Dog Blood

Hater #2

by David Moody

The world has suffered a catastrophe of unknown cause, dividing humankind into two: the Haters and the Unchanged. Each group believes the other to be the enemy; each group is fighting for survival. Only by working together can the enemy – whoever that enemy is – be defeated. There are no other choices. Danny McCoyne has managed to break free, and after days of indiscriminate fighting and killing, he is determined to make his way home, to recalim the only thing of any value to him in this strange new world: his daughter Ellis. Unlike his wife and son, Ellis is like him, and he knows, in his heart of hearts, that she is not dead. His dearest wish is for Ellis to be fighting for the world at his side – but Danny soon discovers his daughter is worth far more than just another fighting body. Others like him have discovered that children are absolutely vital to the cause. They are strong, small, fast, and they have no inhibitions. They are pure Haters...

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Zombies, Post Apocalyptic, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Apocalyptic

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

David Moody first released Hater in 2006, and without an agent, succeeded in selling the film rights for the novel to Mark Johnson (producer, Breaking Bad) and Guillermo Del Toro (director, The Shape of Water, Pan's Labyrinth). Moody's seminal zombie novel Autumn was made into a movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine. He has an unhealthy fascination with the end of the world and likes to write books about ordinary folks going through absolute hell. With the publication of continuing Hater and Autumn stories, Moody has cemented his reputation as a writer of suspense-laced SF/horror, and "farther out" genre books of all description.

Find out more about his work at www.davidmoody.net and www.infectedbooks.co.uk, and join Moody's mailing list to keep up with new releases.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

seriously - a one-day-read feels so good after spending two weeks on one book; it is freeing to remember that it can be done and still have time left over to watch step up2 - the streets!! (those motherfuckers danced in the rain! talk about risking it all!)

this is the middle book in a trilogy, so don't go running out to read it based on the "strength" of this review without first going out and getting hater.it is a fun bloody romping zombie-ish book that is a page-turning good time for those of us with anger management issues.

i like that this book takes the genre of zombie fiction and gives it a little shove into deeper waters.the basics: about half of the population remains "unchanged", and the rest have gone mad with zombielike urges. these "zombies" aren't corpses, they are just people infected with the urge to kill. kill, kill, kill, dismember, smash, punch, kick, start over.

good stuff.

but they don't destroy mindlessly, like zombies, not entirely. this second volume mostly takes place in the mind of an infected, so you can see that they are thinking, or one of them is anyway, but there is a compulsion to kill and a planned rationale, of sorts, for their actions. it is a little more chilling when there is a methodology.

when david wellington introduced zombie birds in monster island, i got crazy excited because it was so unexpected and frankly terrifying and as someone who has seen a ton of zombie movies, it was something new, finally. this one pulls a similar move. children!! rage-infected children!! badass vivisecting feeling-no-pain children!god, like they aren't scary enough already! for example, this fantastic movie:



apparently guillermo del toro has snapped up the movie rights for hater, which is pretty lame, if you ask me, considering there is already a movie and a remake of same movie covering pretty much the same ground. but who am i to question the man? if you're not going to make the damn hobbit anymore, you do whatever you want, dude.

is this a review? i can't tell anymore. all i know is, i took the day off work because my back refused to give me a break yesterday, and this was a fantastic companion for my day of rest.

i will leave the billy bragg here, because i think the question remains, "which side are you on, boy?"

me, i would probably have the rage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbddqX...

come to my blog!

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karen's review says just about sums up the book.

I read books like this for cool shit to happen. For instance, to read about a child killing an adult by eating through the persons chest. Maybe this isn't too realistic but it's cool shit. I want my horror novels to read like they were written by a sociopath. I want blood and gore, and fuck redeeming social value. More blood, more gore! Kill! Kill! Kill!

This book delivers on the good stuff at the start and end of the book, but then gets mired down with story and social commentary. I don't mind social commentary or plot, but get back to the killing now and then. Horror novels shouldn't have to feel legitimized by adding redeeming qualities to them, leave that to the academics who want to make careers reading between the lines. More blood more gore! More vicious little children killing everything in sight!!

[myreadingescapism · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this as much as Hater. It just felt like while things were happening, it wasn't really memorable, almost like the entire 336 pages could have been a chapter or two added to book one or three instead... 🫠

[Schnaucl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two and a half stars. (Some spoilers for Hater)

I realized about halfway through that I was forcing myself to get through the book. Never a good sign.

