Hunter

By: James Byron Huggins

Narrated by: Tom Lennon

Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the international best-selling author of the hot new thriller Dark Visions

In yet another experiment to extend human life, scientists accidentally tap into the deepest recesses of the human mind and unleash a force that might well be a terrible curse. For in their desire to use a power they did not understand, they unintentionally unleash a force that will spell the end of mankind if it cannot be destroyed. 

Now an infected creature is loose in the Alaskan wilderness, and the America military is forced to ask the world’s greatest tracker, Nathaniel Hunter, to locate the beast and destroy it before it reaches a populated area. 

Hunter can track anything, anywhere, anytime. But he is both horrified and shocked as he begins to follow the creature’s bloody path leading directly toward a city. For the beast is both more powerful and more merciless than any animal Hunter has tracked before. In fact, it seems to embody the most ancient and darkest heart of man – a power that mankind has always feared as the greatest beast of prey. 

And as Hunter closes on the beast and the final, bloody battle approaches, he frantically realizes that the scientists may have succeeded all too well in their experiment to extend human life.... 

For it may have become unkillable.

©2019-2029 James Byron Huggins (P)2020 WildBlue Press

cool premise

Hunter had a cool premise, unfortunately it suffers from multiple issues. The book would have benefitted greatly from some serious editing. First off the book is way way way too long. This book didn't need surgical edits done with a scalpel, it needed someone to take a chainsaw to it. 19 hours? This could have been a tight 8 hour thriller, but author rambles on an on, overexplaining, repeating himself, and going on off tangents that added nothing to the narrative. A while I almost never comment on the actual writing during an audio review, I simply couldn't ignore the fact that Mr. Huggins doesn't seem to get the old writing adage, show don't tell. This book is supposed to be a thrilled and yet he uses a passive voice and is constantly telling you stuff, not showing us, not having us experience it. In the rare case where he does show, does allow us to really experience something, he then goes back and tells us again, as if not trusting the reader/lister to be smart enough to understand what was shown. Then there is his insane love of the word volcanic...or most specifically he loves to use it as an adverb...volcanically. Every action in the book is done volcanically! At first it was maddening, but the end I was just shaking my head and almost laughing....thinking that if anyone had listened to this book and had been playing a drinking game where you had to take a shot every time the word was used...well they'd have died of alcohol poisoning. There is also one character in this book, who has an actual name and yet 80% of the time Mr. Huggins simply calls him the Japanese. Not the Japanese man. The Japanese. The Japanese turned. The Japanese fired his gun, swung his sword, etc etc. It just sounded so weird. Despite all that, as I said, the premise was cool. The book has a unique and fairly interesting main character. And at the start I thought., 'wow this is character is promising' but then it turned out that his only flaw is that the he has no flaws. For all intents the guy is a freaking superhero. He's Superman without the flying. This might just be a pet peeve of mine, but I can't stand 'perfect' characters. Everyone has a flaw, it's how we as readers/listeners relate to them. Hunter, has none.

Okay enough on the story, let me move on to highlight of this book: the narrator. I enjoyed Tom Lennon's narration quite a bit. Though I don't believe I've ever listened to his work before, his voice still sounded familiar to me. He has a clean delivery and a pleasant voice. In fact I have to laugh as I think his voice is almost too pleasant, too laidback for a thriller, lol. But it really was his narration that kept me listening and I would gladly listen to more of his work.

WAY TOO Long!!

I gave up. The author could have produced a better quality story with half the content, There is such a thing as too much detail. The main character was too predictable, the creature manages to take out multiple marine platoons, but struggles with a politically correct international hunting team dragging an old man through the woods of Alaska????? I know it's fiction, but a little dose of reality and believability goes a long way.

Original story with great characters

Nathaniel Hunter just wants to live in the forest with his wolf but his skills are needed. He is a world class tracker and woodsman and the only one likely to find someone. His partner and faithful friend, a large and independent wolf, won't give up until they accomplish their goal. Their job is to track the mysterious animal that has devastated their people

The characters are multidimensional and compelling. There is nonstop action, I enjoyed it so much I've bought two more books by the same author.

