Hater

Hater
David Moody
St. Martin’s Press, Apr 2010
ISBN: 978-0312608088

Hater is a novel of 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.

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.