Review of Hater by David Moody

SFFaudio Review

Science Fiction Audiobook - Hater by David MoodyHater
By David Moody; Read by Gerard Doyle
6 CDs – Approx. 7 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781433292866
Themes: / Horror / England / Apocalypse /
A modern take on the classic “apocalyptic” novel, Hater tells the story of Danny McCoyne, an everyman forced to contend with a world gone mad, as society is rocked by a sudden increase in violent assaults. Christened “Haters” by the media, the attackers strike without warning and seemingly without reason. Within seconds, normally rational, self-controlled people become frenzied, vicious killers. As the carnage mounts, one thing soon is clear: everyone, irrespective of race, gender, age, or class, has the potential to become either a Hater or a victim. At any moment, even friends and family can turn on one another with violent intent. In the face of this mindless terror, all McCoyne can do is secure his family, seek shelter, and watch as the world falls apart. But when he bolts the front door, the question remains: Is he shutting the danger out or locking it in?

I think point of view is very important to telling a story. In most of Hater author David Moody seems to be actively working to subvert POV. Scenes that should be described from a third person perspective, like extended action by a non-participant, shouldn’t be told from a first person present tense – at least they shouldn’t if you’re already playing with other POVs.

This problem with Hater might not be so obvious had any of the characters been anything other than depressingly repellent. Danny McCoyne is supposed to be an everyman. Apparently David Moody thinks an everyman has a crappy job, a hateful boss, a shrewish wife, and a sackful of unruly, selfish kids. One review called this section of the book an evocation of “the quiet desperation of an ordinary life.” Another wrote: “[Danny’s] inner monologue consists mainly of complaining about his personal and financial situation.” Myself, I think that Moody has deliberately created, in Danny McCoyne, a character so satisfied in his blame game in-authenticity, so full of what the existentialists call “bad faith,” that you are supposed to be hoping to have him shocked into action, into taking control of his life and living in the world. The problem with this theory is that if its true Hater shouldn’t really be a novel. It’s not a good idea to have your audience sitting through four hours of blech to get to the revelation, however revelatory. And yet, about 5/6th of the way through this novel the thing that I’d been waiting for, hoping for, almost demanding really, finally happened. And, it happened pretty much as I expected it would. Perhaps if Danny McCoyne been a touch brighter he would have seen it coming too. I don’t read a lot of zombie fiction, or zombie-like ficition, but the idea Moody presents is a good one – it just shouldn’t have been done this way. Perhaps another problem here is that Hater seems to want to exist in a world in which books like I Am Legend had never been written. There’s a mainstream pitch to this novel that I can’t imagine has actually increased sales any.

Here are some more of the silly mistakes in Hater: Apparently there is no internet in David Moody’s England. Danny McCoyne’s family basically lives in front of the television, and most conversations and arguments that they have are about what they see on the TV. That’s just retarded. I know there are some people out there who just refuse to participate in the internet, but I can’t imagine that when the television stops even pretending to deliver relevant news that a family, desperate for some facts about what’s happening in the outside world, wouldn’t turn on their computer. Also dumb is that the exact location of events are never revealed, we get plenty of evidence that the story is set in a mid-sized English city. Danny lives in a “flat,” the police carry “truncheons” and the buses are double-deckers – the Prime Minster is mentioned. It’s England. We got it. But then with the cadence and dialogue also smacks of English suburbia why isn’t the place just out and named then? Well, maybe it was, and then it was edited out in some kind of half-hearted attempt to appeal to American audience. Yes, my friends Hater is a novel with strategic word changes. There are both “football fans” and “soccer fans” in Hater. I hate this kind of sad sack editing. It’s in the intellectually diminutive tradition of Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Zone (aka Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone). It doesn’t make me a Hater-fan it just makes me a hater.

I quite enjoyed the Darker Projects audio drama adaptation of Moody’s novel Autumn. Autumn was later adapted into a truly terrible film. Apparently Hater has been optioned as well. I think the film will be better than the movie, by at least 4 hours. I’m not sure about narrator Gerard Doyle, his delivery is very English, very approriate, I guess, but this material doesn’t exactly make me associate good with the sound of his voice. The cover, made for Blackstone Audio, is a vast improvement over the truly uninspiring paperbook edition.

