Rating: 
Summary: Hannibal fleshed out; his last victim is his creepiest kill
Review: A quarter of this book is Thomas Harris' homage to Florence, Italy, with Hannibal Lecter moving like a prop through the sights. Also uncharacteristic of Harris is excessive backstory from "Lambs." But once Starling, Lecter, and Mason Verger (thanks to the doctor, the world's uglest man) get it on, "Hannibal" rushes like a spinning boat in white water to the climatic chapter. And just when I thought the ride was over, Harris put in a finish that left me shaken. Keep a dictionary handy -- almost every page has an abstruse word.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent...but not what I expected!
Review: Yes, I've just finished it, moments ago. I can say that I have that indescibeable feeling of dichotomy that leaves me reeling with reflection. Tempted to go back and review whole chapters and scour them for missed tidbits like an eel scouring coral for food. What I most want to do is let this simmer. Especially the ending. This I must replay and see if I can find the mind-set to decipher the intricacies unwoven in so few pages. That and to hope for a Thomas Harris cookbook and wine companion.Thomas Harris has again given us a truly thought provoking and fun adventure. He gives us what we want although we may not want to admit it. Our favorites are back in the form of Clarice and Hannibal, but also some new (and scarier?) players. The book reads without any tedious set ups and there are no "empty" chapters in between. While some may say that the depictions of violence are overly explicit, I say that words on a page are best interpreted by the reader. I hope we don't have to wait this long for his next novel, then again, this one was worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: A huge disappointment
Review: I'm not going to wreck the plot for others, but I now have strong suspicions that Harris may have ransomed his soul to write =Silence of the Lambs=. This book is THAT ridiculous. The ending alone is reason enough to save your money and buy something worthwhile, like the Star Wars novelization. Seriously...I cannot believe that Harris actually wrote this and expected it to be taken as the legitimate sequel to =Red Dragon= and =Silence of the Lambs=. It's nearly as gory in spots as =American Psycho,= features perhaps the most ludicrous "romantic" couple of the decade, and has an ending so stupefyingly bad as to leave me shaking my head. I can't go on. I just can't. My one hope is that five months from now Harris will publish the *real* sequel, the way that Coca-Cola withdrew New Coke in favor of the real thing. What a waste of time and paper!
Rating: 
Summary: Mason fed the dogs his face; I want to feed them this book
Review: After steamrolling through this book as soon as I got it in the mail, all I can say is "Why?" Thomas Harris crafted some truly awesome novels in Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. He's very cinematic in his writing...but now he's just got the meat cleaver out. Yecch. Unfortunately, the USA Toady review sounds like this, although I will say that their review was all political correctness and nonsense. Get off the soapbox - just review the book.
Rating: 
Summary: VROOM VROOM... sputter
Review: The first 2/3rds of 'Hannibal' are a fine show of what Harris does best. Crackling set pieces and a superb chronicle of law enforcement's people and mechanisms. Harris is also cunningly adept at evoking events and places with seemingly effortless sensory details. An utter page-turner, 'Hannibal' kept me riveted for 300 pages. Then the shift turned more to Harris' new villian, and I found myself less and less able to suspend disbelief. The ending, while amazing and provocative, is pure fantasy. The previous entries in the Lechter trilogy stuck to my ribs by being both beautifully shocking and utterly believable. Sharing the same universe, 'Hannibal' eventually falls short on both counts.
Rating:
Summary: If this took 11 yrs, then Harris should have taken 22
Review: The constant changes in voice and tense are jarring, and make the book read more like a screenplay than a novel, especially in the last chapter. Harris is not true to his characters as previously established in <i>Red Dragon</i> and <i>Silence of the Lambs</i>. Hannibal becomes the protagonist in this offering, and despite the author's attempts to make the character sympathetic, all he does is cheapen one of the most amoral villians in literature.
Rating:
Summary: Dr. Lecter meets Barbara Cartland
Review: After nearly a decade's wait, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs which many of us so eagerly anticipated has finally arrived - and what a resounding disappointment it is. The intriguing character of Dr. Lecter has been diminished and robbed of the mystery which made him so frightening by the very psychological quantifying he warned Clarice against in their first encounter. Both Dr. Lecter and Clarice Starling have been rendered nearly unrecognizable in order to fit the contrivances of the plot (and what contrivances they are!). And as for the "romance" which blooms between them, ludicrous hardly begins to encompass it. It's hard to understand how a writer who demonstrated such piercing insight into abnormal minds could have failed to see that the thing which characterizes psychopaths is their inability to sustain anything approaching a normal relationship. So how do we get to Dr. Lecter dancing on balconies with Clarice, teaching her Italian, taking her to the opera etc. Not to mention the happy couple's rewarding sex life.Certainly the character of Clarice Starling as we have been given it, so level headed, so filled with integrity, so sane, would have run a mile in tight shoes before consenting to go frisking off into the sunset with everybody's favorite monster. The last part of the novel reads like a grotesque parody of a bodice-ripper, replete with sappy, wish-fulfillment details: the carefully chosen evening gown, the emerald jewelry, etc. I suppose we can anticipate Son of Hannibal in another ten years. Thomas Harris, what happened to you?
Rating:
Summary: More is less.
Review: Worth a read for fans of the previous installments, but not nearly up to par. Most notable failure is lack of suspense. The plot lumbers along, through a forest of typically well observed details which can't hold interest because they're unnecessary to guess where things are headed. As for Dr. Lecter: fleshed out, he becomes more a stock super-villain, less a myth-like nightmare figure. Finally, the book is simply too thick for a relatively thin story. Mr. Harris could've used an editor on this one.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy follow-up to Silence of the Lambs
Review: Remember when you saw 'Silence of the Lambs' and saw Hannibal Lecter for the first time as Starling came to his dungeon cell?? That look that Lecter had in his eyes? If you can't remember, then I envy you as it was all I thought about as I read - no, devoured - this chapter in the saga of one of literature's most fascinating characters. Lecter is a masterful creation and this book truly grabs you by the throat and won't let you go. I didn't mind the gruesome parts that the media is making so much of. Both of Harris' previous tales that included Lecter were equally disturbing in their realistic depictions of modern evil. You won't regret this one!
Rating:
Summary: I read it again
Review: After typing my first review, I thought about my comments and went back and read the book again. Perhaps I read too quickly the first time, but reading it again I found little things that altered my opinion some. Lecter isn't the hero that I had first said, now that I have gone through the story again. Harris, I think does attempt to get the reader to sympathize with Lecter's childhood, but in the end remains the fiendish, diabolical genius he always was.
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