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Post by ollonois on Sept 19, 2015 20:04:43 GMT
I have read lots of "good" things about him on the net but I haven't read anything by him, what is the best novel to start with? I'm reading Spawn and later I'm thinking about Renegades. Are interesting tittles or should I start with Slugs?
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Post by dem bones on Sept 19, 2015 20:15:10 GMT
Slugs is certainly an experience! I quite enjoyed Spawn, Erebus (very nasty), The Skull and Breeding Ground (Slugs 2), but haven't got into his later work, which seems to have received a better response from the critics. From Ramsey Campbell to Shaun Hutson is one huge jump!
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Post by andydecker on Sept 19, 2015 21:37:20 GMT
This is hard to say. Start with the first or some down the line?
Spawn is a good early one. Assasins is a later good one. Renegades is one of the longest. I like the book, but it is a mixture of horror and action, which never quite gels. (Maybe this is a typical hindsight opinion, as the hero stars later in a few thrillers without any supernatural elements.) Start of the 90s I thought him hit and miss. Mostly he wrote thrillers with a lot of shoot outs. Some are good like Deadhead, a gritty revenge thriller, some are not. But his horror work never reached the power of his pre 90s novels.
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Post by erebus on Sept 20, 2015 15:59:15 GMT
You can't go wrong with Relics. That's probably a good place to start. The guys are correct, he did move on from Horror and write Thrillers later. The Sean Doyle character appeared in several books after Renegades. If you like horror read SLUGS, SPAWN, EREBUS, SHADOWS, BREEDING GROUND, DEATHDAY , RELICS, VICTIMS, ASSASSIN, NEMESIS, CAPTIVES and HEATHEN. And if you can get hold of a copy CHAINSAW TERROR. His others as Stated are more thriller. Although TWISTED SOULS and UNMARKED GRAVES have horror elements.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2015 16:31:41 GMT
I started with RELICS and it's probably still my favourite of his. RENEGADES is fun, if only for the audacity of combining an IRA thriller with Gilles deRais. DEADHEAD, I'd say, is his best pure thriller.
SPAWN was the novel my granny read then handed over to my dad with the instruction 'Don't let John read it.' I'd already read it about a year or so before. He didn't have the heart to tell her.
All this comes with the caveat that I haven't read anything he's done since LUCY'S CHILD in 1997. And I don't think I'll forgive him for calling a novel WARHOL'S PROPHECY. I mean really...
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Post by ripper on Sept 22, 2015 12:20:19 GMT
I generally agree with previous posters in that the earlier titles are the most fun and to be recommended. Around 1990 or so he started to mix horror with violent thriller in books like 'Renegades', 'Assassin' and 'Heathen'. Later he moved to pure thriller such as 'Deadhead' and 'Exit Wounds'. IMO his best work was done pre-1990 when he was churning out pure horror titles, loved by the public and dismissed by the critics. Having said that, 'Assassin' and 'Renegades' are both fun and bloody, each being basically 2 stories in one. For instance, in 'Renegades' there is a horror plot about a demon in a stained-glass window, mixed with a thriller with a British counterterrorist tracking down a rogue IRA cell, and it is only in the last few chapters that the 2 plot threads are brought together. I haven't read much of his later work, the last being 'Hell to Pay' and 'Necessary Evil', neither of which I particularly enjoyed. I have a fondness for 'Relics' and 'Renegades'. 'Relics' was the first Hutson I read and 'Renegades' was the book that started me reading his work, in that Central Weekend, a Friday night discussion programme had him on circa 1991 and his latest book 'Renegades' was given a bit of a battering by a couple of outraged somebodys, so naturally I had to check him out.
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Post by ripper on Sept 22, 2015 12:28:39 GMT
BTW does anyone in the Central TV area remember that appearance by Hutson on Central Weekend c.1991? My memory tells me James Whale was also on it but I might be getting muddled about that.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 22, 2015 16:30:17 GMT
BTW does anyone in the Central TV area remember that appearance by Hutson on Central Weekend c.1991? My memory tells me James Whale was also on it but I might be getting muddled about that. James Whale hosted it, and I'm almost certain the other guest was Jerry Sadowitz.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 22, 2015 17:35:11 GMT
I generally agree with previous posters in that the earlier titles are the most fun and to be recommended. I haven't read much of his later work, the last being 'Hell to Pay' and 'Necessary Evil', neither of which I particularly enjoyed.