Part of what made Hater so good was how chilling Danny's behavior was after his change. He was 100% certain that he had to kill the Unchanged or they would kill him and during the kills he experience euphoria.

In this book there was a bit of the euphoria but I never found his behavior chilling. While in Hater he acted on instinct in this book Danny spends lots of time whining about maybe not being "good enough" for the rest of the Haters. He feels like he should kill people but in a pretty half-hearted way unless there's actually an Unchanged person near him. It actually feels very like the daily grind of going to his old job except, you know, it's killing people so you can't really identify with him.

It's hard to identify with anyone in this book (besides, maybe, his cousin who we only see for a short time. Maybe we're supposed to identify with Danny's drive to find his daughter, Ellis, except the reason he wants to find her is to care for her and so they can kill people together. So I wasn't rooting for that reunion.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a commentary on terrorists or unending war. There are some explicit references to terrorism so it might be that. Whatever the intention was, what's missing is passion. People may continue to fight a war long past the point where the original insult is forgotten. But they do it so that one day the war will be over and future generations can have a better life. People become terrorists because they believe in an ideology, because they think someone is occupying their land, because they think someone is keeping them from living their lives the way they want to, or teaching their kids the way they want to, or even because they don't believe in ideology but know if they become a terrorist, their family will be looked after financially.

The Haters don't fight for anything. There's a line or two about after the Unchanged are dead but there's no passion for it. They fight against the Unchanged because they believe the Unchanged will kill them as soon as they realize what they are (of course, they wouldn't kill the Haters if the Haters weren't killing them). The problem is there's the occasional moment of fear but mostly the Haters are portrayed as feeling vastly superior (physically) to the Unchanged. So instead of a threat the Unchanged feel more like an annoyance.

The Haters don't care about the future, or individuals. They only care about the fight. They only care about children insofar as Hater children make excellent fighters. I had the distinct impression that if the Haters managed to eradicate all of the Unchanged they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Maybe sit around all day and talk about how great it was when there were Unchanged to kill.

I realized by the end of the book that I couldn't imagine an ending to this trilogy that would leave me feeling satisfied. The Haters win and then sit around or they get wiped out and the Unchanged try to rebuild. Maybe there's a cure and I guess the Unchanged feel horror at what they've done. But none of that would satisfy me which is why I'm not going to bother with the third book.

The real shame is that I think there was a genuinely moving and meaningful story to tell here. One of the characters says that the Unchanged are the true Haters because they promised "never again" after World War II but the moment they felt threatened they built slaughterhouses to kill the Haters in gas chambers. The problem is, you can't tell that story from the point of view of the Haters because they lack the emotional capacity for it.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

I am such a big fan of David Moody as an author. I also love the genre that he specializes in, the post-apocalyptic. This book, Dog Blood is the second in the hater series. As I have mentioned before Moody does a superb job at making these horror stories about people. He creates characters that are true to life and three dimensional. Moody's Autumn series worked by creating a world filled with characters like you and me. There were no superheroes in that one, and many were very likable. In this series, The Hater series, we have a much tighter focus that centers around one man Danny McCoyne.

This series has an awesome spin on the zombie genre, in that there are no undead here. We do not yet know why, but one day an apparent gene that is present in everyone suddenly turns on. Over one third of the world become changed, they become extremely violent and quite hopped up as well. They suddenly find that they have the insatiable need to kill those whom are unchanged.

“In many ways the situation the Unchanged found themselves facing was indefensible. This conflict wasn’t faction versus faction or army against army; it was individual versus individual, more than six billion armies of one. Beyond that, the Hate didn’t care who you were, where you were, or what you were. You were simply on one side or the other, your position in this new, twisted, fucked-up world decided without your involvement by unknown variables and fate. Within weeks command structures at every level were compromised. Organizations fell apart. Families crumbled. The Haters were everywhere and everyone, the whole world beaten up from the inside out.”


This creates a very interesting end of the world scenario, one that seems to be a bit more plausible than that of the dead coming back for revenge. The incredible pain and suffering that people must endure seeing their loved ones get killed by their family and friends is unimaginable. I can see this scenario being quite similar to say, putting a parrot in a room with a cat. You will see immediate fear in the poor bird, and the instant desire to kill in the cat. Sure, this is a predator – prey scenario, but it is not far off from the things that Moody paints about the humans in this series.

This is an extremely violent novel. Not too heavy on the gore, but definitely over the top on the killings. And let me remind you, this is about people killing people… Our hero Danny is pretty much the only POV in this book. He is much less whiney now, focused on finding his daughter Ellie, and he uses his intelligence to drive himself forward. Danny becomes captured and has an interesting conversation with his captor, where he is told:

“People tell me I’m wasting my time with your type. They tell me you’re no better than animals, that you’ve got dog blood running through your veins and you should be rounded up and shot.”