Incidentally, there’s a podcast preview (with a different narrator) available through iTunes |HERE|.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #057

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #057 – Jesse and Scott talk about the recently arrived audiobooks

Talked about on today’s show:
Penguin Audio, Stephen King, Brian Murphy of The Silver Key blog, The Dark Half, The Tommyknockers, Christine, It, reading all of Stephen King’s books, Brilliance Audio, Directive 51 by John Barnes, The Stand, Hater by David Moody, “the worst sin that any book can commit”, Angelology by Danielle Trussoni, reading out loud vs. reading in your head, Lost Fleet: Victorious by Jack Campbell, Audible Frontiers, Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks, The Player Of Games, RadioArchive.cc, audio drama, State Of The Art, the GoodReads.com HARD SF group, Hard SF, space opera, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman |READ OUR REVIEW|, the phenomenon of characters named “Jack“, Jack Bauer from 24, Armor by John Steakley, “Jack Crow”, recycling the names of characters, Vampire$ by John Steakley, the hidden history of Jack, why people like 24, Jane Slayre by Charlotte Brontë and Sherri Browning Erwin, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the trend of remixing public domain classics with modern monsters, Dancing On The Head Of A Pin by Thomas E. Sniegoski, “magic sword book, with angels”, The Invention Of Lying, WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Dying Earth: Cugel’s Saga by Jack Vance, The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, The Android In The Iron Mask, Andre Norton, Web Of The Witch World, Year Of The Unicorn, Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, what is YA (young adult) fiction?, is YA is for adults too?, Little Brother by Cory Doctorow |READ OUR REVIEW|, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, Harry Potter, Paul Bishop of the Bish’s Beat blog loves YA books!, would Dirty Harry read YA?, the ability to affect the world, The Science Of Harry Potter, riding on the coattails of another book, the Open Court Presents podcast, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, Firefly‘s philosophy episode Objects In Space, Hitchcock And Philosophy, Alfred Hitchcock‘s Rope, Anne Is A Man, the Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast, Dan Carlin’s HardCore History “Show 33 – (BLITZ) Old School Toughness”, Murdoch Mysteries, Corner Gas, Dog River, Saskatchewan, Connie Willis wrote a whole book about bells, Bellwether by Connie Willis, Scott’s Pick Of The Week: Blackout by Connie Willis, The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Connie Willis, time travel, Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, reading about books (in books), Castle, fictional fictional characters (a great wikipedia entry), Bones, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy by Hawthorne Abendsen, is Hawthorne Abendsen supposed to be an alternate universe Robert A. Heinlein?, Colorado, “deeply nested fiction”, Ellery Queen, Dr. John Watson, Swords And Deviltry by Fritz Leiber, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Sword Of Sorcery, Blackstone Audio, The Musashi Flex by Steve Perry, Peter David, the Audio Drama Review blog, James Snowe’s review of The Zombie Astronaut’s Frequency Of Fear, W. Ralph Walters, awards, Startide Rising by David Brin |READ OUR REVIEW|, Kiln People by David Brin, Surrogates is “a big-old-fashioned-clunky-80s-action-movie”, Halfway To The Grave by Jeaniene Frost, The Twilight Zone Companion, 2nd Edition by Marc Scott Zicree, King Kong |READ OUR REVIEW|, Orson Scott Card, Dercum Audio, A Dirge For Clowntown by James Powell, Dreamsongs Vol. 1 by George R.R. Martin |READ OUR REVIEW|, The Road To Science Fiction, Science Fiction 101 (aka Worlds Of Wonder) edited by Robert Silverberg, Home Is The Hunter by Henry Kuttner, Honest Roger Belamy, New York, The Monsters by Robert Sheckley, Wonder Audio, Fondly Fahrenheit, Scanners Live In Vain by Cordwainer Smith, Little Black Bag by C.M. Kornbluth, Day Million by Frederik Pohl, perhaps the first ever singularity story, Jesse’s Pick Of The Week: Pride Of Baghdad, the second Gulf War, anthropomorphic fiction, Baghdad.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals: Four from Blackstone Audio

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Fantasy Audiobook - The Sharing Knife Book 4: Horizon by Lois McMaster BujoldThe Sharing Knife Book 4: Horizon
By Lois McMaster Bujold; Read by Bernadette Dunne
13 CDs – 15.5 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781433235931

In a world where malices, remnants of ancient magic, can erupt with life-destroying power, only soldier-sorcerer Lakewalkers have mastered the ability to kill them. But Lakewalkers keep their uncanny secrets—and themselves—from the farmers they protect. So when patroller Dag rescued farm girl Fawn, neither expected to fall in love, marry, and defy both their kin to seek new solutions to the split between their peoples.

As Dag’s powers have grown, so has his frustration with the Lakewalkers’ rigid mores. Fawn and Dag see that their world is changing and that the traditional Lakewalker practices cannot hold the malices at bay forever. Yet for all the customs that the couple have challenged, they will soon be confronted with their worst crisis yet. When the old traditions fail, can their untried new ways stand against their world’s deadliest foe?
 
 
Science Fiction Audiobook - The Galaxy Trilogy, Vol. 3 by Manly Wade Wellman, Wallace West, and Murray LeinsterA Galaxy Trilogy, Vol. 3
By Manly Wade Wellman, Wallace West, and Murray Leinster; Read by Tom Weiner
11 CDs – 13 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781433292781

Three more stories from the pioneers of the early days of pulp science fiction!

