Shaun Hutson Omnibus 1 : Shadows and Nemesis by Shaun Hutson
| Shaun Hutson Omnibus 1 : Shadows and Nemesis by Shaun Hutson | |
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| Category: Horror | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: Two books of hard-care splatterpunk from Shaun Hutson's early period in one volume makes a value purchase for afficianados of the genre. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 560 | Date: August 2007 |
| Publisher: Orbit | |
| ISBN: 978-1841496443 | |
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Shaun Hutson Omnibus 1 is a reissue of Shadows, first published in 1985 and Nemesis from 1989. If you're into the horror genre then you've got some excellent sleepless, violence- and gore-filled nights ahead of you. You know exactly what you're getting with Hutson. This is the man who was once asked if he'd ever felt the need to self-censor what he was writing and said that there was a necrophilia scene in one of his books that he toned down as he was enjoying writing it "a bit too much".
Shadows follows the stories of psychic investigators in Oxford and Paris, where they're probing into hidden areas of the mind. Writer David Blake is studying the work of Jonathon Mathias, a miracle healer in New York. They're all got their own motives, but they're about to unlock the secrets of Pandora's Box. Hidden deep within our alter egos are some terrifying forces of destruction.
The characters are excellent - quirky, utterly compelling and very believable. As always with Hutson there's plenty of gore but what really lifts this book out of the ordinary is the plot and the ending which had a twist I really wasn't expecting. A good conclusion isn't always the norm with Shaun Hutson's books, as we'll see in Nemesis.
In 1940, whilst bombs were raining down on London, George Lawrenson was nearing the completion of Project Genesis. The country was running short of soldiers and Project Genesis could recreate humans so that they became adults in just a few months. Horrified by what he sees Winston Churchill ordered the project terminated - and Lawrenson was killed by a car bomb. It wasn't to be the end of Project Genesis though. It's taken up again in the nineteen eighties by Dr Edward Curtis, ostensibly a local GP who also helps infertile couples to conceive.
Nearly fifty years later John and Sue Hackett move to the village of Hinkston. Their marriage had already been under strain when their young daughter was brutally murdered. Sue's sister had already had treatment from the local GP to help her conceive and has an adorable child. The local GP is Dr Edward Curtis.
It's splatterpunk and you'll need a strong stomach for it. I confess that in parts it was rather more than mine could stand and after the rape and murder of a young girl in the first few pages I did wonder if I would carry on, if I wanted to carry on, but the plot held me. It is very violent - almost gleefully so in places. If this is your thing then it is very, very well done.
The basic idea of the story is good and flowed well for most of the book but I found the ending becoming increasingly predictable and I was left with the feeling that the point had been the violence rather than the story.
This omnibus really is for the fan of hard-core horror rather than the casual reader, but if it's to your taste then these two books from the writer's early period in one volume make a good value purchase.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Shaun Hutson Omnibus 1 : Shadows and Nemesis by Shaun Hutson at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Shaun Hutson Omnibus 1 : Shadows and Nemesis by Shaun Hutson at Amazon.com.
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