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{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Hybrids
|author=David Thorpe
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|pages=304
|publisher=Harper Collins Children's Books
|date=May 2007
|isbn=978-0007247844
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0007247842</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0007247842|aznus=<amazonus>0007247842</amazonus>
}}
In an increasingly authoritarian Britain, not too far into the future, a new and dreaded virus is sweeping the country. Creep radically alters DNA and once infected, sufferers risk becoming merged with any item of technology that they over-use. It's a terrible disease, causing terrible pain and infection at the transition point and sending the body's immune system into overdrive. People are not only disabled by Creep; they are dying from it too. Nobody knows where Creep came from, but many suspect a drug company may have developed the disease in order to profit from curing it, but it mutated so quickly they were left with a disaster on their hands instead.
Our thanks to Harper Collins for sending the book.
Kevin Brooks' [[Being]] is a slightly more sophisticated take on the hybrid theme and Joe Craig's books about [[Jimmy Coates]] give the same premise an X-Men twist for younger readers. You might also appreciate [[Hater by David Moody]] and [[The Evil Occupants of Easingdale Castle by Ray Filby]].
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{{commenthead}}
|name=Magda
|verb=said
|comment= I might be to anal, but I really, really think that the premis is so mind-bogglingly idiotic, and it could have been done - it has been done, countless times, in cyber-punk - so much better, that it would require the kind of suspension of disbelief that I would be not prepared to make. But then, I am not exactly the target market, am I?
}}
{{comment
|name=Jill
|verb=replied
|comment= Ah yes. Well, I don't read cyber punk - but I imagine quite a few older teens do? But then, this is probably intended for younger teens not ready for that market yet. It's well-written, and the hybrid premise is quite popular in children's books at the moment. I haven't really seen any that take a mob-rule angle as opposed to the effect on an individual angle, so that does set it apart and is also timely, given that every mosque is currently suspected of doubling as a terrorist academy, non? Having said that, and as I said, the virus itself in the book is treated very crudely, and it does let it down somewhat. Still, first book and all that, what what. The dialogue's great and that's what usually lets a first book down.
}}
{{comment
|name=Magda
|verb=said
|comment= If so, then it will be a good introduction to 'proper' s-f.
}}
[[Category:Science Fiction]]