Giants from Eternity by Manly Wade Wellman
Scientist Oliver Norfleet and his college buddy Spencer DuPogue are called by the Board of Science to investigate a mysteriously expanding red blight that is growing around the site of a meteor crash. With the help of the daughter of a famous scientist, they soon discover that the blight is not only alive but that it consumes nearly everything in its path. When their own abilities prove inadequate, they are forced to turn to the greatest scientific minds that history has to offer. Norfleet and DuPogue and the Giants from Eternity must try to stop the blight before the entire Earth is consumed.

Lords of Atlantis by Wallace West
Once, when Atlantis was ruled by the Titans, they were replaced by the red-skinned, red-haired Martians, Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, and others. Teraf, prince of Hellas, was particularly struck by the changes Earth had wrought in Martians during the period of their rule. The rays of the earthly sun had burned their sensitive skin almost as black as those of Nubians, and to meet the stress of Terran gravitation, they had developed enormous muscles that sat poorly on their slender frames and gave them the deceitful appearance of strong men in a circus. The Afhas, those of mixed Martian and early parentage, apparently had absorbed the best traits of both. Like Teraf himself, all had blazing red hair and the slim grace of their Martian forebears, plus a better adaptation to their earthly conditions. But the Titans chafed under the so-called benevolent progress of their rulers, and they plotted rebellion.

City on the Moon by Murray Leinster
Life on the moon, under anything less than optimal conditions, had always been a nightmare, and as Joe Kenmore and his colleague Moreau drove back to the City on the Moon, on the day the Earth shuttle was due to land, the nearby mountain supporting critical elements of the shuttle’s landing mechanisms crumbled, causing an avalanche and chaos. Optimal conditions were nowhere in sight that day as Kenmore and Moreau’s investigations lead to their conclusion that explosions had been responsible for the avalanche. They realized that they were in a race against the clock to restore the landing beam before the shuttle had reached the “point of no return” prior to landing. Kenmore had more than strictly humanitarian reasons for wanting to prevent a mishap aboard the shuttle that day because on this particular mission, Arlene Gray was aboard. Kenmore had been anxiously awaiting her arrival, and amidst everything, Kenmore’s love life also might hang in the balance.
 
 
Science Fiction Audiobook - Hater by David MoodyHater
By David Moody; Read by Gerard Doyle
6 CDs – 7 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781433292866

A modern take on the classic “apocalyptic” novel, Hater tells the story of Danny McCoyne, an everyman forced to contend with a world gone mad, as society is rocked by a sudden increase in violent assaults. Christened “Haters” by the media, the attackers strike without warning and seemingly without reason. Within seconds, normally rational, self-controlled people become frenzied, vicious killers. As the carnage mounts, one thing soon is clear: everyone, irrespective of race, gender, age, or class, has the potential to become either a Hater or a victim. At any moment, even friends and family can turn on one another with violent intent. In the face of this mindless terror, all McCoyne can do is secure his family, seek shelter, and watch as the world falls apart. But when he bolts the front door, the question remains: Is he shutting the danger out or locking it in?
 
 
Fantasy Audiobook - Of Bees and Mist by Erick SetiawanOf Bees and Mist
By Erick Setiawan; Read by Marguerite Gavin
11 CDs – 13 Hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2009
ISBN: 9781441710949

Setiawan’s richly atmospheric debut chronicles the passions, betrayals, and complex domestic politics of three generations of women whose emotional lives manifest as supernatural phenomena.

In a nameless town in a timeless era, where spirits and spells, witchcraft and ghosts are an everyday reality, sixteen-year-old Meridia has grown up lonely and neglected in a house literally haunted by the demons of her parents’ soured love. When she falls for the charming and boyish Daniel, she sees her first real chance for love and happiness. She marries him and moves in with his family, unaware that they are harboring dark secrets of their own. There is a grave hidden in the garden. There are two sisters groomed from birth to despise each other. And there is Eva, the formidable matriarch whose grievances swarm the air in an army of bees.
 
Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Darker Projects completes Autumn a ZOMBIE audio drama

SFFaudio Online Audio

Darker Projects - PodcastsDarker Projects, in association with Infected Books presents David Moody’s vision of apocalyptic horror: Autumn.

In less than twenty-four hours a vicious and virulent disease destroys virtually all of the population. Billions are killed. Thousands die every second. There are no symptoms and no warnings. Within moments of infection each victim suffers a violent and agonizing death. Only a handful of survivors remain. By the end of the first day those survivors wish they were dead. Then the disease strikes again, and all hell breaks loose…

Yep, it’s a zombie audio drama! Cool huh? All six parts of the complete adaptation are available now. I’ve been listening, it’s dark and moody, well paced with good acting and is getting eerier every episode. Check it out for yourself…

Darker Projects - Audio Drama - Autumn by David MoodyAutumn
Based on the novel by David Moody; Adapted by Paul Mannering
6 MP3s – Approx. 2 Hours 42 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Darker Projects
Podcast: 2007
Download direct:
|Part 1 MP3| Part 2 MP3|Part 3 MP3|
|Part 4 MP3| Part 5 MP3|Part 6 MP3|


Or subscribe via the feed:

http://www.darkerprojects.com/feeds/Autumn.xml