Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: don't be mislaid
Review: like may readers, I had reservations about this book due to the bad reviews, how anyone can trash this book and call it rubish is beyond me. I found it to be a very suspensful and harrowing read which deeply disturbed me. This is what i bought the book for. All the readers who were disgusted and could not read it, what did you expect?? I am appalled to find that MR Harris has felt the need to appologise to his readers because of their comments. What right do do readers have to tell TH how the characters that HE! created would react in the circumstaces. I would like to thank TH for a brilliant book and only hope that he has not been disheartened by the critism to write a follow up book. (but I do wish he would write them quicker)

Rating:
Summary: Eerily delightful! Grotesque and romantic!
Review: Throughout much of the book I was wondering where Harris was going with the characters and the storyline. And like a true suspense thriller I was hooked until the very last page.

Occasionally the writing style would change in a manner that was a bit confusing. It seemed that pieces were left out, when really Harris was bringing us truly into Hannibal's intricate mind, where trivialities matter not as much as results.

Hannibal, nor Starling let the trivialities in life get to them. They are calm through and through. I admire these qualities and came to admire the characters. Harris brought them to life for me. Sometimes I fancy that they really are alive.

To quote Poe, [Hannibal] "thrilled me -- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before". Also it made me giggle with delight. It was exquisite! How I would like to talk to Mr. Harris about this book as I think much of Hannibal Lecter is really part of himself (though I doubt Harris is such a monster). Harris must be a man of distinguished taste and class, as well as humor.

Bravo!

Rating:
Summary: This novel is a superb sequel to its predecessor.
Review: In this novel, Harris further expands on the events that happen after the escape of his horrifyingly realistic character, Hannibal Lecter. We are allowed a tiny glimpse into the hallways of Lecter's mind, and what one finds there can only be described as the remenants of one with great potential that was diseased and corrupted by a childhood trauma. I recommend that anyone with an interest in the psyche of a brilliant madman, imbibe this novel as well as its prequels The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon.

Rating:
Summary: What was he thinking?!?
Review: The brilliance of The Silence of the Lambs was the mental connection between the two main characters - the "quid pro quo". Unfortunately, Harris has written a storyline that keeps Hannibal and Starling apart until the very last scenes.

Rating:
Summary: Like liver and fava beans with Ripple - not a fine Chianti
Review: Having anticipated another chapter in the Lector story for years, and having re-read SOtL and Red Dragon, I was thrilled to see "Hannibal" on the bookstands. I was ready to be equally thrilled by the book. Wrong! Parts of the book were masterfully written, but the last chapter was disappointment writ large. In the name of character development, Dr. Lecter was raised to the level of superman. Krendler was a cartoon, as were most of the other characters. I don't need a happy ending, but I do need one that is plausible and fits the sense of the story. Wrong again! Compared to the previous two books in the series, this is tabloid journalism.

Rating:
Summary: Love it or Hate it you will never forget it.
Review: I must admit that after the almost 13 year wait between Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal (Silence of the Lambs was published in 1986 remember?) I was greatly anticipating the sequel.

I have read almost all the reviews associtated with this book and while I feel that there were some major problems with character developement and plot, I must admit that I was not all that dissapointed. Why some of you may ask? Well for one reason, I knew Mr. Harris was going to hard pressed to top Silence of the Lambs, which in my opinion was one of the best written thrillers of the past 30 years, and number two the film adapation of the book did win an Oscar. I know that has little to do with how good the book is, but when the film wins an Oscar us readers do tend to expect more out of any sequel be it book or movie.

Mr. Harris did spend alot of time revealing the motivations behind Lecter's sadistic tendencies, and while it did tend to remove some of the mystique from the character I feel this is something that he did need to do. Lecter was written as a flesh and blood human being remember? And there is always something that makes a human being turn bad (and no I am not going to get into a debate over nature versus nuture here). I had a hard time believing that Lecter was evil just for the sake of being evil, which is how is was protrayed in the first two books, and in this book Harris does paint a rather convincing picture of what exactly it was that made Lecter turn against society and become a monster.

My main problem with this book was the Clarice Starling character, in the Silence of the Lambs, she was portrayed as a strong, resourceful and inituitive woman a worthy heir to Will Graham the hero of Harris' first book Red Dragon, in this book however she is reduced to less than that, now I know that seven years in any govenment agency (esp. the FBI) is enough to suck the life out of anyone, but I had a hard time believing that Clarice would let that happen to herself. By the end of the book I was looking for her to be the good balancing out all of the evil that permeated the novel, and of course it turns out she wasn't. We tend to like our heroes in fiction clear cut and honest and with this novel I can honestly say that did not happen.

The book tended to read more like a morality play than a thriller and that is not really why I read Mr. Harris' previous books.

While I did have a problem with the way the characters where protrayed in the book, I do think it was very well written and did move along at a relatively nice pace, which is all I really ask for in a Thomas Harris novel.

Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment after the first two Lector books.
Review: There is no suspense, just insipid characters and vivid gory descriptions that somehow don't even arouse horror--they're simply too unbelievable. What a shame the character development didn't continue after such a brilliant start(s).

Rating:
Summary: Cute romance, but not credible
Review: I was very much expecting this novel to be a suspenseful thriller...but the more I read, the less credible it became. From Hannibal to Starling, the characters were so grotesquely unrealistic that I kept wondering how this got published.

The ending left me incredulous...simply because it was so farfetched not even my vivid imagination could conjure how a serial killer would act like a male character in the worst romance novel.

Let's label this one FANTASY. And HOPE it is NEVER made into a movie -- at least not the novel version.

Rating:
Summary: Good to the last... but then the last was a real let down.
Review: I was engrossed in the first three quarters of the book. It was wellwritten as you would expect from Harris. However, the credibilitythat was carefully built around Hannibal and especially Starling was destroyed in the end. I wondered if he ran out of time and just turned something in to meet the minimal requirments of his publisher after putting the book down for the last time.

Rating:
Summary: Hannibal the horrible
Review: What an ending! Before I read the book, I was aware that there is a twist at the end. That was the only reason that I endured the slow pace and boring side plots. As I was nearing the end, I thought, "No, this could not be the ending, the twist is coming up." I was totally disappointed. That IS the ending. If you are looking for "and they live happily everafter" kind of ending, read Beauty and the Beast.