I will not give away any spoilers, so I will say that this is a very fast and violent book. The plot is simple, our hero Danny trying to find and reunite himself with his 5 year old daughter. The world is continuing to spiral downward as the “Haters” fight with the “Unchanged”. I highly recommend David Moody as a whole to all those that love zombie novels, and I am sure that the thriller readers would like him too.

[Alina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice page-turner, with lots of action, killing, gore. Interesting to see things through the eyes of a Hater, to see the planning and the reasoning, but not likely to be able to identify with the character.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dog Blood takes up with the story of Danny McCoyne, a Hater who is desperately trying to reconnect with and "save" his daughter, whom he knows is also a Hater. His wife, Lizzie has taken the family, the two boys and daughter, Ellis and hidden somewhere. Danny has been searching for months for his daughter, trying to save her so she can kill with him. He runs into and afoul of many different people in this book and is finally captured and sent to a mysterious group who imprisons him and injects him with a serum that begins to work on his genetic structure. These mysterious people eventually teach and train Danny to control his Hate and he moves on to meet their leader and understand that he is part of a plan to become a first strike weapon, with others of like mind. They are to infiltrate the Unchanged, almost like a terrorist cell and then cause explosions and mass chaos to where the military will respond in the only way they can, to carpet bomb the masses to try and eliminate as many Haters as possible. This is the way the Hater hierarchy has surmised will destroy many more of the Unchanged than they can by the current chaos that they deliver.
Danny and crew enter the city and he goes out of his way to try and find his daughter, after looking up information on the only remaining database in the U.K., devoted to listing the survivors and last know addresses, compiled by the military. Danny finds his wife eventually and discovers that Ellis killed both of his sons. Lizzie and Danny's cousin, Mark have Ellis tied up inside an abandoned car. After much trials, Danny frees Ellis and catches up to her as she goes, hell bent on murder. He gets he eventually and as the city is being bombed, finds a way out and gets a vehicle to escape with. Danny can control his Hate but he has trouble controlling Ellis, who has become a killing machine. He gets out of the city in a stolen vehicle as the military drops a tactical nuke on London and its surrounding suburbs, flattening the region. Danny loses Ellis as she almost kills him to get away and kill more of the Unchanged. He is found by more of the militaristic Haters and saved, but Ellis is gone.
This book continues on from the last first book and it is a roller coaster ride through Hades and back. I couldn't stop reading it, the interest overwhelmed me. I had to see what was going to happen. Rarely does a book captivate my attention so fervently. This one was amazing and I highly recommend it, as I did the first in the series. I just received the third book in the mail yesterday. Time to delve in and see how this ends.

Danny

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. This continues the Haters series and is again told by Danny McCoyne, but also a soldier's point of view of the Unchanged. As things grow more and more out of control, you see how both sides deal with it. One thing not covered (as yet) in the series, is what actually happened to kick off this gene turning on in certain people causing them to turn.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Moody, Dog Blood (Thomas Dunne Books, 2010)

Unlike (I assume) most prospective readers of Moody's latest, Dog Blood, I have not read its prequel, Hater. (And judging by Dog Blood's end, I'm going to posit that this is the middle book in a pending trilogy.) I am familiar with moody through the Autumn quartet, which I read four or five years ago and which have become something of a self-publishing success story, not only launching what has since become one of the most popular small horror presses in existence but also gaining Moody a contract with a major house. Which brings us to Dog Blood, the first book Moody has produced for Thomas Dunne (which previously re-released Hater).

Dog Blood focuses on Danny McCoyne, one of the Haters, humans infected with a virus that drives them to kill anyone uninfected (the Haters call them the Unchanged). There are varying levels of Hate infection; Danny, for example, is still reasonable and intelligent, while others are what the Hater community calls Brutes, who have lost all reason and exist only to kill. (Hate infection is paralleled with addiction a number of times in the book, and Moody does an interesting job of drawing the distinction between maintenance addicts and junkies, if only anyone would listen.) The driving force in Danny's life is to find his daughter Ellis, also a Hater, and who has been missing since the initial outbreak of Hate four months previous. Meanwhile, a large number of the Unchanged have barricaded themselves inside the confines of a small city, and we get various updates on the state of life among the humans as we go on. You know these two storylines are going to collide eventually, and while it's kind of predictable, I love the connection Moody makes between them. Also, as in the Autumn novels, the guy really, really knows how to write a satisfying-yet-ambiguous-and-really-downbeat ending.

