Hosts (Repairman Jack Novels) [Mass Market Paperback]

F. Paul Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Repairman Jack Novels | Publication Date: August 18, 2003

Repairman Jack returns in a sequel to the New York Times bestseller, The Tomb!

Repairman Jack has been tearing up the urban adventure scene ever since he was introduced in the New York Times bestseller The Tomb. As his fans know, Repairman Jack doesn’t deal with electronic appliances; he’s a situation fixer, no matter how weird or deadly a situation may be. Repairman Jack has no last name, no Social Security number, and no qualms when it comes to getting the job done—even if it means putting himself in serious danger.

After fifteen years of separation, Jack is contacted by his long-lost sister, Kate, to help her track down the source of her girlfriend Jeanette’s sudden trance-like behavior. Referred by a mysterious stranger who gives only Jack’s name and phone number, Kate is shocked to find out that the “repairman” she seeks is none other than her little brother—and not altogether happy to find out what little “Jackie” has been doing with himself for all these years. With Jack leading the way, Kate finds out that Jeannette’s behavior can be traced back to the experimental therapy she underwent for a brain tumor: now Jeannette’s brain and those of several other subjects are infected by a mutated virus. Like any good virus, it wants to multiply—and if Jack can’t stop the virus in its path, there will be deadly results.

Meanwhile, Jack is traveling on the 9 train when suddenly a passenger goes berserk and starts shooting at random—leaving Jack no choice but to throw himself into the spotlight by putting the shooter down. Worse for Jack, one of his fellow passengers is a reporter for the local tabloid, The Light, who sees Jack’s heroism as his ticket to journalistic stardom. The reporter promises to make Jack a celebrity hero, a household name—which could mean the end of Repairman Jack as we know him.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wilson's latest Repairman Jack thriller (after All the Rage) shows the long-running series still creatively malleable and full of surprises. Each begins with the identity of the latest person to seek the urban mercenary's unorthodox skills: his beloved sister Kate, who's unaware at first it's her younger brother's job to "fix" problems and injustices that fall outside the usual legal boundaries. Kate asks Jack to investigate an apparent cult that her lover, Jeannette, has fallen in with while recovering from experimental viral treatment for a brain tumor, and Jack finds that the virus, tainted with a contaminant that has made it sentient, is organizing infected human hosts into "the Unity," a hive consciousness single-mindedly devoted to spreading itself throughout the world. Though the Unity's insidious ramblings about the joys of collectivism recall classic SF parables of communist mind control, Wilson swathes Unity's rhetoric around several interlocking subplots Kate's coming out as a lesbian, Jack's avoidance of a crusading reporter whose efforts to lionize him in print would destroy his anonymity to leaven the fantastical intrigue with provocative observations on the roles that individuality, privacy, self-interest and self-sacrifice play in our society. Wilson's fans, who know to expect nonstop action and a hero who can seem a "cryptofascist comic book character," will no doubt be pleased by the more humanized Jack on display here, as well as an ending that packs an emotional wallop even as it sets the stage for his next eagerly anticipated adventure.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Repairman Jack is a wonderful character, ultra-competent but still vulnerable . . . . Wilson strolls into X-Files territory and makes it his own, keeping the action brisk and the level of suspense steadily rising."-San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (August 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081256166X
• ISBN-13: 978-0812561661
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #144,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Occult

More About the Author

I was born toward the end of the Jurassic Period and raised in New Jersey where I misspent my youth playing with matches, poring over Uncle Scrooge and E.C. comics, reading Lovecraft, Matheson, Bradbury, and Heinlein, listening to Chuck Berry and Alan Freed, and watching Soupy Sales and horror movies. I sold my first story in the Cretaceous Period and have been writing ever since. (Even that dinosaur-killer asteroid couldn't stop me.)

I've written in just about every genre - science fiction, fantasy, horror, a children's Christmas book (with a monster, of course), medical thrillers, political thrillers, even a religious thriller (long before that DaVinci thing). So far I've got about 33 books and 100 or so short stories under my name in 24 languages.

THE KEEP, THE TOMB, HARBINGERS, and BY THE SWORD all appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers List. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS won the first Prometheus Award in 1979; THE TOMB received the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books. My novelette "Aftershock" received the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for short fiction. DYDEETOWN WORLD was on the young adult recommended reading lists of the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, among others (God knows why). I received the prestigious Inkpot Award from San Diego ComiCon and the Pioneer Award from the RT Booklovers Convention. I'm listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who's Who in America. (That plus $3 will buy you a girly coffee at Starbuck's.)

My novel THE KEEP was made into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie (screenplay and direction by Michael Mann) from Paramount in 1983. My original teleplay "Glim-Glim" first aired on Monsters. An adaptation of my short story "Menage a Trois" was part of the pilot for The Hunger series that debuted on Showtime in July 1997.

And then there's the epic saga of the Repairman Jack film. After 14 years in development hell with half a dozen writers and at least a dozen scripts, THE TOMB is finally moving toward production as "Repairman Jack" from Beacon Films and Touchstone. The plan is to make Jack a franchise character. (Gotta tell you: all the years of this has worn me out.)

