Book Review – Hater by David Moody
Books, Review | Professor Crazy | March 21, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Author: David Moody
Cover Artist: David Moody
Published By: Thomas Dunne Books
Binding: Hardcover
Publication Date February 2009
Hater is a novel of it’s Us versus Them, in which a “fundamental genetic difference between us and them” that has been dormant surfaces and causes what before seemed to be sane, rational people to viciously attack people, seemingly at random, as if they felt an intense hatred towards their victims. Reminiscent of books like Stephen King’s Cell, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, and movies like George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, Hater is a page-turning, captivating book that’ll cause your adrenal glands to go into overdrive and make you wonder if the person next to you on a bus or a loving family member might not suddenly turn into a crazed insane murderer hell-bent on smashing your face under their feet, or stabbing you in the gut with a broken bottle, two fates that happen to different people in Moody’s originally self-published on the Internet novel.
Is it derivative of other books and films? Yeah, sure – but what isn’t? And, the murderous “monsters” in this book are not ones that you can see physical differences in them that can let you recognize them for what they are, like with vampires or lumbering zombies. Instead, they look just like you and me – well, maybe you, anyway – normal people who might be your best friends or next door neighbors. Therein lies much of the horror that’s created by this concept – you never know who is a Hater or might “change” until it actually happens. Your husband, your wife, or your kids might be potential Haters, who will be transformed from your dearest loved ones to people who believe you’re out to kill them, so their best course of action is to take preemptive action and kill YOU first. It’s a tried-and-true variation of the vampire/zombie concept, but Moody takes it and makes it his own in a very entertaining book.
The novel is mostly told by a first-person narrator, though it’s interspersed with short italicized vignettes of people who either experience being attacked by a Hater, or who themselves are transformed into one, and attack someone in a bar, on a street, or a loved one. I really like this format, as it allows readers to see on a personal level how the strange changes are effecting people’s lives, and how the wave of transformations is effecting the society of England (the setting of the novel) and its inhabitants. People start to stay as much as possible away from crowds, and become afraid to look people in the eyes. Schools and businesses shut down. Grocery stores are looted. Much of everyday business and social life, like going to pubs and concerts, comes to a standstill.
Then, in a seriously “sick” (as in cool, but messed up) plot twist, the narrator becomes a Hater himself, and we read of how he does and and then why he rejoices in it. We get to learn how his perspective has shifted, when he changes and commits a murder himself, and rejoices in it. Like the American radio commentator Paul Harvey puts it, we get to learn “the rest of the story.” Though he still loves his family, the narrator thinks to himself he wouldn’t hesitate to kill them if he had the chance, other than one of his daughters who hasn’t changed yet, but whom he can tell by looking at that she is also a potential Hater.
The narrator comes to the realization that the two types of humans can’t live by side-by-side, and he feels the Haters are a superior type of humans. They are smarter, stronger, and free of moral compunctions. The Haters band together, and start planning how to overcome the numerical odds and take over the world. As the narrator puts it:
And I finally begin to see where this is going. At last I’m starting to understand why this whole crisis has seemed so endless and directionless from the outset. It’s us against them. There’s not going to be a tie or a ceasefire or any political negotiations to resolve this. There won’t be an end to this fighting until one side has prevailed and the enemy lies dead at their feet.
It’s kill or be killed.
Hate or be hated.
David Moody, as I mentioned, self-published Hater online, and without having an agent. He sold the film rights to it even before it became published in book form to Guillermo del Toro, the director of Hellboy I and II, Pan’s Labyrinth, and the upcoming Hobbit series, and to Mark Johnson, the producer of The Chronicles of Narnia. Not a shabby accomplishment, by anyone’s standards. If the movie manages to depict the goriness and the atmosphere of suspicion that develops and comes to pervade society in the novel, it will likely be a very good flick.
So, Hater, I would say, is a novel that’s well worth reading, if you like the horror genre. It’s a creepy look at what happens to society when friend turns against friend, neighbors and family members attack each other based on fear and hatred, and when you simply can’t tell who to trust or put your faith in (kind of like life now, except with even more random violence, killing, and death). If he keeps writing excellent, edge-of-your-seat novels such as this one, Moody is poised to become one of the horror genre’s brightest new authors. There’s already the second book in a planned trilogy that Moody will release, titled Dog Blood. If it approaches the level of suspense and horror and gore that Hater does, I, for one, will definitely want to add it to my reading list.
Related Entries Tags: David Moody, Hater, Horror, Thomas Dunne Books
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