Enjoy!

Reading was bad

I thought the book sounded interesting, but the way it was read, I didn’t like at all. No voice change when it came to each character, it was hard to follow along and remember who was who.

Fantastic!

Absolutely the best listen I've had in ages. The story is masterfully done, characters and locations come to life. I couldn't stop listening! The narrator is fantastic. A must have in your library !

Loved it

Read this when I was a much younger man. Saw it on Audible and I had to listen to it. Loved the characters and I wish they all could have survived but it is what it is. Sort of ends while leaving me, the audience hanging.

This was great, as it reads like two different stories in one

What’s better than having a man of steel with loyal sidekicks and a story developed in the early eighties to conquer evil at its worse.

Narrator ruined it

The story had a great premise (a scientific facility in Alaska found remains of a prehistoric tiger and one of the scientists injected himself with a serum containing something of the tiger turning said science into a half human half tiger monster that killed off all members of the research facility and is then tracked through the Alaskan wilderness by a super tracker and his pet wolf), but I couldn’t handle the narration a second longer. I got half way through the book before I had to stop. The narrator’s voice was grating. He tried doing a British accent but came out sounding like a constipated Irishman. I would have liked to hear the rest of the book but... ugh.

PLEASE add Leviathan from Huggins!!!

I have been a fan of James Byron Huggins for over 20 years. While I do not fault the voice actor for his efforts this was not the performance I was hoping for. Is RC Bray available? Can't wait for more Huggins classics to be added.

Could have been great

All the author needed to do was just a little research into the many things he knew nothing about.
And maybe use the phrase “volcanic explosion” a bit less.

Superb

Enjoyable from beginning to end, with characters you can get emotionally invested with. Will certainly try this authors other books.

Cliched and one-dimensional but not terrible.

As someone who loves books set in snowy plains and books about unknown monsters, this was right up my street. The inclusion of soldiers hunting said monster was a bonus, after all, who doesn't like Predator?

Unfortunately, while one-dimensional characters work well in a 90-minute movie, they're hard to get excited about in a 19 hour book and this is one of the major failings of this book

Everyone is a total caricature, from the main hero (the A-typical Alpha Male called Hunter who lives off the land, is unshakeable in danger, unbeatable in combat, has giant wolf called Ghost but also cares about kids) to the evil corporate-types.

In addition to this there is a problem with the the description of an early squad leader that the protagonist works with. Now this man is a soldier of Japanese descent and so I would expect him to be referred to as The Captain or Captain Takakora but instead he's referred you repeatedly as "The Japanese" which is, in all honesty, borderline racist.

Now I have been very negative but the description of survival techniques was incredibly interesting including such things as edible plants and trees, the calories available through certain grubs and a very startling way of catching Tigers.

Also, while the characters are very cliched and lack any growth, the story does progress well as more characters are introduced, particularly the evil corporate guy, and the story became more interesting.

What started as a simple run and gun through snowy plains soon became a battle of wits between Hunter and the creature but also more 'terrestrial' dangers.

Thanks to this the latter half of the book did pick up somewhat and, while I was still lacking any love for the cast, I was beginning to root for the good guys towards the end.

As an audiobook, I felt the narrator pretty reliable as far a reading goes. There was a lack of vocal range and they always pronounced the word Human (a word that must be said 100 times in the book) as Uman but overall they did a good job with a rather flat story. I'd like to experience more of their work as I feel, given the right book, they'd be a brilliant narrator.

The question of whether I can recommend this book really depends on whether you like this sort of tale If you grew up loving films like predator and other such mindless action movies, then I guess this might well be right up your street.

I managed to listen all the way through nearly 20 hours and there are only a few parts where it really dragged but I came away having been mildly entertained and certainly not hating the book by any means.

My only complaints remains primarily the cliched style of character and the tasteless use of the term "The Japanese" and so it' an average score for me.