Vampire mentioned, p. 313, 447.

Absolutely Awesome!!! This book was so hard to put down. All the characters were solid and had great personalities, and I loved the wolf, Ghost, that was Hunter's partner. This was a nonstop action, adventure, thriller, and horror. The creature in this reminded me of the Tank from the video game Left 4 Dead and it was just as brutal. I highly recommend this title to fans of James Rollins & Jeremy Robinson, and films like The Predator or The Relic. I will definitely read more by Huggins. ( )

Still hunting for a movie contract

I started reading "Hunter" thinking that it was a new book, destined for the Best Seller's list because it would appeal so strongly to particular demographics. The further I read, though, the stranger it seemed and I finally looked at the book's history. Crikey it was published in 1999! A tiny bit of searching revealed that this is a book by a famous action film writer who also churns out action novels. This 2018 edition is at least the third reissue. Funny thing though, it's not been made into a movie yet. That may be because it is so stupid.

I enjoy ridiculous stereotypes and so the beginning when we meet the strong silent Hunter, with his strong silent companion, a huge black wolf, seemed pretty great. After a while, though, the story just got too silly and unbelievable and I had to quit.

Without copies of the earlier editions to compare (PLEASE don't send them to me) it's hard to know when the genetics was inserted. I don't think non-scientists were talking much about mitochondrial DNA in 1999, but maybe. In any case this book is crammed with genetic and biological nonsense. The book is long too, and so there is a lot of space to cram in more nonsense. On top of the nonsense we get battle scenes that are unreal – the team barricades themselves in with logs and then shoot the barricade to bits to try to kill the creature who was UNABLE TO GET THROUGH THE BARRICADE BEFORE THEY BLEW HOLES IN IT. We can presume that the radio kit was tested by the radio operator before the team set out, that's SOP. But somehow, the bad guy on the team secretly gets the radio away from the operator, opens it up, cuts a fine wire in the circuit, and reassembles it and restores it to the operator without anyone noticing. Then our hero solders the wire back together using chemicals from the med kit. Fortunately the flare doesn't fry any other wiring. (He could probably have used resin but that would not have been so dramatic.) A murder by car tampering is ordered and committed within about an hour in downtown DC. They keep having firefights when they are out of ammo. The list of stupidities goes on and on.

But it is the really really really bad science at such really really really ridiculous length, that killed this book for me.

Mr. Huggins keeps hoping that someone will make this into a movie and possibly they will. I'm sorry.

I received a review copy of "Hunter" by James Byron Huggins (WildBlue Press) through NetGalley.com. ( )

As with _Cain_, this has been my go-to book for entertainment. The action is good, the premise is sort of out-there, but it's enjoyable nonetheless. ( )

Overall the book is a remix of 'Predator' adding a thin and not really necessary political plot.

The book mentions Silvester Stallone in the initial acknowledgments, and that says it all. If you like his action movies you will like this book, because in the good and bad sense, they are the same. You easily get hooked in a straight forward story of hero-against-incredible-beast with lost of action, at the price of hitting all the conventions of the genre, from stupid moves to the evil guy telling everything to the hero before (trying to) killing him.

As a conventional action movie: good to consume with not much concentration. ( )