Post date: Feb 23, 2015 11:37:00 PM
The aliens came and, finding humans boring, went. Behind them they left extremely advanced alien gene-splicing equipment which a secret U.S. government program uses to create genetically engineered, nearly indestructible soldiers. When the black program is discovered by Congress, however, funding is cut and the hybrids ordered destroyed. Two of the earliest hybrids – a young boy and a girl who are half human – are spared and raised separately as humans. The rest – bizarre, engineered nonhumans – are destroyed. Or are they?Decades later, Delta Force officer Mark Bryan and CIA officer Gina Bryan, find themselves allied in a fight against what appears to be a handful of human-skinning alie
n hybrids. Mark and Gina, despite having spent a night together, are unable to admit to each other the incredible attraction each secretly holds for the other. When the handful of hybrids turns out to be a massive hive of thousands that threatens San Francisco with destruction, Mark and Gina are thrust together and forced to confront the truth that they, too, are hybrids.
In his novel, Hybrids, Whitley Strieber created a thriller that crosses genre lines—a science fiction story with elements of horror. Rooted in classic sci-fi elements like extraterrestrials and scientific technology, Hybrids also has flourishes of skin-crawling creepiness. Mixed in with this literary stew is a heaping helping of heart-pounding suspense.
I have long considered Strieber one of the most imaginative novelists I've ever read. But having read his non-fiction Communion series about his personnel experiences with alien abduction, I have to wonder if Strieber meant Hybrids as less a fanciful work of fiction, and more of a cautionary tale?