A lot of the same problems I had with the Autumn quartet I had with Dog Blood. The writing is decent, if nothing spectacular; when you look at Moody's self-published work, it stands head and shoulders above much of the vanity/self-published stuff simply because Moody can actually write. Put him up against the bigs, however, and the shortcomings become clear pretty quick. Moody's writing is readable enough and well-paced, but it's often emotionless and always far more concerned with advancing the plot than with characterization. I rush to add this is not always a bad thing in genre fiction, and it's a lot less crucial here (where plot is king) than it was in the Autumn novels (which are much slower and focus more on character). Readable it is; I blew through it in an afternoon after finishing another short book. I wonder if I'd have gotten more out of it had I previously read Hater, but can't really answer that question for obvious reasons. To be on the safe side, I'll tell you that if this one interests you, go ahead and grab Hater first. ***

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

From author for review -

It's war baby, and the Unchanged don't stand a chance.

In Dog Blood, the sequel to David Moody's novel Hater, No one cares about what caused the Hate anymore. Self-preservation is the priority. The world is beginning to fall apart, buildings rotting away or damaged in battle. Food and clean water is becoming harder and harder to come by. Unchanged men, women, and children slowly begin to move into the cities, cramming themselves into office buildings, and apartments, waiting for their food rations to be doled out. Soldiers take teams of volunteers out beyond the exclusion (or safe) zones to seek out people who have been surviving on their own, to bring them back to the home base. They feel safer and stronger in groups.

Haters join together and attack these rescue missions, picking off the Unchanged one by one. The war between "us" and "them" is inescapable. And it won't stop until one or the other are wiped off the face of the planet.

One Hater, our Hater, Danny, bounces from place to place, preferring to remain alone. He finds comfort in the shadows and the outskirts, believing that his ability to remain hidden, his hunger for killing, and his desire to find his 5 year old daughter Ellis is what has kept him alive this long. Yet, ironically enough, it's during his search for Ellis that Danny finds himself captured by a group of Unchanged people... who are determined to teach Danny how to hold the Hate.

Can Haters be taught to control the urge to kill? Will they ever be able to walk among the Unchanged and blend in with society again?

David Moody creates a bleak and devastating world in which man has turned against man, where trust and companionship no longer live, a world of constant turmoil and chaos. He takes us deeper inside Danny's head and introduces us to the filthy, brutal life of a Hater. Though Danny appears to be selfish and self serving, we discover that looking out for number one is the only way to ensure ones existence. It's the new way of life, and one that most people quickly adapted to.

Brilliantly narrated, violent and ferocious, unlike anything I have read before it - With his Hater Trilogy, Moody ushers in the newest fiction monster craze! Say goodbye to Zombie and Vampire Lit, shelf the wanna-be-breakout novels about Angels and Unicorns. Moody's Haters are taking the world by force, and leaving a sea of bloody corpses in their wake. And their sights are set on you!

A gigantic thank you goes out to author David Moody, who made these review copies available to me!

[Jo Anne B · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I went onto this book right after the first book and was a little let down with it. In the very beginning I felt the author took a cop out when he said it didn't matter what caused this to happen, it did, now we just have to deal with it. I was looking for more of an explanation and this made me feel like the author couldn't explain it so he made it seem irrelevant to the characters in the book. Now, I praise Moody all the time for his books being realistic and if this were to happen I can bet people would still wonder how it happened despite also having to struggle just to survive everyday. It is not unimportant. I just felt the author made it irrelevant so he didn't have to offer up any further explanation.

That being said, I did enjoy the book. It lagged in the beginning for a while and was kind of boring, but then it picked up about 30% in and kept my interest throughout. I was quite surprised at the turn of events. I thought the Haters and Unchanged were headed in a direction that turned out not to be the case. It was for the better. 

This whole book Danny tries to find his daughter Ellis and he encounters some interesting people along the way such as Joseph and Sahota, who were pretty cool. We are also introduced to Mark, an Unchanged and follow him as he tries to survive the Haters with a pregnant girlfriend and in-laws housed up with them in some tiny apartment. Then they are forced to take in an Asian guy and are also taking care of some other woman. His part was not merely to show us the perspective from the Unchanged but to play a role with Danny later on in the book. After this encounter, the book gets really interesting and once again I didn't see that coming. This and the ordeal with Joseph and Sahota were the best parts of the book.

