Rating: 
Summary: What a let-down
Review: I read this book in one evening, at first because it was facinating, and then to get it back on the bookshelf as soon as possible. Could this book have been written by TWO people? The beginning is wonderful. Two old friends getting together for a backpacking expedition. The description of the forest and the slow unraveling of the relationship are some of the best fiction anywhere. I was hooked! I began having my doubts after the explicit male rape episode and then, when the main character pulls up his pants and begins making conversation, I got a sinking feeling. And the longer I read, the more disappointed I became. The weak writer becomes even weaker, saving mountain lions, crying uncontrollably, immediately confessing to his wife that he has been sodomized. And the crazy actor becomes crazier with no apparent explaination. With relief, I finally got through the anti-climatic ending and happily put this clinker back on the shelf.Richard Matheson is a fine writer....I am just hoping he let someone else take over the second half of this book. That would explain a LOT.
Rating: 
Summary: Stupid Beyond Reckoning
Review: If bad writing were a crime, Richard Matheson would be on death row. As it is, I feel like I've done hard time by reading this book. Mr. Matheson uses the protagonist in this book as a vehicle to float every left-leaning, New Age theory imaginable: he's pro-reincarnation, anti-gun, anti-violence, pro-animal rights. And the results are almost laughably absurd. After the main character has been sodomized and beaten and is fleeing a psycopath in the forest, our hero stops his escape to rescue a cougar that has been trapped by a fallen log. Why not brew a little latte' while you're at it? And after the psychopath rapes the protagonist's wife as a prelude to murdering the hero and the hero gains the upper hand, the protagonist refuses to kill the pyschopath "because that would make him like the psychopath." Huh? It's this kind of muddleheaded thinking that the reader must endure thoughout the book. Save your money and your time. Look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: What is this?
Review: Is it a guide to hiking or a thriller? Lack of an indentity causes the book to be skimmed and disappointment to be the result.
Rating: 
Summary: Hunted Past Reason--an amateur writer's point of view
Review: It wasn't a bad book. But here's my breakdown: Characterization: 4 Stars
Plot: 2 Stars
Voice/Style: 2 Stars
Research: 4 Stars
Effectiveness: 3 Stars
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OVERALL: 3 Stars I'm not going to summarize the story, as other Amazon reviewers have already done that for me. I will say, first off, that I found the writing style to be the most troublesome aspect of Hunted Past Reason, especially since it tumbled from the keyboard of a major author. For instance, I felt bombarded by this type of dialogue construction: "No, I just--" He broke off. Yeah, Rich, we get it. Of course "he broke off." That's what a dash ("--") implies. You don't need to tell us any more than "just--" already does. For many people, this type of trangression is no biggie. I guess it's a personal thing. For me, Richard Matheson's overexplaining (not just in dialogue) got in the way. And believe you me, I didn't have to look far to find the above example. There were plenty quite like it. Here's another one I just now flipped to: "Jesus, Doug," Bob pleaded. "Can't we--?"
"Well, there is no phone," Doug interrupted. Yeah. We get it, Richie. Doug interrupted him. Let's move on. Wasted words, man. Wasted words. The style bugged me in other places. For instance, there was the protagonist's internal dialogue. Matheson was repetitive, giving us the same thoughts over and over and over again. And over and over. And over again. And-- Er, yeah. Repetitive. Furthermore, I found myself guessing the plotline in spots. I don't normally do that; I'm not that astute. I came to feel as though I were reading a manuscript from a slightly better than amateur writer. But I had picked up Matheson's novel hoping to learn from a master! In other words, I myself couldn't have written it better, but I certainly COULD have read a better product from this fella. Should have, that is. However. . . Hunted Past Reason wasn't a major disappointment. Repetitious or not, Matheson got his characters across very well. I KNEW Bob (the protagonist), and I KNEW Doug (the antagonist), both of them intimately by the time... the story bolted out of the starting gate. I believed the central conflict could have taken place in real life. (I've known some borderline maniac's in my time. Doug's not fashioned out of cardboard.) The characters seemed real to me. The tension was real. Part of the story's success was due to the research the author did prior to writing his "backpacking novel." I felt like I was learning a thing or two. (Whether or not that was the case.) I was interested while, at the same time, growing fearful about how much the central character relied on his foe for wilderness survival. That was good stuff. In the end, I felt the novel to be effective. It indeed suspended me, kept me turning pages--and I only skipped a couple of paragraphs in all. Honestly, I read those 291 pages very quickly, rarely feeling jostled out of the fictional setting by clumsy subplotting and back-and-forth points of view (something that will usually cause me to put a book down, unread). I've never completed a novel so fast as this one. Not all of you will agree. That's just me. Hunted Past Reason is a pretty good read. Not sorry I bought it.
