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The second HATER trilogy

I’ve got some more HATER news for you: I’m writing a new HATER book. Actually, I’m writing three.

For me, the original HATER series was nicely self-contained. Although the whole world had gone crazy and imploded, the books were first and foremost Danny McCoyne’s story. I resisted even thinking about writing other books for a long time because I’d told all of Danny’s story and without a damn good reason to go back to the world of HATER, I thought any additional novels would just be a cynical cash in.

Enter Ed Barratt.

I introduced you to Ed last week. He’s the producer of the new HATER movie, and over the last few months he and I have talked extensively about how, if the first movie is successful, we’d want the rest of Danny’s story to be adapted for screen. The second HATER trilogy is a direct result of those conversations.

Details are pretty sparse at the moment, but click the link and I’ll tell you what I know.

The Final War by David Moody

As I’ve already said, in HATER I turned the whole world upside-down, but we only really ever saw what Danny McCoyne saw. What’s unique about this series, I think, is that we’re watching things from an unusual perspective: we’re rooting for the ‘bad guys’. But what keeps drawing me back to the HATER world is the fact we don’t really know who those bad guys are. Pretty much everyone – Haters and Unchanged alike – believe they’re doing the right thing for the right reason, no matter how vile or inhuman their actions might prove to be.

I guess what I’m saying is there’s two sides to every story. It would be easy for me to retell the story from the perspective of the Unchanged, but it always felt like that would be a cop-out (still, rewriting the same book from a different viewpoint clearly works for the occasional unfathomably popular shit-peddler). The new HATER books WON’T just be a rehash of the first three.

I don’t know when they’ll be released or by whom. If I decide to take the Infected Books route, expect to see the first novel sooner rather than later (early 2016, I hope). Whatever happens, I’ll keep you updated.

So having already told you that I can’t tell you much, is there anything I can say? The short answer is yes, but I don’t want to go into too much detail for fear of giving away too many surprises. For today I think I’ll just leave you with the titles of the upcoming books and a fact about each one:

ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING
The first new book feels to me like a cross between HATER, a slasher movie, and THE THING. It’s very claustrophobic. It’s also very different to HATER.

THE OTHER HALF ALL ROADS END HERE
Is a parallel sequel to DOG BLOOD (same place, same time).

THE LAST SUMMER CHOKEHOLD
Bridges a gap between DOG BLOOD and THEM OR US. Danny McCoyne (probably) won’t appear, but you’ll definitely recognise a few other names and faces.

Exciting, eh? I’ll tell you more about the books as things progress. And in the next couple of weeks I’ll also update you on my other new series, THE SPACES BETWEEN.