Hybrid

Husband loves Shaun Hutson book very pleased

cheers

I found this to be unusually good for a Shaun Hutson book- and most of his books are good anyway.There was something about this one though that was both creepy and scary.Well worth reading.

After three novels how do you bring back your most enduring character - this is how. A novel within a novel is a great idea and Hutson carries it off with aplomb, As the main character goes stadily loopy the Doyle novel picks up and heads towards the explosive conclusion.

Shaun Hutson is back with a bang and his latest offering is his best for a while. The book is about Christopher Ward,(based on Hutson himself at a guess) a washed up author whose publishers have abondoned him. Ward turns to drink, and all but gives up on his current novel. Mysteriously, Ward's book is still being written but by who?This book is superb. U can actually read Ward's book which is Hutson's latest Sean Doyle offering. Another cut and thrust action novel where Doyle deals with the problems still facing Northern Ireland and the Good Friday agreement.Hutson's novel with another novel works very well, and you'll want to know the end of both stories! All in all, an essential addition to your shopping basket!

The return of Sean Doyle...In the past, people have accused Shaun of boycotting horror in favour of writing thrillers. With Hybrid, I think he's pleased everyone by skillfully covering both areas.The book itself consists of two stories - Sean Doyles re emergance and a struggling writers nightmare. The two work side by side perfectly, just as you reach a pivitol point of one story, your attention is drawn to another which is equally as thrilling.I love (and always have loved) the way the books are broken down into short chapters, this adds to the flow of the book. Each chapter is like a shot of good scotch, before you know it you've drunk half the bottle!Thanks again Shaun for a good story, this is one of the best in my opinion. As always, can't wait for the next one.

This is the first Hutson book I've read and it didn't impress me in the slightest.The story is about a writer, Christopher Ward, who is in the throes of depression because of an inability to produce meaningful creativity and he turns to alcohol for comfort. Following the blackouts caused by his excessive drinking he inexplicably discovers a story unfolding on his computer that he has no memory of writing. Throughout the publication we are treated to this 'book within a book' as chapters are churned out on his printer after each drinking session. It is a thriller about terorists in northern Ireland and we gradually realise that more effort has been put into this 'sub-story' than has been exerted over the main plot.Sadly this does not work and I was disappointed with large elements of the IRA storyline and felt let down at the conclusion.As a result of investing so much into this element of the book Hutson had little time to redeem the novel's overall quality with whatever became of Ward's current predicament.The revelation at the end that our drunken writer had inadvertantly signed a deal with the devil years ago left me wishing he had discovered this 400 pages earlier.Although I felt dismayed that most of this book seemed to be self indulgent codswallop with no point to it whatsoever (apart from maybe meeting a publisher's deadline) I will read another of his books, probably 'Renegades' as that is in my stockpile, for one of two reasons. Either it will show that he can write a decent yarn or alternatively it will inspire me to submit some of my teenage efforts to his publisher as 'professional works of art' and make a fortune. They aren't that good but they are better than this.

I felt that the fact this book contained a story within a story, did not help it to 'gel'. I have read other books along this line, i.e the main character is a book writer and his book appears within the storyline, but it has been done a lot better. The book hardly refers to the main character at all in the first half of the book and the one chance that Shaun Hutson had to build some real fear factor into the book (when the main character finds excrement in his back garden with what appears to be a human tooth in it) is not followed through to any conclusion. Also, the book within the book that the main character is writing is not fleshed out enough to make you really care about the characters and the story is not strong enough to stand on it's own two feet. In the second half of the boook, the story keeps swopping between the 'book' and the main character, losing any suspense that has been built up and because of this, you do not really care about makes what happens to the main character in the end of the book. I have read other books by Shaun Hutson and they have been better, but would not really recommend this one.