Rating: 
Summary: A great representation of sarcasm
Review: Better Than Sex is a book for those who like to read sarcastic, humorous, and often-cynical writing. Thompson creates a world of politics that is not the "norm" in the United States. It is something ugly, COMPETETIVE (even capitalizing it makes it understated), and downright dirty. He compares getting into politics like an addiction, a very serious addiction. It can mold people into a horrible beast that would run over their own mother as long as they got elected.
This is a book about politics. Yet, there are stories contained with James Carville, the ragin' cajun, stealing Hunter's money and jacket. Also, Thompson describes the, both good and bad, possibilities of a fax-machine, press pass, and telephone. Thompson basically shows his interest in politics in a very uninterested way. He almost makes it seem like he doesn't, in actuality, care about politics through his blatant sarcasm and, at times, downright rudeness. However, while reading, that does not deter from that he is obviously obsessed with politics. I think he's simply trying to state his opinion in a broad, un-censored way. All in all a very good and fun read, for those of you who are cynical and critical of the world around you.
Rating: 
Summary: Diffuse and limpid
Review: Better Than Sex may be the worst book Thompson has published, though it's not without amusements. As he did in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (still available from Modern Library, I believe), Thompson writes a chronological, first-person account of the presidential campaign. The text on each page is supplemented with photographs of faxes and letters with scrawled handwriting over typewritten hyperbole; also there are photographs of Thompson, campaign stuff and the candidates in odd poses. So nearly every page has something to divert the reader's attention from Thompson's narrative. That's a good thing, because Thompson here rewrites or recasts old material shamelessly, criticizing candidates without reason or justification (e.g. Thompson writes several times that George Bush Sr. is "guilty" beyond belief, but he never says what Bush has done that's so terrible - even a corrupt judge condemns a man for allegedly having done SOMETHING...) and padding out the book with insubstantial "letters" and "memos" to people like James Carville, George Steph. (the Greek), Ed-not-Ted Turner of CNN, and President Clinton himself. Thompson is a funny man, sometimes, and there are memorable passages and photos in Better Than Sex. There's also a "campaign timeline" that helps to make sense of Thompson's deliberately disorganized narrative. The book is disappointing but Thompson freaks will probably enjoy it anyhow. I know I did.
Rating: 
Summary: Gonzo Political Coverage
Review: Dr. Thompson's coverage of the election of the first rock 'n roll president is a hoot and a half. From a hapless George Bush reeling from the loss of strategist Lee Atwater (RIP) to smooth Bill Clinton's hustling his way into the voter's hearts and minds, Thompson was a fly on the wall for it all.Thompson went out of his way to make himself a part of the whole story, whether anyone wanted him to or not. It's clear by many of the memos and faxes reproduced here, many didn't. But that's part of the fun. Thompson can make politicians wiggle on the hook like no one else can. Better Than Sex is a fantastic time capsule of the 1992 presidential campaign--even predicting that women just might be Clinton's downfall. Included also is an unkind obituary for former President Nixon and the legacy he left behind. The book is subtitled 'Confessions of a Political Junkie' and it is required reading for any political junkie.
Rating:
Summary: Gonzo Political Coverage
Review: Dr. Thompson's coverage of the election of the first rock `n roll president is a hoot and a half. From a hapless George Bush reeling from the loss of strategist Lee Atwater (RIP) to smooth Bill Clinton's hustling his way into the voter's hearts and minds, Thompson was a fly on the wall for it all. Thompson went out of his way to make himself a part of the whole story, whether anyone wanted him to or not. It's clear by many of the memos and faxes reproduced here, many didn't. But that's part of the fun. Thompson can make politicians wiggle on the hook like no one else can. Better Than Sex is a fantastic time capsule of the 1992 presidential campaign--even predicting that women just might be Clinton's downfall. Included also is an unkind obituary for former President Nixon and the legacy he left behind. The book is subtitled `Confessions of a Political Junkie' and it is required reading for any political junkie.
Rating:
Summary: Boring Race for the Election, Futile Attempt
Review: I was in college during the Clinton/Bush campaign of '92. I was rash and following the economic collapse of the Mid-west following the Reagan years was ready to vote for anyone but Bush. I was interested in the campaign and the book brought back many memories from my studies of it at the time. It also reminded me how little actually happened. This is where the book is untimetly doomed. HST tries his best to inflect some humor, charisma, and turmoil into the electoral process but in this case there is just too little to mine. The first true "Anti-election" also spawned the first very average HST book.
Rating: 
Summary: HSTs Most Scathing Pol Journal Yet!
Review: In reading Better Than Sex, I found a calmer, older & wiser HST. A writer more astute to the 21st Century realities of politics and a writer tired of traveling. It seems as if HST wrote this book just for the fun of it (and he does have fun...probably his funniest work to date); rather than trying to meet a deadline, craming pages into the Mojo Wire as the book is being printed. This book is especially poignant now that we see with the hindsight of the Clinton presidency and of the political realities of the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is a great companion read with Primary Colors by Anonymous; a combination I created by accident. In short, I was skeptical of this book, but as a card-carrying Hunter-Head, I gave it a chance. As a result, I've found my new favorite (Non-Fiction) HST book. "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Selah.
Rating:
Summary: Still Gonzo After All These Years...
