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’
 REMAIN
CALM DO NOT PANIC TAKE SHELTER WAIT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS
THE SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL Society is rocked by a sudden
increase in the number of violent assaults on individuals.
Christened 'Haters' by the media, the attackers strike
without warning, killing all who cross their path. The
assaults are brutal, remorseless and extreme: within
seconds, normally rational, self-controlled
people become frenzied, vicious killers. There are no
apparent links as a hundred random attacks become a
thousand, then hundreds of thousands. Everyone, irrespective
of gender, age, race or any other difference, has the
potential to become a victim - or a Hater. People are afraid
to go to work, afraid to leave their homes and,
increasingly, afraid that at any moment their friends, even
their closest family, could turn on them with ultra
violent intent. Waking up each morning, no matter how well
defended, everyone must now consider the fact that by the
end of the day, they might be dead. Or perhaps
worse, become a killer themselves. As the status quo
shifts, ATTACK FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER becomes the order
of the day... only, the answers might be much
different than what you expect....
Two premises made me want to pick
up David Moody’s
“Hater” and start reading it. First, the novel presentation
promises yet another apocalyptic scenario and with all the
everyday news that seems to point us toward the upcoming of
such an event I am always curious to read such novels.
Second, the David Moody’s novel will be adapted into a movie
being produced by Guillermo del Toro and directed by Juan
Antonio Bayona and since two movies that really impressed me
lately were “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Orphanage” my
curiosity reached new heights.
I’ll start by saying that almost
all I’ve imagined and expected from “Hater” were surpassed
through a shocking and disturbing story. David Moody writes
a horror novel but as I said on other occasions it is not
the blood or violence that attracts me the most to such a
novel, but the mental fear and the psychological terror. And
David Moody manages to create those with masterful talent.
The setting of his novel is our every day society and the
characters are average members of that society. All the
society put in motion in “Hater” is worrisome realistic and
the atmosphere of the story is kept almost persistently on
claustrophobic and paranoid levels.
Page after page my relationship
with the main character, Danny McCoyne, grew tighter and
tighter. This is one of the best and realistic characters I
met through my readings lately and David Moody excels in
building his character. The story is told in day to day
chapters and that made me follow Danny’s day to day
schedule, almost like following his journal. Every little
aspect of the characters’ life breaths realism, every one of
his interactions and relationship with the other characters
sounds true and is known by every one of us in a smaller and
greater degree (well, except the situation in which the
story puts him) and I could feel every single Danny’s
emotion in the proper way. I also liked a lot the fact that
I was as clueless about the whole situation and the outcome
of the story as the main character was. The other characters
are good as well, but their presence in the novel is not as
strong as of the main character.
From the first page the tension
builds to its boiling point and the general situation
constricted me in a powerful grip. The novel bursts into
action in its final part and the respective portion I’ve
swallowed in one bite. However, I believe that the novel
takes a bit too long until reaching the action point.
Although it is not a major problem after reading the final
part I would have liked to see more action from an earlier
part. Also, I would have liked to know how these events come
to happen, the reason that catalyzes these events and why
not everybody is affected.
“Hater” offered me from the first
setting an exhilarating and thrilling reading. David Moody
creates such a realistic scenario and a believable story
that I believe that his novel can give reasons for
nightmares. |
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