Rating: 
Summary: It was twisted
Review: This was a twisted book. There are no bad guys/good guys in the traditional sense. The characters were not clearly defined. If you liked "Silence of the Lambs", skip this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Desperate, despicable, desolate
Review: Poor Thomas Harris. Silence of the Lambs was a great book and a hard act to follow. But still, we all hoped.....and he failed us miserably. His embarrassment must be overwhelming. Besides poor writing and a most convoluted story line, Mr. Harris has assailed our intelligence with a most ridiculuous ending -completely unbelievable. I can't remember being so disappointed in a novel. I hope the author takes up a new profession.
Rating:
Summary: Skip the end
Review: I believe there are one hundred chapters in this book (give or take a few). My advice is to read the first 99 chapters and write your own ending. You would undoubtedly come up with a more plausible and satisfying chapter. I was intrigued with the majority of the book and interested in the progression of the story. I must agree with other reviewers, however, regarding the disappointment I felt when Harris attempted to put meaning and victimization behind Lecter's evil. Lecter was infinitely more monstrous when his motives were shrouded in mystery. Simply said, I wish I had closed the book before the final chapter. If I had, I would have left it without such a bitter taste in my mouth.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and ridiculous!
Review: I read both Dragon and Lambs and was terrified. I didn't find Hannibal scary in the least. The descriptions sounded like a 12 year old boy trying to "gross people out" by talking about bodily functions at the dinner table. I thought the ending was improbable and silly.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Silence of the Lambs, but a book for the 90s
Review: True, Red Dragon and SOTL were better written. But times have changed, and Hannibal is a fine indictment of our era. In Red Dragon, the good guys at the FBI worked hard and smart to defeat evil. Ditto for Clarice Starling and Jack Crawford in SOTL, although there we begin to note the corruption and dirty politics of Dr. Chilton and the FBI's Paul Krendler. Since SOTL, we've had Ruby Ridge and Waco, both explicitly mentioned in Hannibal, along with Vince Foster, Oklahoma City, TWA 800, and the rest of the Clinton presidency. Evil can triumph. The old, honorable men like Crawford are passing from the scene, and the FBI is dominated by Krendler and men like him who punish Starling precisely because she is strong and good. Given this background, which Harris builds very carefully, the ending is logical, the dinner with Krendler uproariously funny. Those who disliked the ending might try reading the book again with an eye to Harris's antigovernment message.
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: Gauging from other's critiques, I feel the way to most appreicate this book is to have not read the first ("Red Dragon") and only seen the movie ("Silence of the Lambs"). I fell into this group, and found Harris' novel to be an exquisite contuation of the Hannibal Lecter story. Harris does a superb job of sensually describing Italy from an intelectual's viewpoint. A true mystery fan will find this novel climatic. Someone who appreciates the finer things in life will want more. Someone expecting a continuation of Harris' first Lecter novel may be disappointed - but truly this is a much better read.
Rating: 
Summary: A decent read... what's with all the harsh slamming?
Review: I read Red Dragon and TSOTL, and thought they were both excellent. I will also say that I was impressed with Harris' writing style. It's the little touches I like, and I thought this book had 'em. For example, when he says that it was in Paul Krendler's nature to "both appreciate Clarice's leg and look for the hamstring." Cut the guy some slack, it's a decent read.
Rating:
Summary: A silk bow, somewhat tatty, but attractive
Review: I'm not sure what benefit it is to read the 1541st of the reviews here, but I am sufficiently moved by this work to go ahead regardless. The silliest criticism is that Hannibal is irresponsible. True, it does not feature a Stirring Moral Principle. It is therefore not recommended bedtime reading for toddlers. The publisher was remiss in not clearly stating this fact on the cover. The most salient criticism is that it is sloppy. Certain narrative phrases are unnecessarily repeated. One might think the book to have been written in haste and then shipped out to meet an arbitrary publishing deadline. A work which celebrates in all things artifice, taste, and obsessive planning ought to have been crafted to exacting standards. It is not. Though loose in execution, Hannibal is ambitious in scope. Its ending, though failing to provide the Righteous Scouraging of Evil so missed by the moralists among our 1540 co-pundits, provides the appropriately shocking and thought-provoking conclusion to Harris's trilogy of transformations (Dollarhyde, Gumb, and Starling). Its ultimate transgressiveness is rigourous and apt. The complacent deserve to feel its bite.
Rating:
Summary: Characters inconsistent; Harris not true to his creation.
Review: The major flaw of Hannibal is that the characters which Harris created in Silence of the Lambs do not remain true to themselves. Here, they do not behave in the manner which Harris himself established in his previous work. The characters of Lecter and Starling are unbelievable, and their actions are incomprehensible. I felt that the author betrayed his own work, and that left me very disappointed. I simply cannot reconcile the behaviour of the main characters with the established patterns we have previously been given. I was also disappointed in the trite and simplistic way that Harris tried to explain Lecter's compulsion to kill. The character of Lecter is far too complex to have such a banal explanation. Most of Lecter's appeal lies in the fact that we don't know why he behaves the way he does; this heightens the mystery, and lends itself to believability. In life, there are rarely pat little explanations for human behaviour. The apologia for Lecter was unecessary and undermined the complex and interesting character he was in the first two books. The only remarkable idea in Hannibal is the concept of memory palaces. For that, I'll give Harris a star.
Rating:
Summary: Good writing, an ending you DO NOT want to believe
Review: I like the style of writing, but the pigs were a bit much along with a couple of unbelieveable characters. The ending is a stretch of imagination that plummets you to new depths in surrealism. An ending you do not want to believe. Classic Harris, a riveting and compelling read.
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