Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: Can't put "Hannibal" down! Great anticipated read!
Review: I did not expect what I received! Hannibal is pure entertainment and a "can't put it down book"! Thomas Harris is amazing with his characters and their development! Mason Veger "almost" gave me nightmares! Clarice Starling continues to evolve her humanity - what strength and insight! I can not wait for this to be a movie, and only pray that they keep "to the book"! Plus bring back the "orginal cast"! Mr. Harris may take years to write a book, but I just hope that this senior citizen is alive to enjoy the next one as much as Hannibal! Good work! I would recommend this to anyone who want to sit, have a great adventure, and often shake their head in amazement, with occasional little shudders!

Rating:
Summary: I expected a novel, not the second coming of Jesus--
Review: --and maybe that's why I don't feel at all disappointed by Thomas Harris' long-awaited latest. I found it immensely satisfying-- good, creepy, highly literate fun. Unlike most of my fellow readers here, I thought the ending was perfectly in keeping with what we know about the characters and their relationship.

After an 11-year lapse, it's easy for fans to get way too emotionally invested in a sequel. I think that that's what's happened with the reactions to this book, but I don't share that attitude at all. Harris made some fascinating choices here, supplied some grotesque moments on the far edge of believability, and did it all with wonderful, evocative prose (notice the creepy effect he gets by mixing a sudden first-person-plural voice into the normal third-person narration? It's like suddenly finding the narrator standing there behind you).

No, I think that this book is an absolute artistic success, and, in response to one reader in particular, eminently filmable.

Rating:
Summary: Didn't Even Deserve One Star
Review: Anyone who enjoyed _Silence of the Lambs_ and/or _Red Dragon_ will find it impossible to enjoy _Hannibal_. The book is populated by loathsome, repulsive characters, and those characters from the first book who do make an appearance (excepting Lecter) have been fundamentally altered. The stong and resourceful become nothing more than puppets to the predators who take center stage for action of the novel.

Leaving violations of the writer's craft aside, _Hannibal_ is a repulsive, revolting book. I am not a squeamish reader; in fact, I enjoy horror--even of the terribly graphic sort. I don't object to books that disturb me. However, I object to the glorification of evil and the attempts to justify (and get the audience to cheer on) monstrous and perverse behavior. I object to whole rationale that people who are victimized have the right to victimize others.

_Hannibal_ is as disappointing as it is distasteful. If there was a way to assign it a negative number of stars, I would have.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the formula horror writer fans
Review: I had nearly given up on Harris' return to the crime-horror genre; I'm glad I did not. What superb imagination and craftsmanship! Not since Hemmingway has someone written so ingeniously and so convincingly. "Hannibal" will certainly be made into a film, just as the highly unlikely and hugely successful, "Silence...".

Rating:
Summary: I waited 11 years for this??? Now a new bad guy???
Review: I am half way through this book, savoring every minute. I am truly going nuts to think that it will be eleven years to find out how we will be rid of our next monster! I am throughly enjoying this book, and it is done in true Harris style. I have been hooked since his first book and will wait with baited breath for his next. Definitely a must read. Just do it with your lights on.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible Endings (In the good sense of the word)
Review: The first time I realized that there was a problem was when the book should have ended, but did not. I got to what I saw as the logical (and cinematic) climax and saw 50 pages ahead of me.

I had an inkling as to what was coming. To be sure, I was hoping I was wrong. I was not.

When I finished the book, I was uneasy. The ending disturbed me, as I'm sure it did most of you. It was a deamlike descent -- not just for the characters, but for the reader.

Harris did not write a screenplay, he wrote a horror novel. My sense of uneasiness did not come from a poor ending, but rather the only ending he could have given the book: good is destroyed, evil remains.

In fact, the evil that we were all rooting for (and Hannibal is a hero, no doubt about it) was the victor. Complaining about this is not only hypocritical, but misses the point.