Rating: 
Summary: The Master Returns
Review: It would be easy to misunderstand Mr. Matheson's decision to employ in his newest novel what is probably the roughest language and most graphic imagery of his career. But those of us who have appreciated his genius over the years realize that Hunted Past Reason is really no departure from Matheson's past. He has always been thoroughly devoted to storytelling, and he has always been very clear that he will do whatever a particular story demands. To want this book to be safer in any way is tantamount to wishing that Sam Peckinpah had eased up on the violence and tension in Straw Dogs. Or contending that The Exorcist could have done with a bit less foul language. Some stories simply cannot be told in polite terms. And just as the devil wouldn't probably say, "Excuse me, Father Karras, but I believe your mother is blowing kisses in perdition," so would it have been impossible for Matheson to paint a flowery picture of Doug, the brutal antagonist of Hunted Past Reason. Of course it isn't the American way to give a proven master in an artistic field the benefit of the doubt. It's much more exciting to seek out signs that the mighty has fallen. Well, guess what--he hasn't. Matheson is back, after seven quiet years, with a lean piece of fiction that will have you at the end of a hook from beginning to end. Hunted Past Reason, like almost all of Matheson's work, is important reading for anyone with more than a passing interest in the fantastic fiction of the 20th (and 21st) century. He was there long before King, and he will similarly endure--because he writes books like this.
Rating:
Summary: Marginally Entertaining
Review: Like another reviewer here, if I could give this book 2 1/2 stars, I would. HUNTED PAST REASON has potential, and with gifted author Richard Matheson at the helm the reader is definitely in for a suspenseful, white-knuckle thriller. But the book has two glaring problems: 1) it's over the top; 2) it's sloppy.
Successful writer Bob Hansen wants to write a novel about backpacking in the wilderness; problem is, he's never been backpacking in the wilderness. Enter Doug Crowley, a marginal friend of Bob's. Doug's career as an actor is going down the tubes--but he's an experienced outdoorsman. He offers to take Bob on a backpacking trek across the northern California woodlands, and Bob's opportunity to experience the "Great Wide Open" is set. Of course, little does Bob know that Doug is about to snap, and when Doug goes bats he doesn't fool around--he gets downright demonic. Thus the real adventures begin, as Bob fights for survival in the wilds, not only against his nutty nemesis, but against Mother Nature as well.
But this book unravels, for several reasons. Among them, the philosophical arguments between Bob and Doug about an "after life." These discussions were surreal, and completely out of place with the pacing of the story. Doug's behavior after his mental meltdown was as unbelievable as an elephant swimming the Atlantic--and the physical injury and abuse both protagonist and antagonist endured as the story limped to its zany climax caused me to conclude the characters were genetic mutants (no normal human could survive such abuse). Finally, with Bob continuing to cross paths with bears, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, porcupines, coyotes, etc., I wasn't sure if I was reading a thriller or watching a Walt Disney cartoon.
Equally disappointing was Matheson's writing. Granted, he utilizes a sparse, less-is-more style, but much of it comes across as awkward--even worse, sloppy. When the reader is subconsciously rewriting the author's sentences to smooth them out, the reading experience becomes less than enjoyable. And HUNTED PAST REASON, even with its entertaining (yet unbelievable) suspense, is a less than enjoyable read.
