If you haven’t heard of the Hater trilogy by David Moody then it’s about time you did. There are 3 books (obviously as it’s a trilogy) – Hater, Dog Blood and Them or Us. There has been talk of the books being adapted for the big screen by Guillermo Del Toro who would make surely make a fantastic job of them. But i’m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, the basic premise of the books is that we are following Danny – who starts the story as a standard bloke in a boring job with a normal family in a non-descript English city. So far so good but then one day the news starts reporting an alarming rise in violent crimes but at first it just seems like nothing more than the apparent and inevitable rise in trouble that seems to beset modern society. Then it begins to take on an altogether more sinister form as the tempo of violence increases and families are ripped apart and seemingly random attacks on strangers are increasing at an exponential rate. Unbeknownst to all a seismic shift in society has already taken place and the human race has seemingly been split randomly down the middle and pitted against one another in a battle for survival. Throughout the series we follow Danny in his frantic search for his family, a journey through all kinds of horror whilst struggling to survive and finally coming to terms with some semblance of life in a new, albeit much different, society.

The books are a kind of twist on the end of the world zombie scenario and are fairly graphic in their depiction of events although it is hardly gratuitous given the whole premise. As i really enjoyed these books i don’t want to go giving too much away but i reckon that if you read the first one you’ll definitely be picking up the next two. As mentioned earlier there is the possibility of these books being given life on the big screen and although I rarely look forward to film versions of books I have enjoyed there is a distinct possibility that given his track record, Guillermo Del Toro, could really make these work excellently.

8.5/10

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