I've done a few collaborations too. One with Steve Spruill on NIGHTKILL, and a bunch with Matthew J. Costello. Matt and I did world design, characters, and story arcs for Sci-Fi Channel's FTL NewsFeed, a daily newscast set 150 years in the future. An FTL NewsFeed was the first program broadcast by the new channel when it launched in September 1992. We took over scripting the Newsfeeds (the equivalent of a 4-1/2 hour movie per year) in 1994 and continued until its cancellation in December 1996.

We did script and design for MATHQUEST WITH ALADDIN (Disney Interactive - 1997) with voices by Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters, and the same for The Interactive DARK HALF for Orion Pictures, based on the Stephen King novel, but this project was orphaned when MGM bought Orion. (It's officially vaporware now.) We even wrote a stageplay, "Syzygy," which opened in St. Augustine, Florida, in March, 2000.

I'm tired of talking about myself, so I'll close by saying that I live and work at the Jersey Shore where I'm usually pounding away on a new Repairman Jack novel and haunting eBay for strange clocks and Daddy Warbucks memorabilia. (No, we don't have a cat.)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hosts: Repairman Jack Lives On!, March 5, 2002

By 

E. J. Lain (Broomall, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hosts (Hardcover)

If you haven't read any of the Repairman Jack books, you don't know what you're missing. Buy them at Amazon today! Start with The Tomb and work your way up Hosts, the latest installment in the Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson. It proves that you can't keep a good man down!

Of all the trains in the city, the gunman just had to pick the one that Jack was riding. Jack saves a trainload of passengers in the first few pages of the book, almost has his identity blown by an overzealous reporter and then has to help his long lost sister get her friend out of what appears to be a weird cult. Jack is back and at his best. Get ready for a wild ride that only Repairman Jack can provide. I couldn't put this one down! This has something for everyone. Die-hard Jack fans will learn more about his past and be delighted to know that he's got some adventures ahead! Looks like the Otherness has a thing for him and it's not letting go. I can't wait for the next book!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The most frustrating RJ book, May 19, 2004

By 

S. Glaser (champaign, il United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hosts (Repairman Jack Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm a Repairman Jack fan. So I enjoyed this book. If you're also a fan, you'll probably enjoy it, too. But many times I wanted to grab author Wilson by the lapels and say, "What the beejeebers are you doing?" Because the subtitle of this book should be, "Repairman Jack gets stupid."

Jack does have several wonderful moments -- with the subplots, especially. But he spends most of this book being uncharacteristically and inexplicably (not to mention unforgiveably) dense. The only rationaliziation for his obtuseness is to stretch the book out, and Wilson is usually above such sloppy plotting.

For any less enjoyable character and writing, this would rate only two stars. Since Jack remains so much fun, this squeaks by with three.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Return of Repairman Jack, August 10, 2001

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Hosts (Repairman Jack) (Hardcover)

When Jeanette Vega is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor she is offered the chance to participate in an experimental treatment program using a tailored virus. A miracle cure follows, but what she or her lover Kate Iverson hadn't bargained for was the strange personality change which followed the treatment. Slowly but surely Jeanette is pulling away from Kate, and joins in a cult-like enclave with her fellow patients. When Kate is given Repairman Jack's card as a possible source of help, she makes contact. To the amazement of both Jack and Kate, they have already met - Jack is the brother who dropped out of their family after their mother was killed.

Jack has his own problems to deal with. Caught on a subway train with a mass murderer, he goes into action, shoots the killer and saves dozens of lives. Unfortunately, another passenger is Sandy Palmer, a third string reporter for a New York scandal sheet, who realizes this story is a chance to make it into the big time. Jack, who has made a career out of being totally anonymous, sees only that publicity will destroy his hard won independence. He is willing to do everything in his power to deflect Sandy's well meant attention.

In a Manhattan Delicatessen Joe and Stan Koslowski are reading Sandy's report on the train shootings when they realize that the hero Sandy is describing is their old nemesis. The brothers once made a living blowing people up until Jack was hired to return the favor. He left them alive, but destroyed up their home, their stash, and their reputation. Joe, disfigured in the final conflagration has only one thing on his mind - revenge.

And spread throughout the city are eight people, all treated by a mutated virus which has changed them utterly. Their brain tumors are gone, but so is their personality. Instead they are united by a telepathic hive mind. The virus that drives them has only one goal, to survive, to mutate, and to spread until it is the master of its world.

F. Paul Wilson weaves all these threads together in the kind of tightly plotted novel which is characteristic of the Repairman Jack series. This time, however, Jack may be in over his head. He may be able to stave off Sandy, and he may be able to befuddle the Koslowski's, but he has no hope of finding a cure for a mysterious virus. For once, the Repairman lacks the tools to do the job. It will take far more than Jack to resolve this problem, and he finds himself blocked at every turn.

This is a typical Wilson novel, well plotted, but a bit thin in characterization. After five novels in the series Jack had developed little, nor has Gia, his girlfriend. In fact all of the original characters are just as they were. This makes "Hosts" comfortable to read, but the characters are now so familiar they are almost parodies of themselves. The only real twist in this novel is that Jack must come to terms with Kate's homosexuality. A factor that deserved more attention than it received.

The Repairman Jack novels started out as horror stories with a strong supernatural bent, and have gradually become suspense stories with a slight touch of the spooky. The only hint of the weird is a strange Russian lady with a white Malamute who warns both Kate and Jack of trouble. It is she wo tells us that there is more to come. This has been an eminently readable series, and I look forward to far more of Repairman Jack.

Marc Ruby - for The Mystery Reader