--D. Mikels, Author, WALK-ON
Rating: 
Summary: A Return To Greatness For Richard Matheson
Review: Many readers, myself included, have been disappointed by Richard Matheson's recent output of fiction....When I heard that a new novel by Richard Matheson was coming, I was excited about it. Rest assured, Hunted Past Reason is Richard Matheson at his best. I found it reminded me most of Hell House, in the way in was structured and the bleak tone of the book... I give Hunted Past Reason my highest recommendation. Richard Matheson is back with one of his finest novels yet. And that, my friends, is just about as good as fiction gets.
Rating:
Summary: Not the Best but not the Worst
Review: My review would actually be for 2 1/2 stars but I rounded up to be nice. The premise of this book is a good one, man against man in the primitives of nature, life and death, good vs evil. It should have remained that simple but the writing really hurt this book. Was it me or after the first day of the "game" did you just want the main character (Bob) to get killed. The main character was very annoying to me always whining, crying, etc. Also I think the realism of the story was hurt by his actions. Hes being chased thru the woods by a maniac who wants to rape and kill him and he is stopping for 8 hour naps, he stops to cook food over a fire and read a book, he stops to rescue a trapped mountain lion, COME ON HERE! If Im being chased by this killer Im not stopping for nothing. It just really took a lot of the suspense away since you sit there asking Bob, "what in the (...) are you doing"? Then of course everyone of these scenes is followed up with a sobbing episode by our main character. Overall this could have been a great book but the author just strayed to much from the hunt and made the main character just to annoying for me. This is a average book that could have been much better.
Rating:
Summary: Cookie Cutter Novel
Review: No real surprises here. The typical thriller plot, uninteresting characters, and a chase scene I have read/seen hundreds of times before. How can we be expected to believe that the villain, Doug, can go as psycho as he did without warning? I don't think even Jason had as many lives as Doug! I also didn't care for the graphic violation of Bob. Didn't need that much detail. Also, Bob seemed to recover pretty darn quickly from such a horrific attack. NOT recommended by me!
Rating:
Summary: Tedious book that telegraphs each upcoming scene
Review: Richard Matheson is one of my favorite authors. His work with The Twilight Zone was stunning. His novels Bid Time Return (which later became the classic movie Somewhere in Time) and What Dreams May Come (which spawned a movie of the same name) are excellent. So it was with great excitement that I discovered this book and bought it. A new Matheson novel! I couldn't wait to read it. Boy was I disappointed. Hunted Past Reason is a pedantic novel with dialog so heavy-handed and stilted that I'm not sure Matheson himself wrote it. How could he have? He's a master storyteller, a legend among legends! Yet, there's his name on the book, and his photo on the dust jacket. The story is about two supposed friends (more like acquaintances) who go backpacking in the wilderness. One man (Doug) is experienced. The other man (Bob) is not. But Bob agrees to go on the trek because he's writing a novel and wanted actual backpacking experience with which to add realism to his book. Somewhere along the way, Doug turns into a maniac and hunts Bob down with intent to kill him. The friction between the two begins immediately...and clumsily. I could tell immediately what was going to happen, and how it was unfolding. The scenes were unbelievably transparent. I never did feel any tension or suspense reading Hunted Beyond Reason. All I felt was a sickness in my stomach from the way-too-graphic scenes of violence (Bob being sodomized by Doug, for example). Ironically, I also found myself pressing forward to complete the novel with the same dogged determination that Bob and Doug pressed through the woods. Not because I was enjoying it, but because I had a destination in mind (the last page) and I wanted to get there as soon as possible. I finished the book last night and felt nothing but relief that it was done. The book's premise is shaky, its dialog is clumsy, and its main characters are unbelievably written. Doug, for instance, is evil incarnate. Bob, on the other hand, compassionately talks to animals and even stops long enough in his haste to flee Doug that he frees a trapped mountain lion. Like, hello! You have a madman at your heels and you're playing Dr. Doolittle? I can't recommend Hunted Beyond Reason. In fact, I heartily suggest you hunt for an entirely different Matheson novel...and let this one remain snoozing with its fellows on the book store shelf.
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