Created By [Paperback]

Richard Christian Matheson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1994

Writer Alan White creates a hit series for television called The Mercenary, featuring unheard of levels of violence and sex, but when a killer begins to imitate events on the show, the real terror begins. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Screenwriter/producer Matheson's first novel dissects the high-octane Hollywood of network TV with blistering cynicism but ultimately fails to sustain psychological suspense. Writer/producer Alan White finally has a sure-fire hit with his series The Mercenary , a show that takes TV sex and violence to new levels of depravity. But he has also created a monster, unleashing his own dark side in the form of his fictional character, a vicious mercenary named A. E. Barek. As Alan's enemies are brutally murdered one by one, he realizes he must track down and destroy his creation before it consumes its creator. The novel's bitter portrait of Hollywood might have worked as a contemporary morality play, but the narrator's smug, hipper-than-thou tone and contrived humor render Alan himself nearly as unsavory as the soulless media barons he despises. Matheson--whose credits include the short story collection Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks and work on such TV series as Quincy , Magnum PI and Tales from the Crypt --devotes pages to secondary characters (a mysterious psychic, a comely detective) and undeveloped subplots while leaving the bizarre premise of Barek's transition from fiction to reality largely unexplored. It is as though Matheson loaded down a slam-bang screenplay with novelistic "depth," and in the process almost buried it.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Horrific satire of Hollywood-based network TV, with the satire more biting than the horror. First-novelist Matheson (Scars, 1987) knows his target: Son of veteran screen/TV-writer Richard Matheson, he's written for Quincy, Hunter, and Magnum PI. Matheson's TV-land is a cruel sea of Armani-suited sharks, few of whom have sharper teeth than writer Alan White, who's come up with the perfect remedy for the networks' rating blues: Give the public the graphic sex and violence they crave. White pitches his concept for The Mercenary--a hardcore gore-porn drama about a human killing machine--to one network, which bites. Months later, The Mercenary is the hottest TV show ever and White is on the A-list everywhere in a Tinseltown painted here in a garish light--a town where most ``actors couldn't've gotten work in claymation'' and a young network hotshot laughs like ``a satanic muppet.'' But then things go wrong--in both Matheson's plotting and White's life--as the novelist draws on a worn Frankenstein variant recently used by Chet Williamson (in Reign) and Stephen King (in The Dark Half): White's fictional creation, the mercenary A.E. Barek, comes to life. It takes several ghastly murders and maimings of those inimical to the series and its antihero (including the blinding of a harsh critic, and a rampage in a biker bar that bears an unhappy resemblance to scenes in the films Terminator II and Near Dark) for White to catch on fully. Weakened by his monster, who's sucking away his creator's life energy in order to solidify his own self, a repentant White confronts Barek in a dragged-out blood-brawl--one with an unexpectedly ironic ending. Matheson's slashing prose and wit draw blood, but his borrowings serve him ill. Still, an unusually clever horror novel. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam (August 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553566105
• ISBN-13: 978-0553566109
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,035,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars This book was not to my taste. Other People might enjoy it., January 29, 2010

By 

fairy-whispers (Qld, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Created by (Hardcover)

I found the plot of this book predictable and the character's felt fake. The format, which kept switching from script, to character, to real life, was extremely annoying and distracted from the story. Additionally, it wasn't really very thrilling or scary. I wouldn't bother reading this again.

4.0 out of 5 stars I think it was kinda short, March 23, 2005

By 

Tobias (Kokomo, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Created By (Hardcover)

Created By is really a good book over all. It reads like its a movie script. I was enthralled by the action sequences and it helped me decide what book to read next. I would also recommend reading The Dark Half by Stephen King. One thing I did notice though is that Richard Christian Matheson seems to have borrowed the little detail of having no lines on the palm side of the main character's hands.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars TV OR NOT TV, December 24, 2002

By 

Michael Butts (Berkeley Springs, WV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Created By (Paperback)

In "Created By," Matheson spares no one his cycnicism and obvious disdain for the television industry. The idea of a t.v. show with gratuitous sex, nudity, and violence was something unusual when the book was written, but now in the new millennium, we're getting so much of it, we've become numb to it. Matheson's work is so out of sync with itself, vaunting different styles, making all the characters as unlikeable as possible and coming up with an ending that truly negates the entire premise. Psychobabble nonsense.

Not Recommended