to form Stonehenge; a structure of such geometric complexity we still debate its true purpose. Hauled there by Bronze Age man? Erected by Bronze Age man? I don’t think so. I could go on. But your readers have most of them heard me argue this stuff already on their television screens.’ "
By the way, if you were wondering why there's so much dated homophobia?
EDIT 2/8/2021 Hi. I'm from the future. Or past, however you wanna read this. So here's the thing, right? I kinda thought we left evil Black people / Magical N*gro shit back in the 1950s or whatever with TinTin Goes To The Congo and all the African stereotypes with the big red rubber circle mouths and chicken bones in their hair.
Yeah, sorry, medium spoilers but this book is that. All of the books are that. It never changes, there's no plot twist of oh, the slave ship captain actually was just christian evil, possessed by the devil, the other plot thing was a misdirection. I can't rec these books, and I'm leaving these reviews as a fair warning. Are they well writen? I guess. Were they scary? Not at all, to me. I'd say Pessl's Night Film or Nevill's Last Days novels were scarier. And even then those kinda dragged. If you must read a book from this trilogy, just read the last one. IT fills you in on the first two books so you don't have to waste 4-6 hours reading those, wherein jack shit really happens until the very end. And yes, that does consistently happen.
It was an interesting plot, but maybe a little disappointing. I started the book expecting a haunted island with paranormal themes going on. What I got was a mystery focused plot with rotating characters on and off the island. It was very slow paced and takes its time setting up the characters while it's unraveling the plot.
The paranormal plot twist? Pretty much antiblack racism. As you might've seen in the plot, Seamus Ballantyne was a slave ship captain until he had a 'sudden change' of heart. If you guessed that was due to the horrors of the slave trade, you're half correct. If you guess Magical N*gro, you'd be fully correct. Yes, it's that trope employed by Cottam.
The full spoilers for the plot is as follows. Minor slavery, antiblack racism.
The thing that's irritating is that Cottam has to do this stupid magical brown person thing in the first place. The concept of the slave ship captain getting involved with Black Magic and potentially summoning something he shouldn't have, or couldn't control was RIGHT THERE. Hell, you could have made it that the Hope Colony disappearance was Ballantyne doing some human sacrifice with his followers to ensure that the Evil Demon never left the island and ravage the rest of the world. It's really amazing how authors can plot out entire worlds, but it never occurs to them hey, this shit is racist, and it's not the 1950s anymore. Maybe try something refreshingly new and interesting.
re African Slave Trade.
▪ Capture would signal the same fate because captives are routinely sacrificed to their pagan Gods. The king ruling one country in West Africa will not trade a single slave with the white merchants, Captain Ballantyne told me. All of his war captives become victims of human sacrifice instead. This king is called Simonal. The land he rules is called Albache.
None of this is real / non fictional as far as I know. Like this just doesn't exist, historically. It's literally magical n word.
The one thing that does irritate me about this is how scenes abruptly changing and smoosh together. At least put a visual line break because goddanm it gets confusing to read about a lady smooching a man and abruptly we're in the POV of a discharged military man getting his ass beat by a ghost. Is the military man getting smooched suddenly? wth?! For non spoiler example, I mean.
It's very slow paced, but not because it's padded or doesn't know how to move the plot. It has a large rotating cast and in order to move the plot forward without feel like a deus ex machina info dump it needs to visit each one when it can. I don't mind this because it kinda maintains the tension and keeps things interesting.
Like another [disappointed] reviewer mentioned it takes a while to get going, and the haunted island location doesn't feature too heavily until the last third of the book.
The fucking weird thing is the racist / antisemitic character who thinks aliens abducted / recruited human beings away. Like... lok at this stupid shit.
"▪ ‘No. It was really the other way around. I looked, as a child, at the anomalies of history. The Aztecs constructed buildings of breathtaking intricacy yet an invention as fundamental as the wheel apparently never even occurred to them. Colossal sarsens hewn from a Welsh quarry somehow got to Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire to form Stonehenge; a structure of such geometric complexity we still debate its true purpose. Hauled there by Bronze Age man? Erected by Bronze Age man? I don’t think so. I could go on. But your readers have most of them heard me argue this stuff already on their television screens.’ "
By the way, if you were wondering why there's so much dated homophobia?
F.G. Cottam was born and brought up in Southport in Lancashire, attending the University of Kent at Canterbury where he took a degree in history before embarking on a career in journalism in London. He lived for 20 years in North Lambeth and during the 1990s was prominent in the lad-mag revolution, launch editing FHM, inventing Total Sport magazine and then launching the UK edition of Men's Health. He is the father of two and lives in Kingston-upon-Thames. His fiction is thought up over daily runs along the towpath between Kingston and Hampton Court Bridges. https://us.macmillan.com/author/fgcottam
The homophobia was a lot. And out of no where. Well not entirely out of no where because it's the two army men and yeah, that's what I expect out of british army soldiers characters written by a dude who encouraged shit like 'lad mags'. Homophobia and misogyny. Also the ghost, idk why the ghost is using the q slur. I guess they're sentient enough to learn homophobia. Yes there's blatant homophobic slurs used.
The finale was also a little... abrupt. Sad. Vague. The heros prevail, but heavily misogynistic because the woman needs saving and why is it always men who are the heroes? We can't have a woman character with a spine? At least say some witty, defiant lines before getting killed, in the least? All of the female characters, women and girls, feel like props for the men characters, to be real here.
Anyways, the last two? or so chapters were the ending. I assume the author was intending this to be a trilogy, hence the meandering slow plot and sudden ending. This was pretty much the set up and tease for the rest of the books. I understood this was a trilogy before heading into it, so I'm fine with the ending insofar as to be abrupt.
I do wish the ghost demon whatever confrontation took a little longer. We had the priest! Snaps fingers! And now we don't! Just like all the other deaths! For all the taunting the ghost does for the mainland characters [I think?] it doesn't waste a second with the island characters.
I'd venture you could probably skip this one and head straight into the 2nd and 3rd books if you just want horror. Don't quote me on that as I have only read 6 chapters into the 2nd book as of typing this up. Fake edit make that finished the second chapter. Yeah you could skip this, or come back to it once you're done with books 2 and 3.
Would I recommend this? Ehhhhh.... If you like mysteries that are historical, paranormal with a bit of demonic, and slow paced, yes. Otherwise you may be frustrated with the slowness and lack of prominent horror.
major alcohol, alcoholism, amputation, antiblack racism, drug use smoking tobacco, gore, homophobia, homophobic q slur, racism, religion catholic, scars, slavery, suicide, torture,
medium afganistan war crime, domestic violence, infidelity, medical content, murder, religion, slavery, torture, wars,
minor ableist c slur, alcohol, alcoholism, alister crowley, body horror, cancer, child death, drug abuse, excrement, forced institutionalization, gore, mental illness, murder, parent death, sexual content, suicide, suicide ideation, thatcherism, vomit, war crimes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Gore, Physical abuse, Drug use, Suicide, Alcoholism, and Homophobia
Moderate: Medical content, Murder, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Torture, Slavery, and War
Minor: Ableism, Excrement, Gore, Mental illness, Sexism, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, War, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cancer, Murder, Suicide, Child death, Death of parent, and Forced institutionalization