Hannibal Rising

By: Thomas Harris

Narrated by: Thomas Harris

Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

He is one of the most haunting characters in all of literature. At last the evolution of his evil is revealed.

Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him. Hannibal’s uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle’s beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki. Lady Murasaki helps Hannibal to heal. With her help he flourishes, becoming the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. But Hannibal’s demons visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn. He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death’s prodigy.

Serial thriller: don't miss more from Thomas Harris.

©2006 Yazoo Fabrications, Inc. (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“There are images of morbid beauty here.... Harris' handling of the wartime violence is also impressive, as swift and vicious as the blitzkrieg itself.” (Los Angeles Times)

“Gripping detail.... [Harris] moves the story along at an impressively fast clip.” (Boston Globe)

Excellent background on a wonderful series

This book was really excellent and a lot of fun to read.
Extremely well written and very well read.
Don’t listen to the complaints about the duration. It’s a treat to have the author narrate this work, and he does an excellent job!

Fascinating look into the origins of Hannibal.

Thomas Harris reading his own work is both a blessing and a curse. He has a calming voice with a sing-song quality to it. It’s honestly very pleasant to listen to… offsetting some of the gruesome details in the text. He is not a professional voice actor, and falls flat a few times… especially during the conversations between characters. It’s hard to tell who is talking during these scenes. Harris also has a southern accent. His work with accents is decent enough, but I found his accent mismatched with the character of Hannibal Lecter. The book itself is genius. There are moments when you think the narrative is meandering… characters introduced then seemingly forgotten about. These things all come together as the story unfolds, and every loose end pays off. I realized that Harris doesn’t waste a word with his writing. He has everything meticulously planned out and all the pieces fit like a puzzle. Thomas Harris is a fantastic writer, and he really delivers here.

Really didn’t like the narrator

The story is fine.
I think it was a big mistake for the author to narrate the story.

Good book, good narration

I thought the book was..quite good. The author is well read, and does very thorough research. This book, like Hannibal, has multiple levels. You can listen to the story, the words and verse, or the imagery. I know I get a good feeling knowing that despite paying close attention, there is no way I will be able to hear everything the first time around and will be able to listen to it again and get the same enjoyment as the first time.
There were some reviews complaining about the author’s narration of the book. I fell in love with Harris’s unbiased, eloquent drawl in Hannibal even after listening to it many times. In this book Harris knows exactly how to read each character and performs as good as any other professional narrator I have heard, and better than some.
If you are new to Hannibal, I would suggest reading the ‘silence of the lambs’, and ‘Hannibal’ first.

Well Written, Nicely Read

Having read some other books in the Hannibal Lecter series, I doubted I could feel empathy for a cannibalistic serial killer. However, this book presents young Hannibal as a sensitive, artistic child shaped by a series of brutal, historically plausible events. I found the story moving and tragic. It is also very well written. Engaging plot, nicely expressed and paced, with an interesting and diverse cast of characters.

The author, as reader of this book, tells the story expressively. He has a pleasing voice. Presumably much of the dialog in the book would have been in languages other than English, and having this account read in English with a southern accent is appropriate, consistent with the book's presentation. I enjoyed hearing the author read his own work.

Interesting but took away from the character

It was well done and believable. However i feel that part of Hannibals allure is his mysterious and almost mythical presence. This made him "human" and honestly took away from the character. The TV show is also a prequel of sorts but he is still already Hannibal. Digging into the past makes the now less intense. He is less of a monster and more of a ... result of his circumstance. i am forever grateful that i read this book LAST.

Excellent!!!!!!!

Initially I hesitated to spend a credit on this audiobook, largely due to other reviewers complaining that the narrator, Thomas Harris himself, ruined the experience with his flat southern drawl. I read this book years ago and recently decided I wanted to revisit the story, so I went ahead and kissed my credit goodbye, expecting to feel some buyer's remorse. I admit, the first chapter took some getting used to, as I already had a preconceived idea of how the tone and characters should sound. To my surprise, Thomas Harris did an excellent job at reading this story that is as beautiful as it is chilling. His German, Lithuanian, and French accents necessary for most of the characters were very convincing and breathed life into the dialogues. By the end of the book I did not notice at all when he spoke in his native southern accent. I found his voice to be very pleasant to listen to, and I'm so glad I didn't let other reviewers rob me of this experience.

good book, horrible narration.

book was good, but the narration was abysmal. made the book not even readable. e

Underrated entry in the Lecter saga

Hannibal Rising gets a bad rap for being pumped out in order to maintain film rights, and while the basic plot seems a little stock or cliche for someone as enigmatic and interesting as Hannibal Lecter, it's still a well-done plot that builds Hannibal's character while the action keeps things moving. It does ignore some very significant aspects of the character that were established in Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. While his own voice seems strangely out of place amidst the constant French and German accents, Harris proves a good narrator of his own work too. Hannibal may have been one of those characters better left without an origin story - he's certainly creepier and less sympathetic that way - but for a story that was shoehorned into existence, it's better than good.

Good Book!

I thought it was a great book. Loved hearing the author read it. I think he did a great job.