NOT Hunter: The Reckoning
593172
So this is entirely my fault, but based on the covers I thought this series was a splatbook for Hunter the Reckoning, like the player's guide or the survival guide. Like I said, my fault for not looking at reviews first. As a novel, it's weak. The characters are bad and despite having Hunter slapped on the cover, this has nothing to do with Hunter the Reckoning. Lesson learned, and buyers beware.
656385
Be aware that this book IS NOT written by the author of Drop Zone..
2078394
This novel is incorrectly labeled as an "Earl Swagger Novel". Not by Steven Hunter and nothing to do with the series.  Do not buy unless you are sure what you're buying.
2440495
I loved Hunter Thompson's book, but the movie was an enormous disappointment. It is just a two hour, uninterrupted drug binge that misses all the points of the book. Sure, there are plenty of drugs in the book, but also commentary on the "American Dream" and a good deal of humor and insight. None of that is in the movie and you might as well skip the second half--it's just more of the same. The blurb on the front says "Excruciatingly funny," but I would say just "Excruciating."
2767521
"The Hunter" is nothing special.  "The Last Thylacine" 2005 by Terry Domico ISBN 1883385156 is a far better book.

"The Hunter" is a book that is annoying in that it is written in present tense entirely.  For example "The woman marches over and slaps Sass in the face." (page 88).  I prefer the past tense style, "The woman marched over and slapped Sass in the face."  Perhaps this is just a personal preference, but I could not overcome that style with "The Hunter.'  A book has to be very well written to over that style preference for me, and "The Hunter" is not.

SPOILER WARNING

The story is about a "special agent" kind of guy M who is assigned to find a Tasmanian Tiger.  There is very little about the Tiger, and more about the hunter M.  He encounters and occasionally stays with a sick family where the mom, Lucy is nearly catatonic and the two kids, Sass and Bike, are running rampant.  The husband/dad is missing.  The interactions with the family add nothing to the overall story of the hunt.  The children come to a bad end which is a lot like the rest of this short novel.

The hunter also encounters some government reps who are basically stoned slackers.  What was the point of that?  The town people are witless dunderheads who are mostly all drunk.  There are no positive characters at all.  Is that what Tasmanian people are really like?  I doubt it.

SPOILER WARNING

In the end the hunter does eventually  find and kill the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) and then dissects the body for the blood/parts he wants, burns the corpse, and buried the rest.  It is implied over and over that this is the very last specimen of the Tasmanian Tiger.  So I wondered why the big conglomo company that hired the hunter would not want the beast alive, intact, and whole?  But not much is explained as to rational or logical reasons.

Well, anyway, the book is just moderately entertaining and nothing special.
2266198
This is nice, but Ravenclaw's animal is an eagle, not a raven. Any true fan would be disappointed at such a slap in the face of literature.
4228752
Like other reviewers, I'm a big fan of Rev. Hunter's two earlier books on ghost stories in Michigan and even attended a talk he gave at my local library. I also stumbled upon this book at my local bookstore and purchased it with great excitement, but that excitement faded by degrees as I read through the latest collection of stories.

In his previous works, Hunter had demonstrated a friendly, quirky, charming voice in his writing (especially in his casual restaurant reviews), and his passion for the paranormal was apparent to the reader. In "Haunted Michigan 3," elements of that voice still appear, but they're dramatically diminished. Additionally, where Hunter's personality had come through fluidly in his earlier works, it seemed in this book that he was trying so hard to put that persona back on--and failing. I didn't find the friendly and adorably geeky reverend leading me through Michigan in this installment, and this was probably the biggest disappointment to me as a reader; I buy books as much for the author's way of telling the story as I do for the story itself.

With regard to the stories in the latest compendium, there were very few that really grabbed me. Someone referred to the Dearborn Heights story in "More Haunted Michigan" as "worth the price of admission," and I would absolutely agree; that tale, along with ones like the haunted tree farm or the family in Jackson who had grown attached to their ghosts, were page turners. This book doesn't really have any quite like that, and the story from Ohio is the only one to come close. The haunts are still interesting, but they don't grab the reader as they did in the previous books. I attribute part of that to Hunter's change in tactics on his investigations. Where he had been something of a lone wolf before, perhaps roping in a psychic friend or the inhabitants of a haunted place, now he has a team following him around; where he had explained compellingly in "More Haunted Michigan" his reasons for shying away from EMF detectors and the like, now they play a big role in his investigations. I was disappointed to see this change.

Finally, the editing drove me up the wall this time. "Haunted Michigan" and "More Haunted Michigan" were impeccably edited and looked very professional. Hunter changed presses for "Haunted Michigan 3," and the editor fell down on the job. Commas and apostrophes are used inappropriately; the wrong word appears on more than one occasion. It looks like the manuscript was prepared and published in haste, which further diminishes the experience of reading.