Review: Let me start by saying that if you have never read anything by Dr. Thompson before, do not start with this book. Rather, start with some of his earlier material (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or one of his many articles for Rolling Stone). I don't recommend this book to first-time Thompson readers because it is so disjointed that the reader, without knowing Thompson's style, may give up on Thompson before discovering his other great writings. This is not one of Doc's greatest books, but its entertaining, none the less. Its almost worth it just for the funny pictures/faxes and the vicious jabs thrown at all of the canidates. I rated this book with four stars because I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I enjoyed it so much because I am a Thompson fan and eat up almost everything he writes. Other people, however, would be better off starting with something written a little bit earlier in Thompson's career.
Rating:
Summary: Twilight rantings from the Champion of Fun...
Review: Like many another of his kind, Hunter S Thompson has outlived his greatness. When he started out, he was the most dangerous man in his vocation; now, even the Secret Service considers the guy harmless. Sad, but true: when he places bizarre calls to the White House switchboard and hollers "I feel like killing somebody!" in a crowded bar at the Capital Hotel on election night, it's hard to escape the suspicion that he's no longer doing this for the hell of it, he's doing it to live up to a character - doing what's expected of him. A well-behaved, sober Hunter Thompson would be more genuinely subversive than the caricature that slouches through the pages of this shoddy collection of faxes, scrawled memos, pictures, and a less-than-riveting central narrative that fails to plug us into the momentum of the campaign, so that the pay-off of the election itself doesn't carry any zing. But that's not to say it's a bad book. It's simply not an uplifting one - not that Thompson's earlier works weren't gloriously sordid and deranged, but here there's a lingering sense of waste, of failure, and it's hard not to see why. HST is a spiritual anarchist not truly at home in any civilized environment, and the only decade for him was the Sixties. He chronicled the downward spiral of the next two decades fiercely, but this final decade of the twentieth century seemed impossibly dull and discouraging to him. "The standard gets lower every year, but the scum keeps rising," writes Thompson in the defining passage of the book. "A whole new class has seized control in the nineties. They call themselves 'The New Dumb' and they have no sense of humor. They are smart, but they have no passion. They are cute, but they have no fun except phone sex and line dancing...." There were no heroes in the '92 election. Thompson backed Clinton, but only because he had a chance to beat George Bush ("a raving human sacrifice," says HST of Geo. W.'s dad, and "a criminal fraud worse than Nixon") and considers Perot beneath contempt, a spotlight-crazed little runt with no good in him. As for Bill Clinton, HST has a few positive words but no illusions about his "low-rent accidental fascist-style campaign." It's hard to forget the story of his extremely weird encounter with the future President in a restaurant in Little Rock; it's laugh-out-loud funny all right, but also very creepy in a way it's hard to put your finger on. As with much of the guy's work, it's sometimes hard to distinguish fact from forgivable hyperbole from outright nonsense, and maybe it's more fun that way. But HST saves his knockout punch for the very end, almost as an afterthought: his Rolling Stone obituary for Richard Nixon. If this weren't also available somewhere on the internet, its inclusion would justify purchasing Better Than Sex. Much earlier in the book, he remembers his shock on first reading H. L. Mencken's vicious obituary of William Jennings Bryan - "I remember thinking...Ye gods, this is evil. I had learned in school that Bryan was a genuine hero of history, but after reading Mencken's brutal obit, I knew in my heart that he was, in truth, a monster." Mencken's piece was the standard HST held himself to when he prepared to write Nixon's eulogy, and he lived up to it: these few brutal pages are perhaps the most stunning he's ever written. If our 37th President is remembered by only one document, let it be this. If the tone seems strangely personal, it's because this piece, the culmination of HST's career as a political journalist, is as much a farewell from Thompson himself as it is to Nixon. As he writes, "I am poorer now...He brought out the best in me, all the way to the end, and for that I am grateful to him. Read it and weep, for we have lost our Satan."
Rating:
Summary: Dull book, but so was the campaign of '92!
Review: Not exactly a great book, but no one else could describe the '92 campaign better than HST. It was interesting to find out that he wanted to run for sheriff of Pitkin Co, Colorado on the Freak Power Ticket. Seeing catch phrases, ho ho and bubba on almost every page was a bit much, but at some moments I believe he may have got it from Clinton himself. Selah. Thompson also adds personal faxes to this book that show his mind is still the same as it was when writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Some have said the years may be catching up with him, but how much do you actually think he had to work with on the '92 campaign? He did what he could with it, but it was a little boring, but nothing about the '92 campaign was really worth writing a book about. Maybe some more into the great minds of Admiral Stockdale and H. Ross Perot? That would have made the book even more boring, but considering what he had to work with, this book is a decent account of getting the "redneck" from Arkansas into the White House, bubba. Maybe he should have waited a while and added a little about the use of "interns" in the White House, and we would have seen the great Dr. we all know and love!
Rating:
Summary: A Surreal Look Back at 1992
Review: The election of 1992 seems more relevant today than when it was actually happening. With 8 years of Clinton, and 2 years of Bush II to look back on, HSTs experience and insights of the candidates (Bush I, Clinton, Perot) and the political movers and shakers (Baker III, Carvell, Stephanopolis)continue to provide the reader with a great deal of fear and loathing for politics and the carnys running the show. I am admittedly not a close follower of Thompson's real life adventures and interests, but the book appears to document the seemingly surreal activities of a political junkie who incredulously is allowed great access and information at all levels with all candidates. There is no HST gunplay or heavy narcotics in this book - the power and intox of politics provide all of the action. Even though Thompson says he's bored with the subject of the election, his boredom tends to be more of a challenge to his creativity, which has resulted in fascinating and entertaining reading.
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