Hannibal Rising: Am I the last to know ...

... that Thomas Harris has come out with a new book, describing the genesis of Hannibal Lecter into a monster? And that there's going to be a movie out already, in 2007.

The reviews on Amazon are almost unanimously unkind, some saying it's hard to believe Harris even wrote the thing. But I got to read it nonetheless, and see the movie, too -- and I don't do movies.

Were other Harris/Lecter fans aware that this was going on? I was surprised when today on an NFL game commercial was the first I had heard of it.

 

I wasn't aware of the book until I saw it at a local Barnes & Noble last week. I read the book jacket and was not impressed. The last book outlined how Lecter came to be Lecter. I'm guessing that the advance was just too big for Harris to pass up. I'm probably going to skip this book.

 

After reading the reader reviews on Amazon, I'm tempted, but I'm too big of a fan of the series to do that.

 

Count me among those who had no idea there was a new Lecter book out until today.

And Chris, didn't Harris take forever to write the previous book? He doesn't seem like a guy who would write something merely for the advance. Could be wrong, of course.

 

After the last book, I'll pass unless the reviews say it's great. I thought the last one sucked really bad.

I thought Red Dragon was his best.

 

See, that's the thing. On the other books, fans eagerly waited for years for them to come out. The deal was that he wrote at a very slow pace and only when he was ready.

That's why this whole thing is whole strange.

And oddly, I didn't think Hannibal sucked at all -- even, believe it or not, the ending.

 

Movie is due out in early 2007

 

I just heard of it, too, and man, the reviews are blistering. Haven't decided yet. But then, I haven't read or seen the "Silence of the Lambs" sequel either. ;D

 

You're not missing much there.

 

I guess a young Hannibal liked his liver with beer rathern than a nice Chianti.

 

'Red Dragon' and 'Silence of the Lambs' were very good. I thought the last one sucked and probably won't read the latest.

 

I had heard about this from stories forecasting what kind of Christmas season the publishing industry was going to have, and "Hannibal Rising" was obviously expected to be a big seller. But the reviews have been so negative -- and the writing excerpts they use to make their point have been so over-the-top piss-poor -- that I suspect you might see a ton of hard-cover versions of the book in Half-Price Books stores around the country next year.