Rating: 
Summary: Sequel Never as Good
Review: This book could be a poster child for "The sequel never lives up to its predecessor." Whether or not you've read The Monkey Wrench Gang, you will know exactly what is going to happen at every step of the way. Worse, Abbey takes shortcuts. For instance: all the old characters are brought back; all meet Hayduke again who asks for their help; all refuse and then suddenly, without explanation, all are on board to help him destroy the huge earth-mover, GOLIATH. The object of their sabotage and the fact that they are back together is very predictable. Also, the final scene of destruction is disappointing. It too, "just happens". The message is still great. The cast of characters still appealingly eccentric, Hayduke still a demi-god, but it does not come near to the overall excellence of The Monkey Wrench Gang. Due to the shortcuts, I would strongly recommend not reading this book unless you've read Monkey Wrench. Even then, you better have really loved Monkey Wrench and want some more of the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for all ages and personalities
Review: This book provides wonderful characters, thrilling adventures, and Ed Abbey's humorous writing style. At the same time, it allows the reader to explore and learn about nature - and some of her most ardent (though in this book fictional) supporters. Please read part one first - "The Monkey Wrench Gang" is even better!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent sequel to Monkey Wrench Gang
Review: This book was not as much a continuation of Monkey Wrench Gang as it was a reunion event. The gang gets back together for one final BANG!! Other than that, the novel stands as a wonderful window into the early days of Earth First! This is an essential read for anyone who gives a damn about the wilderness.
Rating: 
Summary: A worthy sequel
Review: Those who enjoyed The Monkey Wrench Gang will enjoy this sequel, which contains the same winning mix of ingredients as the original: biting satire, earthy humor, colorful characters, plenty of over-the-top action,and most importantly Abbey's underlying message that wild places are worth saving - even if one doesn't endorse the Gang's anarchistic approach. Those sympathetic to Abbey's lifelong cause of opposition to the forces of development and exploitation may also want to explore Carl Hiaasen's eco-terror comedies or the more complex and literary, but equally passionate, "Arcadia Falls" by Rand Johnson.
Rating:
Summary: And as long as he does, we may just make it¿.
Review: Yes, by George, Hayduke lives! Fervent admirers of the Abbey oeuvre will not have doubted this contention for a moment. For those who are only just coming across this rascally desert rat for the first time, I should perhaps note that George Hayduke has appeared in a sister volume, the now infamous "The Monkey Wrench Gang." At the conclusion of that earlier work, George Hayduke's fate seemed to be hanging rather desperately in the balance. However, not even the untimely death of Edward Abbey, in March 1989, could deprive us of all news of this most obstinate of heroes. It would be an easy thing to say that "Hayduke Lives!" is an unpolished novel. It does seem to fall short of the demands which Abbey made of himself in "The Fool's Progress," the last volume he published prior to his death. Yet the craft is certainly there and the willingness to create is as strong as ever. Mountains motivated Edward Abbey; mountains and everything natural (and even some things man-made, it has to be said) that lay around them. His actual landscape at the last, which was also the landscape of "Hayduke Lives!", was the canyon lands and desert country of Arizona and Utah (and everywhere). So his imagery is likewise grandiose and well suited to the theme of environmental vengeance which prods this plot along. Knowing Abbey, one can sense that he is willing the earth itself to open up and swallow the machines of man that make its surface tremble. Yet he contains himself, just, to the story in hand and lets George do the dirty work in his own inimitable style. Abbey's long fight was unrelenting and unapologetic. He seemed to sense that people need to be shocked awake in order to react to the troubles of the world. Therefore his books have a hard edge, and are often full of disagreeable people and unpleasant events. His heroes are not pretty, they are bellicose and belligerent, and given to much cussing and ill-talk. They bewail the fate of man and his planet in new ways for us, like lonesome cowboys sitting up on far ridges crying to a full moon. They are both modern, like the industrial society they do battle with, and ancient, like the landscape which surrounds them and succors them when they've lost their faith in man. Along with Callenbach and Mowat, Edward Abbey surely takes his place in that wooded and hopefully sheltered pantheon that has come down from Thoreau.
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