It is odd. I always had the impression that after his thriller phase his work lost some spark. His style developed, nobody does angry and frustrated better. I admire his lean style. And I admire his stubborness that he consequently denied himself to the trend of writing doorstopper novels. He is no Rickman. (Maybe he wrote some under pseudonym, there must be a lot of Hutson novels out there which never became public knowledge.)
But his heart doesn't seem to be in it any longer. He is the last writer I still buy every year unseen. To be honest his work has became slightly frustrating. Novels like Twisted Souls or Last Rites had so much potential and a good plot, but they limped to their disappointing conclusion. The only novel which worked was Body Count, which was gory and brutal. Of course one had to accept that the plot was just a variation of the arena plot in a urban setting. Not very original.
I just bought his new one Monolith, the first new book by his new publisher Caffeine Nights. Compared to Orbit this is a small publisher. Seems his mass market and a book a year days are over.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 23, 2015 4:38:24 GMT
The problem is that his mass market days were already over in terms of larger publishers as they seem driven to big sales or nothing, with no inbetween point, whereas writers like Hutson are now in their niche market with the faithful but not really likely to pick up many new fans. That's just how it goes, and often absolutely no reflection on the writer and their work.
What I will say is that for a writer like that, Caffeine Nights are an excellent publisher. Darren has assembled a good roster, crime based, and has a plan to reissue much of Hutson's work and make it available again. He has a background in PR and is a writer himself, and in effect has moulded a small press that can punch above its weight because of his marketing skills. He gets books into shops, which is bloody hard these days, and he gets them marketed - special offers in WH Smith travel shops, for example, that put them right there in the public eye.
CN has a very crime-oriented roster, and also a bit of an old school punk vibe: Hutson currently resides on the same list as police procedurals, Gary Bushell, Esso from The Lurkers, etc...
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Post by ripper on Sept 23, 2015 9:11:19 GMT
Dem, thanks for jogging my memory. I think it was Jerry Sadowitz. I can remember when Whale had a show on Talk Radio that he used to have Hutson on as a guest fairly frequently. Yes, I think you're right that he was acting as host.
Hutson wrote some westerns and Sven Hassell/Leo Kessler style war stories, both under pseudonyms, and others as well.
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Post by ripper on Sept 23, 2015 10:06:33 GMT
Hutson has written under the names Robert Neville, Nick Blake, Frank Taylor, Tom Lambert, Samuel P Bishop, Wolf Kruger and Stefan Rostov. There is also a pseudonym that he has not yet disclosed so far as I am aware.
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Post by bluetomb on Sept 23, 2015 10:27:45 GMT
I started with Renegades and it made me a fan within a chapter (it starts with a shoot-out which is always handy). I only read about a half dozen though as when I was younger I was pretty scared that he was going to warp my fragile little mind (he can get pretty grim and I was pretty God fearing at the time). Been meaning to get back into him myself so this thread is handy.
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Post by ripper on Sept 23, 2015 10:58:51 GMT
Agreed, Bluetomb, that shootout at the beginning of 'Renegades' is a cracker and lets you know what to expect from the rest of the book.
IMO I think that Hutson has followed the same trend as writers like James Herbert and Guy N. Smith. Earlier books had a power, energy and rawness that became diluted over time as writing skills were honed. Perhaps that is inevitable and all authors writing mellows as they get older.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 23, 2015 17:08:15 GMT
The problem is that his mass market days were already over in terms of larger publishers as they seem driven to big sales or nothing, with no inbetween point, whereas writers like Hutson are now in their niche market with the faithful but not really likely to pick up many new fans. That's just how it goes, and often absolutely no reflection on the writer and their work.
Is this just an unfounded impression or is horror in the mass market again on the decline? Not necessarily in Hutson's case, but when things like Best New Horror apparently doesn't sell enough any longer to merit a tradepaperback.
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