So this book continues the story of the Haters vs. the Unchanged and introduces a few twists that knock your socks off. Now I am so curious to see how it all ends that I will gladly go on to the third one next. 

[Badseedgirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dog Blood by David Moody is the second book in his “Hater” series. It has been a year since the world collapsed under the weight of the “Haters.” What is left of the “Unchanged” has been forced into overcrowded and unprepared refugee areas in the city centers. Life for the “Unchanged” has become almost intolerable in these centers but the risk of the Haters prowling the outskirts is a deterrent for them.

This novel is still told from the viewpoint of our favorite anti-hero Danny McCoyne. It is some kind of a miracle worthy of a visit from the Commission of Miracles, Danny s not the biggest arsehole in this book. Apparently becoming a Hater instantly turns a person into a giant murderous douche. Danny is actually one of the sensitive ones. Most of the novel is a run through and around England with Danny looking for his daughter Ellis. In the process we find out that apparently Haters come in different flavors. On one end of the spectrum there are people like Danny who have the ability to “hold the hate” and can control themselves and infiltrate the unchanged. On the other end are the “Brutes”, mindless killing creatures that murder mindlessly. In their killing rage they will kill hater and unchanged alike. Did I mention they do it mindlessly?

I did enjoy this book but it seemed to suffer a bit from the “middle-book-in-a-series” syndrome. Mr. Moody did provide a bit more information about “The Hate” but for the most part it was just a lot of running around killing and hiding in moldy buildings. Still with the explosive (Yes for those who have already read it, pun was intended) ending of the second book, I think I’m in for a treat with book three Them or Us.

[Suspense Magazine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart, “Dog Blood” by David Moody is a gritty and gruesome look into the world after the Hate takes over, separating the population in two. Those inflicted by this vicious change of heart only feel satisfied when in the throes of violence and attacking the Unchanged. Complete annihilation has become the only thing that matters to people that were once very much like us. While the Unchanged—in an effort to continue some semblance of normal life—have moved into small-sequestered city centers trying to follow the safety in numbers survival rule. Food is scarce; the system has completely broken down and in the few months since the change no place is safe. Danny McCoyne, infected by the Hate, has one challenge and a singular unstoppable goal, which is to find his five-year-old daughter. His single-minded goal has slightly separated him from the pack of killers making him more important to the leaders bent on destruction.

“Dog Blood” is an intense and terrifying ride guaranteed to keep you turning the pages…right after you turn all the lights on.

[Fionnuala · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this; I clipped through it in about three hours, because the way it was written was so easy to read. It was almost effortless, and the short chapters really added to the frantic pacing and made it a wild ride.

I didn't personally find it very scary, despite a lot of reviews saying it was terrifying; it was definitely disturbing, and there were parts that were pretty messed up, but it's not exactly a horror novel. It's actually a pretty cool take on the idea of a zombie apocalypse, written from the perspective of somebody who would be the "zombie" in this scenario, and that's pretty cool. For obvious reasons, that's not an angle you see often, but obviously this isn't a straightforward zombie story, either. The world has been split into two factions due to an unknown cause -- on one side there are the Unchanged, or those who have been unaffected by whatever it was, and on the other side are the Haters, who have been infected with something known as the Hate which makes them incredibly violent and hell-bent on killing any Unchanged they come across. Aside from this reaction, most of them are still normal human beings at the cognitive level, and so that creates a pretty interesting perspective when it comes to why they do what they do, what they think about it, how each of them react and adapt, etc.

I'll disclaim that I haven't read the first book in the series yet, but it didn't matter at all. The worldbuilding in this book was really good; it was solid and explained everything well, and even the occasional moment of inevitable exposition was fascinating rather than boring. It could easily be read without having read the first book in the series, though of course I'm interested to read the whole series now. My only criticism (and I add it here, in case it's something that can be rectified by reading the first book) is that I did find it a little difficult to get on Danny's side, because while I could understand his reasoning I still didn't really think it justified going Rambo on everyone's asses. A lot of the Unchanged portrayed in this book are very pathetic, sympathetic characters; it's difficult to believe that they're as evil or as much of a threat as Danny claims they are, and I can't help but feel sorry for everyone he's killing. It doesn't mean that I don't like Danny's character at all, but it does mean there was a disconnect there where I couldn't really vibe with him as much as I like to vibe with main characters. I did, however, find him a very interesting character -- he's not afraid to criticise himself, which is always fun to read, and he's very admirable in his determination. I also liked the whole thing he went through with Sahota and his operation; it was cool to see a character go back and forth like that, and have actual human reactions to doubt and outside arguments.

