Gory, gory, damn' good story ... (Erebus - Shaun Hutson)

Member Name: doctordarke2389

Product:	Erebus - Shaun Hutson
Date:	29/07/09 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of juicy bloodletting, graphically described

Disadvantages: Gratuitous? maybe ..

The thing to remember when picking up any Hutson book is that his acknowledgements are often lengthy and fulsome (especially when eulogising about Liverpool Football Club and the heavy metal band Iron Maiden), and that he doesn't just take a pen or word processing package to his writing so much as a blood-soaked chainsaw and sawn-off shotgun. Some critic once said that Hutson writes what other horrorsmiths dare not even think about - or, something like that.

So it is with Erebus, one of his earlier offerings. The scene is set in the fictional English town of Wakely, a kind of one-horse town where the principal economic commodity is farming and agricultural stuff in general. In other words, the place seems to be economically in-bred and largely self-sustaining.

Now, it would be unsurprising that such a bucolic paradise holds nothing surprising, or sinister. Wouldn't it? Not the case in Hutson's world, and hence not in Wakely. There is something unnaturally Frankensteinian about the way that the livestock is bred, and the preternaturally visceral behaviour that the animals display towards each other. We are talking really violent here folks.

As if that isn't bad enough, these animals are bred to be eaten, and therefore their remains find their way into the food chain, to be eaten by humans. Who in turn manifest shocking physical transformations, and behave in strange, violent and dare I say unnatural ways towards each other.

Trying to make sense of these disturbing events are the local vet, Tyler, and a female investigative journalist (American, who has to leave the Big Apple like tout de suite for writing about The Mob). The reporter is tipped off by a whilsteblowing scientist from the local chemical plant (oh, dear ... ) but who turns up dead.

Suffice to say that this is something of an ecological horror story; of the obscene search for greater profits as the expense of the environmental balance, and the search for justice by the book's intrepid heroes. Oh, and for those who like that sort of thing, there's the usual bit of Hutsonesque copulation that falls ever so slightly short of gratuitous bonking. But, there you go. Still an interesting read, with a bit of a morality tale thrown in for good measure.

Summary: A meaty tale, in every sense