The Last Hellfighter

By: Thomas S. Flowers

Narrated by: Rick Gregory

Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

In the year 2044, reporters from the Public Relations Ministry gather at the home of Benjamin Harker, the last surviving member of the Harlem Hellfighters. At the age of 144, he is the oldest recorded man alive. Hidden among them, Clyde Bruner is looking for a different kind of story.

Across the US, despite the Great Walls and patrol drones built to keep America secure, something has found its way in. Now, towns are vanishing during the night. Entire populations, gone, only to return after the sun sets, changed, unholy, and lethal. Whatever this evil is, its spreading west.

According to a bedtime story Bruner’s grandfather told him when he was a boy, Benjamin Harker has seen this before. He’s faced this scourge. Fought this evil. Survived them. Killed them. From the trenches of the Great War to the jungles of Vietnam to the sands of Iraq, Harker will search his past to save our future.

But as each city light extinguishes across the country, is there no time left to stop what’s coming?

©2018 Thomas S. Flowers (P)2018 Thomas S. Flowers

Great book, terrific writing

Traces of Steven King with intricately woven backstories. I enjoyed the nods to other vampire novels (and even movies) thru the names of main characters. The reader, however, left a good deal to be desired, with an appalling attempt at a Germanic-type accent, many annoying misreads, (i.e. Tommy Dorset’s (sic) band), and an unpleasant sing-song-y style.

The last Hellfighter

I did not want to put this one down! When lackeys for the government arrive to interview the 144 year old man,they don't really want HIS story.They want a parise piece for the current president.A straggler wants the truth,about everything,from war to vampires.Sit down for a long rememberance! Rick Gregory was a great narrator! I was given this book by the narrator,author or publisher free for an honest review.

Bit disappointing...

Potential was great but the first half of book is way way way too full of fluff and filler. Didn’t need the details much that author included..

The end was also not great and nothing much really happened. Not enough action in general in the book for me.

Excellent Story!

I received this audio book for free in exchange for my honest review. This is a very well written story that will keep you enthralled till the very end. Enjoy!

A nice take on an old enemy, the Vampire

I really like what Flowers did here, taking a bunch of different eras and events and showing them as sort of flashback in dialogue up until the end. In this manner he was easily able to get a lot of history across what would have otherwise been a sprawling six to seven book series.

A couple of points, I would have liked to have seen more action and more gore. For all the battles there really wasn't any big blowout your backdoor moments, and for vampires I really expect more blood. Regardless of what I wished for the story is intriguing and keeps your attention, and the whole revenge thing plays out nicely. I honestly could have gone for another book that more fully fleshed out this concept, but with a lot more detail than we got here. This was basically a long winded recap of events, to kind of show how things transpired up to the present day. I liked it a lot, but now I'd like to see MORE as opposed to some condensed story telling. It worked here, but I could take another stab at more books in this series.

Rick Gregory, one of my fave narrators runs with this story. He basically say pull up a chair and listen to what I have to tell you, young'un. He embodies Benjamin Harker's spirit as he retells this tale , and you feel like he is talking directly to you. I always enjoy listening to Gregory, he has a wonderful voice and can infuse life into anything he touches, even the undead. Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. Getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.

If this review helped, please press the YES below. Thank you immensely!!!

Unique twist on vampire stories

Why 4 and not 5 stars? For a vampire tale that revolves around wartime battles, disasters and a subjugation of the human race, I expected more action than was there. The tale is unique in how the vampire race is based upon one kind and one queen, the king was slain early in the story by a version of van helsing and a novice hunter. The rest of the story contains the queens long and slow serving of revenge on the slayers. All this is told from the perspective of the aged hunter to a young man seeking his advice and help. The end result? You’ll have to listen to find out but the ending is quite explosive. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher

Average horror

was looking to pick up something for the holidays. it had its moments but overall it didn't give me the frights i expected.

The Last Vampire Hunter

Oh man this is a terrific tale of vampirism. No matter the story, a vampire is always the same, it is the way the story is told that varies. This one really knocked it out of the park. It was quite refreshing. I loved how the story was told from Harker’s perspective as he relayed his past to Young Bruner. Made me want to sit in a recliner and just relax and listen to Harker’s tales. The reflections on the past as told between blurbs of music or poetry were fantastic. The brief interludes between stories where Harker and Young Bruner talked really tied everything together.

For being a vampire story, I think this really hit so many other topics. I really wouldn’t put this in the horror genre, but more a fictional historical military story that just so happens to have some vampires. If you like vampires but don’t like a lot of gore this is perfect for you. I enjoyed how this took place during some different times and how the characters responded to those challenges. The tales of Harker’s military stint was my favorite. I totally felt like I was at the VFW listening to a vet tell me their past.

Getting close to the characters is easy and as you travel through their stories. Hearing Harker talk about himself through the different years really shows you how he matures through life and what caused him to be who he is. I would have been quite happy with the story being twice as long with more tales of Harker’s past.

Rick Gregory is one of my favorite narrators and I don’t even bother reading what the story is about and just get any book he narrates. Really liked his character voice for Harker. If you have listened to Rick Gregory before you will no doubt be familiar with his gritty character voices.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Enjoyable.

This was an enjoyable read. It's a unique take on Vampires and the Harker lore, which I thoroughly enjoyed!!

The plot centers on Ben Harker, a man who has lived a very long time,.....144yrs to be exact, seen a lot and done even more. He is telling his story to a reporter and the story goes back and forth from present day to past. He has lived through many wars, both with man and beast and has a lot to tell the young reporter, some of which is hard to believe, but as the tale unfolds, we start to see that Ben has been trying to kill one Vampire for a long time. Time is coming to an end for Ben, will he finish his lifes work before it's too late.

For the most part, there's a lot to love about this, but for me, what brought it down was that there was a lot of filler. I know everything was necessary to tell the story, but there seemed to be an awful lot of detail and not a lot of action. I became bored half way through and was tempted to skip to the end, but I didn't, and in a weird way I'm glad I didn't. While it was long, it was also unique and I was invested enough to find out what happened.

Ben was a good character. He has so much information and memories in his head, and I loved finding them out along with the reporter. I also loved how the author made Ben pick out certain music to trigger his memories, it worked really well.

Rick Gregory read this well. He was clear and easy to follow and had a good array of tones and voices.

I was given this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. This in no way affected nor influenced my thoughts.

Terrible narration

This was an interesting story. I wish I would have just read the physical copy instead of listening to the audiobook. Easily the worst narrator I’ve ever heard. I highly recommend deleting this version and finding a professional voice actor to do it over. If you must listen to this one, set the playback to 1.2 or above.