Speaking of that time period, I do have to roast the book a little here. I did notice that there were several areas where dialogue relied a little on clichés, but it really wasn't so bad. However, there was one moment that did make me roll my eyes a little, out of amusement more than anything else. It goes as follows:

"You can't fight fire with fire, you know what I'm saying?"

Then, in the very next piece of dialogue from that same character:

"[...] We're trying to end the cycle. I think of us like a firebreak, you know what I mean? When they're trying to stop a forest fire from spreading, they sometimes burn a strip of land further ahead. Then, when the fire reaches it, there's nothing left to burn and the fire dies out. We're like that."

As you can probably guess, using a firebreak against a forest fire is, quite literally, no ifs or buts, fighting fire with fire. It gave me a laugh, but more seriously it did make me wonder just how much thought was going into these clichés and turns of phrase; if they're there because that's really the best way to describe what's going on, or if it was moments of lazy writing or simply writing what looks good for aesthetic value.

Overall, though? This was a good read. I have real respect for how it ended, too -- it's not often that an author has the nerve to commit to an ending like that, and while I keep in mind this is part of a trilogy, as a stand-alone novel it works and even as part of a series, it's a brave thing to do. It wasn't the happiest of endings but it was the right ending for the book, and that's always very satisfying to see.

[Christine (KizzieReads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt this one just dragged on and on. I really wasn't fond of the main character in the first book, as I found him a whiny, lazy piece of crap. I was rooting for the Unchanged and hoping that they get at the Haters and wipe them out.

[MonumentToDecency · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very descriptive, like so much exposition I almost died. I can't reiterate how good Them Or Us, book 3 in the Hater series, is. This made me not want to go on to reread Them Or Us.
Dog Blood is an enjoyable tag along with Danny while he shows us how much the landscape has changed and how he learns to hold the Hate, but far out, so much exposition. It was painful at times but it's worth reading.

My rating: 3 out of 5 dark rooms

[Kimberly Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up! Perfectly fine sequel to Haters but started to feel a bit drawn out and repetitive. I’m intrigued to see how he wraps up the series in the next book.

[Esra Kılıç · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hater serisinin ikinci kitabı da bir çırpıda bitti. Geçmişin hiçbir önemi kalmamıştı artık. Dünya altüst olmuş, eşit olmayan iki parçaya bölünmüştü. Hızla yayılan vahşi bir şiddet hüküm sürüyordu. Öfke bu kadar kontrolsüz anlatılmamıştı.
Salgın’a göre biraz daha düşük bulsam da yine heyecanı yetti. Sürükleyici, ve güzeldi. Ara vermeden 3.’üncü kitabını da okuyacağım ve seriyi bitirmiş olacağım.

[Bob McCadden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually liked this book better than the first. I feel like the story went to a lot of different exciting places and seeing Danny’s changes you just wanted to keep turning pages. Now that it left off with a cliff hanger so to speak I have to read book 3. Well done 👍

[Gary VandeBroek · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an imagination. Loved part 1 and the feeling continues with this book. Looking forward to part 3. I feel I have lived the story, though Danny's eyes

[Thee_ron_clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world has quickly turned into a post-apocalyptic night mare following a change in about a third of the population known simply as The Hate. The people infected with it are called haters. Those who have gone through the change have an overwhelming desire to kill those who have not.

The unchanged masses are pushed into secured areas patrolled by heavily-armed soldiers. Rations and living space are becoming more and more difficult to come by as any excursions out of the secure zones are generally met with hordes of homicidal people attacking relentlessly.

The haters themselves are attempting to organize to better battle and eliminate the unchanged. For the most part, their people are simply roaming randomly from place to place to kill the unchanged as frequently as possible.

We also find that the haters are not all the same. There are those among them who are much more aggressive and brutal, which is saying quite a bit with this bunch.

The main character of this novel is Danny, a man who has evolved (or devolved if you want to think of it that way) into a hater. He is on a quest to locate his daughter, who he found to be like him in this series' first book; Hater. Danny is attempting to track down his former spouse in order to locate his daughter in a post-apocalyptic war torn England. Needless to say, this is no easy task and there are numerous obstacles and distractions from his own kind and the unchanged.

I have to say, this is my favorite book of Moody's thus far. It is well-written and easy to fly through. I found myself really enjoying the thoughts and actions of the main character and wanting to see what happened at the turn of each page. The violence and action are both quick and easy to picture for the most part. Moody does not seem to feel that it is necessary to share every gory detail of every drop of blood shed and I am fine with that.

