Hybrid [Paperback]

Shaun Hutson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 2003

Christopher Ward signed up with a literary agency on 12th December 1984 wanting to be SO rich it would be obscene. And he IS a success - but there is a price to pay. Nothing lasts forever...As his writing ability begins to decline and publishers reject his books, he starts to drink. Sleeping badly, pacing around day and night, he gets a breakthrough. But is it? Pages of a novel pour out every night from the computer he's sure he's turned off and he doesn't remember doing the writing. He sets up a video to see what is going on - and sees ape-like shapes shuffling around. And the video shows HIM murdering a prostitute. What IS going on? Then his literary agent comes round and shows that his life is the price he pays for previous success...

Editorial Reviews

Review

'This offering from Hutson is a hybrid in both name and nature, and is well worth reading for the cleverness of the plotting and the sheer page-turning compulsion of the climactic section' - GOOD BOOK GUIDE ** 'Hutson cleverly intermingles Ward's unravelling life with the violent corpse-strewn life of the book within its pages. The ending should be predictable, yet somehow it isn't. Exciting stuff from the 'Godfather of Gore' - SFX Magazine

About the Author

Shaun Hutson is a bestselling author of horror fiction and has written novels under eight different pseudonyms. He has also contributed stories to 'Kerrang' and 'Raw' and used to host Sky TV's 'Monsters of Rock' programme.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown P/B (April 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0751533084
• ISBN-13: 978-0751533088
• Product Dimensions: 4.3 x 1.3 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,603,249 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Two stories in one is one story too many, April 17, 2011

By 

Tghu Verd - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hybrid (Paperback)

I'm not sure how exactly to classify "Hybrid" - Shaun Hutson writes in the horror genre but this is not really horror, well not as readers of a stand-out author such as Steven King might expect it.

But that aside, the main problem I had with "Hybrid" is that the story is ostensibly about blocked author Christopher Ward's problems with life set against his confusion as a novel starts appearing on his computer that he can't recall writing. No problem, he drinks a lot, so maybe that's it! But that novel, about counter terrorist agent Sean Doyle, is way more interesting than Ward's descent into madness...or whatever.

I guess there is a point to Hutson making Ward pretty much unlikeable, what with his self-imposed angst that his wonderful life is slowly crashing down through every fault of his own, and then imbibing Doyle with a such strong sense of macho "can do", but it eluded me and ultimately I became only more interested in reading Doyle's story; Ward left me cold.

It takes around 330 pages before the light goes on in Ward's mind that perhaps "bad things are happening", and by then it was way too late - any dramatic tension had been drained by Doyle's story taking up more of the preceding book than Ward's.

Overall "Hybrid" is a very ordinary and uninspired read based on a premise that does not support the plot (what is not ordinary are pages 336 to 339 that contain ten words between them and just come across as amateur and for good measure the style is repeated a couple of chapters later).

But Hutson has actually written a pretty good thriller, Doyle's story - you just have to labour through Ward's pointless existence to read it.