Rating: 
Summary: not a disappointment
Review: by these reviews, i gather that Hannibal is not so popular a sequel, but i thought it truly excellent. I had extremely high hopes about the book before reading it, and was not let down. ANYONE who loved Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs should buy this one!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Quite a bit of it is good, but the rest is oh-so-bad
Review: In parts of "Hannibal", Thomas Harris does what he has done very well in the past: tells a compelling story. For about the first half of the book, I read almost compulsively -- I couldn't put the book down.Then several aspects of the novel began to tell me that, at the end, I would find the book a dissapointment. The new "villains" of the book were resolutely one-dimensional; none of them ever did anything surprising. An attempt at explaining what drove Dr. Lecter ended up, in the end, taking away quite a bit of the mystique of his character. He was much more interesting as a non-human embodiment of evil, as several people in the two previous books had termed him, in one way or another. And the final thing was the realization that Harris was changing the characters -- not for reasons of growth, but so they could fit into the machinery of the plot. And, oh, the ending. (I read the Salon "article", reprinted at CNN, which manages to give away the next-to-final plot twist IN THE SUBHEADER. If I hadn't stopped there, there would have been no point in actually reading the book, as it gives away most of the rest of it anyways.) Please note, I get the ending; I understand the ending, better than quite a few of the people who have left reviews here. It's quite obvious what has happened, and it is all about control. It just seems like an ultimate betrayal for things to have turned out like that. And, as a capper for an unrealistically-plotted two-dimensional plot like we are served in most of the rest of "Hannibal", it makes the whole experience very very unsatisfying indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: Not "Red Dragon" or "Silence of the Lambs", but not bad
Review: A good read until the ending. That was just too much to swallow (pun intended).
Rating:
Summary: Okay read. Better wait for paperback. Ending is terrible.
Review: I was really looking forward to reading this book. Too bad! So many things in life are anti-climatic. It was gruesome, the details actually made me lose my appetite. Yet, there was something very important missing. Harris, such a connoisseur of food understands the nuances necessary for a fine meal. He has wonderful nuances in this book. But what is wonderful seasonings without the actually food? e.g. Where is the plot? Why is there no character development? Why does the reader not care what happens? I cringe to think of a movie being made of this book. I hope Anthony Hopkins does not agree to play Hannibal again. It would be such a waste. The ending! The worse thing EVER! Completely, disastrously implausible. This is the true horror of the book, reading this author trash his characters this way. Why would Harris ever think the ending would work? I gave the book 2 stars because it was not the worse thing I ever read. If your really curious, borrow it from a friend.
Rating:
Summary: Think, people, think!
Review: It occurs to me that the people who label this book "a huge disappointment" could never truly be satisfied with anything other than a regurgitation of the "Silence of the Lambs/Red Dragon" pattern. That is, a hideous serial killer is turning people into chop suey, the cops are absolutely stumped and so must turn to the evil genius Hannibal Lecter for some helpful/unhelpful insight into the killer's pathology. Instead, Harris did something completely new and startling. He humanized Hannibal, made him fallible, made him something very like Adam from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In the last ten years, I haven't read anything better or more fun than the chapter in which Lecter is trapped on the airplane with screaming babies and a brat who demands the doctor's "liverwurst sandwich." Has it occurred to anyone else that the ending is a dream? Hannibal's dream? That doesn't make it any less real, you know. Or horrifying.
Rating: 
Summary: Waited with bated breath... let it out with sigb of regret.
Review: If you ignore Harris's previous works, the ending would probably work for you. However, having not had the pleasure of removing the frontal lobe from my brain... I read the first two books and felt Harris betrayed his characters. Please God Please don't make a movie. Or, at least wait until I get the lobotomy.
Rating:
Summary: I fun read. I really enjoyed the story.
Review: If you like a fun ride with a bunch of low life sick demented folk, you'll love this book. Not since 'The Stand' have I been so engrossed in a book.
Rating:
Summary: This book sucked
Review: Save your money people. A ridiculous story, lame boring characters and possibly the worst ending I've ever had the displeasure of reading. I hope to God they don't waste the time and effort making this crap into a movie
Rating:
Summary: Will the Real Hannibal Lecter Please Stand Up?!
Review: I have never been so disappointed by a book in all my life. Obviously Thomas Harris has been wasting the last eleven years! This book doesn't even belong in the same category with Red Dragon or Silence. Hannibal is pure unadulterated crap written (very poorly) to line Thomas Harris' pockets by perpetuating a fraud on his fans. It reads as though Harris put it down with 100 pages left to go and some poor wannabe author picked up and finished the tale without reading the preceding pages. Don't waste your money or your time, I felt angry and betrayed that I'd wasted mine on this poor excuse for a novel!
Rating:
Summary: Poor Babies...
Review: My heart goes out to all those who found to their disappointment that Thomas Harris has a mind of his own, and decided to write the book that HE wanted to write, rather than pandering to the wants of his fans. Folks. Please remember. This is the man who wrote Red Dragon, and The Silence Of The Lambs. Few authors living have his grasp of the thriller genre, can create fascinating villains and inventive situations as intelligently as he can. Based on past evidence, Harris knows exactly what he is doing. If this book is unusual, it follows that it is unusual for a reason. Harris must have known that this novel would excite much controversy, and would not necessarily be popular with the horror fan whose idea of literature is Dean Koontz or John Saul. So we have to ask ourselves WHY? Why has Thomas Harris written this book, and what might he be trying to tell us? Remember, people were similarly upset by Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, and later by Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Both films were critically maligned upon their initial release, only to be hailed as classics long after better-received, more deliberately popular works were forgotten. I found the book to be gripping, disturbing, rather nauseating, and often grimly funny. I found the ending entirely appropriate, indeed the only possible ending for these characters. So they live happily ever after. Did you expect something different? If the American public insists upon romanticizing homicidal maniacs, we shouldn't blame Thomas Harris for rubbing our faces in it.
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