Rating:  Summary: Sir Anthony Hopkins, PLEASE don't sign that contract! Review: Harris' other books featuring Lecter, Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, were pretty good reads. Hannibal, however, is as poorly crafted a book as I've read in a while. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT! I am not eager to read his next book, which will appear sometime in 2008, no doubt.
Rating:  Summary: The most psychologically gripping book I have ever read. Review: Wow! I am still reeling 3 days after finishing this book! This has got to be considered brilliant if for no other reason than the empathy you come to feel with Lecter, his childhood explained. My God! Harris forces you to UNDERSTAND Lecter's motives and rationale for cannibalism; not as uncivilized brutality, but as terrible pain filtered through a brilliant mind. The most substantial book of this decade.
Rating:  Summary: HANNIBAL CLICHANABAL Review: Read this book to find out just how NOT to write a book. Nothing in this book was original, interesting, scarry... This is a truley terrible read. It is time for harris to pull away from his writing pen and begin finding another way to make some money. Unfortunetly, people will buy this book because of his previous works, which were only good because at the time, everyone wanted to be an expert in murder cases he so obviously fails to write well about....
Rating:  Summary: Remember it's a novel not a screenplay! Review: I thought 'Hannibal' was a great extension of the previous Lecter novels. However, readers expecting a dramatic sequel to the film will probably be disappointed. Lecter's infamy was fuelled by the cinema and 'Hannibal' mainly serves to flesh out this intriguing character. Hannibal Lecter is a contemporary arch-villain and for many readers the extra context and his swing to anti-hero status will be worth the read. The scenes in Florence and the character of Pazzi were the dramatic highlights of the book - particularly the attempts to steal a fingerprint from the fiend and Pazzi's grizly demise.The problem is that the Pazzi subplot overshadows the anticipated main event: the reunion of Clarice Starling and Lecter. Harris' attempt to justify the motivations of the pair is the undoing of the novel. In 'Silence of the Lambs' the maxim of 'more is less' holds true. Lecter's lack of context adds to his credibilty but in the latest book the explanations, although oblique, serve to increase our disbelief; a bit like turning on the lights in a fairground Ghost Train. The story is littered with physical and moral monsters. The ambiguity of hero and villain prompts a truly unexpected climax but it takes some believing. Although in line with Harris' themes of relative good and evil the ending is hard to accept at an intuitive level. All that said, I couldn't put it down!
Rating:  Summary: Godless. A story about greed in the extreme. Review: It wasn't until the last 8 pages of the book that I realized what Thomas Harris was actually writing about: The corruption of all by greed, and the loss of God and any societal relevance in the process. No major character (and practically no one at all) escapes the influences brought about by greed, mostly by money. None exhibit the usual concerns about society that are learned through religious and cultural exposure. Was this Harris' point? I was disturbed by the utter lack of social conscience, with all 10 or 20 major characters - even Starling - driven by the prospect of personal gain and personal gain only. The ending was unexpected. There are also holes in the details. All in all, however, the book is a worthwhile and easy read, with much of the real gore left to the imagination. It could have been much worse.
Rating:  Summary: A true sequel... Review: ...disappointing in every way. Flat, unbelievable characters; ridiculous situations; hare-brained schemes. Harris's (former) genius was that he could take the unimaginable and make us picture it. But not this time. I rolled my eyes too many times. The openng sequence read like a novelization of a bad movie, as if Harris had merely watched some Joe Bob Briggs fave and faithfully transcribed it--without adding any insight into characterization or motivation, or even the attention to revealing detail that made RD and SOTL horrific and yet believable. I'll no longer have nightmares about Dr. Lecter coming to eat me, because I no longer believe in him. And that's a darn shame.
Rating:  Summary: unlikely romance torments reader Review: well i had great expectations after the first 2 books in this trilogy and although hannibal is a good book,it is not a great one. i found a lot of characters and situations in the book were alien to the previous works. oh yeah and the title stinks of hollywood,what was wrong with harris's working title" the morbidity of the soul?" saying all this though i still read it in a day
Rating:  Summary: GREAT READ!! Review: Not much to add to the numerous reviews already in (it's got to be a record}. I thought Harris was quite daring in this sequel and I commend him for the fine effort. The ending sequence to this novel was quite unusual, but hey, Hannibal's quite an unusual character! Loved your book Mr. Harris!
Rating:  Summary: Adequate, but you expect more from the source Review: I had not read either Red Dragon or Silence of the Lambs before Hannibal came out, so I chose to read the three in chronological order. After being highly impressed with the quality of the first two books, I was fairly disappointed with Hannibal. Whereas in the first two books Harris does a solid job exploring the minds of both serial killers and those who track them, he descends into mindless psycho-babble in this third installment. I found the ending and the events that led up to it so difficult to believe, that I almost read it again just to be sure I did not miss anything. As a psychology graduate student, I was almost insulted at his explanation for the climactic turn of events. I feel as if he put forth great effort to develop the characters of Hannibal Lecter, Agent Starling, and other supporting characters in the first two books, only to destroy all he accomplished in this third installment. If you enjoyed Harris' first two books, do yourself a favor and re-read them instead of buying this one.
Rating:  Summary: an over-the-top masterpiece of horror and black comedy Review: After seeing the great number of (quite puzzling to me) negative reader reviews, all I can think to do is to remind you: don't be rude!
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