Rating:
Summary: A Major Disappointment
Review: Forget the Star Wars backlash. Hannibal is the true pop-culture disappointment of the summer. The book was actually in three- to four-star territory for a while. As outlandish and macabre as the new characters and situations are, they're never boring, and the novel zipped along...until the final chapters. Harris' resolution is a four-alarm misfire, a sick joke played upon his readers. He sacrifices characterization and logic for shock value, and the result will leave a bad taste in a lot of mouths.

Rating:
Summary: Open up to the the Weird!
Review: Don't listen to all the others, people. This book is so trippy and bizaare. Just suspend your disbelief for a bit - let the logic of the scenario take over. Hannibal Lecter is the hero of this novel. He's a killer, all right. He's sick in the head, all right. But he's honest. And this novel constructs that as the highest of virtues. Maybe the end was supposed to be horrifying, and it was in a way. But I think it was a happy ending. It is highly problematic, but that's OK. It's supposed to weird you out that you're happy at the end. And I was. In a really messed up way. Give the book a try. It bends your values all around, which is a good thing.

Rating:
Summary: Grave disappoinmtnet, witless plot
Review: If you want to remain a Thomas Harris fan, forget about 'Hannibal'. It's a waste of time and trees. All the reasons why 'Dragon' and 'Lambs' were great, and why we all admired Harris so much, are the same reasons for being dismayed and disappointed at this rambling mess of a book. If you adore intriguing and believable characters, you're out of luck with 'Hannibal'. If you enjoy an intricate and deliciously worked-out plot, look elsewhere. Rarely have I been so disappointed with an author's failure to deliver something worthy of his own gifts.

The story in 'Hannibal' is shot through with inconsistencies and implausibilities, even allowing for some of the contrivancies and conventions of the genre. As for the characterisation, Harris has betrayed his own creations and his readership's loyalty.

In the previous books, Lecter obtained his goals through intellectual brilliance and devious cunning of a kind never previously depicted in crime fiction. In 'Hannibal', this factor is entirely absent. He escapes the trap so carefully laid for him... how? We don't really know. He just guesses what's up, and struggles his way out. Harris might just as well have written 'With a leap and a bound he was free'.

Lecter wants to track down Clarice. He gets her address from her University Alumni list. Yeah, right. So Clarice is an FBI special agent. She has caught serial killers, and her most deadly potential adversary (Lecter) is out on the run who-knows-where. And she regularly takes down gang-protected drug dealers. Yet she has never changed her address since graduation, never taken steps to conceal where she lives, and Lecter finds her as easily as finding the nearest McDonalds. Sorry, I don't think so. In the previous books, Lecter might have tracked down Clarice, but he would have achieved this through some breathtakingly ingenious ruse (like his discovery of Will Graham's home address in 'Dragon'). Not so here.

There are many other similar plot holes. All in all, a grave disappointment with a truly illegitimate ending. Don't buy it. Or at least wait for the cheaper paperback (which will be out soon). Or have my copy... I don't want it. I can only echo many other reviewers in saying that the only reason I give this one star is because I can't give it none at all.

Rating:
Summary: What were the editors thinking.
Review: I, like many others, anxiously awaited the release of this book. I thoroughly enjoyed Red Dragon and Silence. Hannibal is missing the key elements present in the first two. I so enjoyed the forensics and psychological profiling that acted as revealing pieces of a puzzle and served to create dramatic tension. We always knew Hannibal was a monster, but we enjoyed delving into his mind. The characters in this book are just sick and I felt gross reading about all of Mason Verger's deviances with children. It feels like Mr. Harris has the kind of disdain for his readers that Hannibal has for humanity. Clarice is not much like her previous self through most of the book but the way she ends up is completely unbelievable. I hate to trash any book and especially one by an author I admire, but this book is a mess. I agree with the review above that this is a novel that cannot (should not) be made into a movie. I preordered this book before reading a review and I hope Mr. Harris makes a bunch of money off this one because I won't make that mistake again. Maybe this book is a set up for the next one and all will be made clear but I'll find out from the library, not by spending my hard earned money on this kind of drek. Most of all I'm disappointed by someone I thought was a master of suspense.