It becomes dark and depressing at times. At other times you might find yourself filled with hope. Any of this can be shattered or changed in a heart beat. Expect the unexpected and don't trust anything or anyone at face value.

Although this story is filled with action, it also takes time to explore the confused thoughts of Danny. After all, he still has all of his memories from before he changed.

I would like to mention that I listed this on my Zombie shelf. The haters are not zombies per se, as they are living and breathing people. They are similar in the manner of the infected of 28 Days Later (although nothing like them beyond their aggression toward those not affected) in which I consider it close to a zombie outbreak. I'm sure that bit can be debated left and right. I just wanted to make it clear that by the book zombies do not play a part in Dog Blood.

Anyway, pick up both books in this series. I highly recommend them and will be picking up the third book in this series soon.

[Jenni Arndt · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can read all of my reviews at Alluring Reads.

After being blown away by Hater I was quick to run out and buy the remaining books in the series, Dog Blood and Them or Us. Hater had the perfect build up, and I was right there with the McCoyne's as the world went to hell. In Dog Blood we are once again treated to alternating perspectives, but here we have, of course, Danny's perspective and we alternate between that and a third person narration following an unchanged named Mark around as he tries to survive in a changed world. While this one was definitely less exciting than its predecessor, it was a worthy follow up in the intensely strong world building.

I loved how the two stories presented in Dog Blood intertwined throughout the novel and we got to see the characters tales blend together a bit. Danny's story is intense as he charges through, trying to find his daughter Ellis, who he knows is like him but was taken away by her mother. I was worried in the beginning that the novel would be a dragged out journey as he works his way to his daughter but the roadblocks he encounters really served to make it an interesting journey. This one gets a bit more political as the changed plan an uprising and a way to infiltrate the unchanged. I do feel that the first page of the novel stating that it doesn't matter why or how the change occurred was a cop-out and I really hope that those answers are still coming. I mean you can't have this happening to people and the world falling apart at the seams and not tell the reader what made it all happen. I don't care if it's a disease that comes from the saliva of bunnies, I just want some sort of reason.

Once again we are left with an intriguing set up for the final installment in the series. I am dying to see more of the changed children and just what they are capable of (even though I am certain it will not be pretty.) What sets this series apart for me is really brought to light in this second installment; the changed have a method to their madness. They are intelligent and have the ability to be organized & reign in their desire to the point that they come across as calculated in their actions at times. This is a frightening concept, and it's what keeps me hungrily turning the pages. I have no idea what the outcome of this series could be, there are so many directions it could go in so I can't wait to dig into Them or Us.

[Ruby Tombstone Lives! · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the premise of these books, and this was a good read, but I think "second in a trilogy" syndrome applies here. The couple of issues I had with the first book still exist, and my questions have yet to be resolved. Nevertheless, it's a good read and does introduce a couple of new elements to the mix. Like the first book, I felt that the first two thirds of this were a little slow, but once it picked up momentum it really packed a punch. David Moody really knows how to finish a book! I can't help thinking that the final instalment will make up for the relatively minor issues I had with the other books.

I stand by my review of Hater though, I think this would have made a near-perfect single novel. By splitting it into three, padding it out, muddying and diluting the messages, it loses a little credibility for me. Moody has some seriously big and important ideas that are hinted at throughout these books, and I would have loved for him to sharpen and hone this element of the books a little.

Much as I appreciate straightforward narrative prose, I think the writing felt a little bit too lean even for me. I would have loved a few poetic phrases here and there to create a stronger mood. Don't get me wrong, the violence and horror elements are fantastic, but I think that with a little more finesse, they could have had a lot more impact. That's not to say there aren't some truly horrific scenes though -If the last part of this book doesn't punch you in the guts, I'd be very surprised!

I have a bunch of questions jotted down about the plot, but I'm going to hold onto them until I finish the third book. If I've learned anything by now it's to trust Moody to finish things up well! And if I haven't made it clear enough to everyone, I DO recommend reading this trilogy, and I am SERIOUSLY looking forward to the final instalment.....

[David Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a weak follow-up to Moody's Hater, the first book in this series. What I loved about the first book was the main character's development arc -- how Danny reacted to a world going to hell, mostly by not reacting (until the end of that book). In this second book, the world is already hell, and remains hell. In the first book, the world changed, but Danny didn't, and it worked. In the second book, the world stays the same, but Danny's changes, and it flops. Problem is, the changes Danny undergoes don't make any sense. The plot twists don't make any sense either -- the mad scientist with initially ambiguous motivation comes to mind (how did he manage to fool so many people?).