If you've read Hunter's other books, I would recommend that you also read this one, since it does have a few nuggets of enjoyment, and it's nice to hear more about the state's ghosts. Don't expect the magic of the first two, though.
2237116
This film is more of a tribute to Thompson than a revealing documentary about his life and work. Hunter's famous friends (Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Bill Murray, Harry Dean Stanton, Eugene McCarthy, Gary Hart, Ed Bradley, William Buckley, etc.) take turns honoring him with reminiscences and personal anecdotes that mostly reinforce the well known image of the frequently-inebriated-but-brilliant maverick that is Thompson's public persona. If you're a fan of Thompson's looking for soothing closure on his life and career, then this is the movie for you. If, on the other hand, you are looking for in-depth analysis of Thompson's writing and its impact on journalism and politics, look elsewhere.
3476823
I expected this to be an online book...next in the series.  I did not know it was a game.
657105
Who is this broke as Jack Sparrow wanna be? This is not the Hancock from Fallout. Funko missed the mark with this one.
4626299
This game reminds me of Hunter: The Reckoning-Wayward for its isometric view and gameplay. My only gripe is a lack of characters though I'll forgive this because of the developers stayed true to the source material. Hard to come by but worth the search.
3869876
It's not really about the military, like Twilight Company was. Any action that happens here is of infiltration and spying variety, and the book is mostly about characters (and good at that), and their moral dilemmas because they are Imperials who might need to kill other Imperials in the line of duty... Also, there's no regular Rebel enemy for some reason (how I'm missing the old, good "TIE Figher" video game!), just some scapegoats.
Altogether, the book reads like "Wraith Squadron" but with even less action and more sitting by the fire and handling moral dilemmas. Or like late Republic/Imperial Commando Novels sans soldier-to-soldier action. X-Wing and Twilight Company buffs - beware!
In general, this reads like a retelling of someone's role-playing game campaign.
1323083
This is not the original, if you want the original go for it. However, the book states clearly (at least for some) that it does not bog itself down in either specifics or sheer reality. The new game system is OK, but character generation is more realistic than before (seemingly adding in the Dark Conspiracy aspect of civilian life). The fact that the entire world has been affected and ravaged by war makes it much easier to run a game where the GM feels like putting it, not just in Poland near Lodz. Overall, I would enjoy the fact that a gaming company made a single book that an entire campaign can be run from, not the first of a series of $30-$50 books to further make gamers regret their hobby. It is a game, if you want a history book or a complex series of supposition, look elsewhere. If you want a great game to play either as a teenager with an interest in storytelling or an adult looking for a way to challenge friends in a variety of possible scenarios, go for it.
2094248
"Killer Instinct" is the opposite of the dust cover description. If you are looking for drama, mystery, and action, look elsewhere.
3036291
The first Stephen Hunter books I read included Black Light and Time to Hunt. Both very well written leveraging conceivable plot lines and ample realistic detail. I was expecting more of the same in Night of Thunder but what I found was a story written as if it were schedule driven instead of focusing on the content quality. The writing did not draw me in as quickly and easily as his prior efforts and I found myself struggling to focus through the choppy dialog. I felt the choppiness was attributed to unpolished writing and unfinished editing, not a bad attempt to align the dialog with its `back-woods' characters.

I also felt that some of the NASCAR references and details were not as precise as the technical information the author so masterfully includes on military hardware. And because of Hunter's prior works he set the bar very high for the details his readers come to expect in his novels.

In his `Acknowledgment's near the end of the book, Hunter describes how the premise for the novel came about. It was a reach to pull it off and required a much better and finer level of writing than what eventually went to print for it to rate as an excellent read. I don't think the author gained any NASCAR fans but may have disappointed many of those who enjoy a good `Bob Lee Swagger' thriller.

Not every book will be an author's best so I will assume it was an 'off' effort. I will give him another try but before buying I will check the reviews first to make sure the author hasn't run out of good material.
1259537
I have enjoyed a good many of Stephen Hunter's books, considering them to be well researched and written. This, however, is not among them in either respect. I managed to finish it but with difficulty. Awful is not quite a strong enough term for this poorly structured mish-mash. Even if you normally like Hunter's books definitely avoid this one.
4869352
After reading the first two novels of this series, I stated that I wanted more of the Indians and less of the Americans or British.  This novel answered my request. And, I was disappointed.

The dialogue was flatter.  The concepts were not as crafty or artful.  The lack of the British, I discovered, was detrimental to the entire body of the work. And, at times the broody and ever-so-demanding Tasmin has worn the reader as well as the characters - most particularly her husband Jim who goes on jaunts of months hunting in the wilderness as an escape from her tongue.

Lord Berrybender -  whose earlier conquests include blinding his son in one eye, cavorting with and impregnating the help, and losing limbs or other useful God-given attributes in the name of a good hunt - begins to grow on you.  Why?  I can't really answer.  Maybe it was the detox that he had to withstand in this book when his claret ran dry.

As the Berrybender brood amazingly manage to live while experienced Indians and wilderness (mountain) men drop like flies for numerous unjustifiable and certainly unfair reasons, McMurtry has delivered us to the fourth installments where we can now assume that either the Berrybender family will return to Europe and tell the others of their amazing journey - or be buried in the wild west along with numerous other pioneering spirits of the 19th century.

I hope the last book returns to the right level of Berrybender/Mountainmen/Indian weight - a very hard calculation in the subjective world of literature.  That is one reader's opinion - and not one reader more. So my request may be another's disdain.