What I really loved about Hater was how Danny, the main character, was an everyman. He represented probably how most people would react to a "rage virus zombie" outbreak -- a bit of concern, but mostly just hoping the whole thing will blow over. In Dog Blood, Danny's special. He's got a skill that will help his side win the war. Suddenly he's important. Suddenly he's a character that matters to the world, not just to his family (and the reader). This is a big step back for the series, or at least for my enjoyment of the series. It was inevitable after the end of Hater -- how else could Danny have a plot line, given the ending of Hater, except to become important in the war? How else could the character and the world-building continue apace? But it is a shame.

I would recommend this book to someone who liked Hater, liked the world Moody created, and wants to see it through to the end. Hopefully I'll be picking up the third book in the trilogy, Them or Us, and my perseverance will be rewarded.

[Joanna]

I really liked this book in the beginning. I enjoyed the way the author layed out the story on a day to day basis. Internal narrative of a person. Followed by the first person of the man character.

The work interaction was funny, bringing back fond memories of office space and TP reports.

The protagonists kids in the story were annoying and left me thinking they needed that nanny from the reality show.

Then it just got boring. I can't say exactly when it happened, but it did. At some point what I was reading just wasn't interesting anymore and I found my mind wandering while sitting on the train thinking of twenty eight days later and how the book reminded me of it in a way.

And then...nothing. The first person narration was repetitive and vanilla. Rushed and boring. I wanted more of what he was going through, more feeling, more anger? Just....more. Moody had the potential to write something interesting, engrossing, and fairly original, but he fell short of claiming that victory.

When I finally reached the end of the book I was awakened from my doze and plowed through to the end, slightly annoyed with the author’s explanation of the characters actions as “just because” but otherwise content, I guess.

I don’t think I’d pick up the next book and read it. Unfortunately I already own it so I’ll get to it eventually, maybe.

[Alondra Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

The evolution of Haters, and the devolution (descent or degeneration to a lower or worse state) of the rest of humanity. We got a taste of different factions; if you will; of Haters...or maybe, different levels of Hater-dom; not really sure how to describe it. I have the feeling that the children were much worse, than the adults. "children have no memory of before, ...they are pure hate."

We get really in depth with how our main character, Danny McCoyne; is adjusting and evolving as a Hater. This is why this book received 3.5 stars. I did not need to know his every waking thought or mood. At times it was a little too much. His flashbacks and thought processes, drove me nuts. Glad I am not in his head anymore.

For the most part, this was another great read from a great author. Cannot wait to read the next book; Them or Us.

BTW;

Is it wrong that I rooted for the Haters??

[Shanon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful! I had a hard time putting this book down. Hater grabbed my attention and it’s sequel, Dog Blood, kept it.

We continue to follow Danny and get more insights into the mind of a Hater. I didn’t really like Danny when we first met him in Hater but I really liked him in this one. He was stronger and less whiny about his situation. Danny’s world is bloody, graphic, violent and terrifying. I can’t get enough!

I’m still insanely curious about the cause of the Haters and really hope that the next book will answer some of my questions. Can’t Wait!

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 2nd book in Moody's Hater trilogy. I really enjoyed this one as well, it didn't lose my interest and was just as good as the first, in my opinion. No vampires or zombies, just human monsters; but monsters nevertheless. These books are about a Hate that has taken over some people and this book focuses on the fighting between the Haters and the Unchanged. Very violent, with blood and gore, along with a human side. Really enjoyed the first and the second, now onto the third.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

No mistake, Dog Blood is not for everyone, and there are many who will see little value in its intense cynicism and graphic violence. But connoisseurs of the genre will realize the craft behind the mayhem, and will appreciate Moody's refusal to enliven his grim fairy tale with humour or hope. This is the horror of blood and guts, the horror of vintage Romero and Fulci, and if you're not prepared for it, why are you reading it?

Read the rest of the review here.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow not as satisfying as 'Hater', probably because it's the second book of the trilogy. Feels akin to a difficult 'second album'. Although it does have some vaguely interesting social commentary on the nature of war and the pointlessness of terrorism, there wasn't the same thrill and terror of the unknown that was part of the first book, and the sections on the experiences of Mark, one of the 'Unchanged', felt incomplete, and the lack of explanation as to what caused the outbreak of 'Hate' is really annoying, which why I'll still read the next book!