All I can say is what a ride! A tracker is hired to hunt down a 'beast' that ravaged a secret military installation. After encountering the 'beast' Hunter (the tracker) realizes the beast is the result of a biological experiment....

"It was a place where ruthless strength fed dark desires—the heart of the beast."

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is a stand-alone book. Rather than turn this into a series, the author wrote one doorstopper of a tome - close to 600 pages. But even though a long book, I never got bored. There was action all the way through.

This is a second edition of this book. It was originally published in 1999 (and somehow I missed it back then). I am assuming it was edited and updated - weaponry for one thing. It did not feel dated at all.

A group of elite soldiers, a world-class tracker named Hunter and his huge black Wolf are called together to hunt down a monster, a killing machine in the Alaskan wilderness. But it soon becomes apparent the monster is tracking them as much as they are tracking it.

I like monster stories and this one is one I'm recommending to all fellow monster aficionados. Be warned there are blood, guts, and gore - but there usually are in monster books.

I received this book from Wild Blue Press through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

This was not exactly what I anticipated when I asked to read it. It was a definite action/thriller, which I do like. It was a little far out for my taste but I did like it ok.

I had high expectations for this one and the blurb really pulled me in.

Right off the bat there were lots of things that irked me. First and foremost, the writing was extremely bland and awkward. There was no sense of horror or disgust at the gory scenes because the writing did not make me feel anything.

Secondly, the dialogue was extremely awkward. The author also seemed uncertain about the style that his characters spoke with. There were "um's" and "ur's" weirdly placed and characters held conversations at the weirdest of times.

The character development was non-existent in my opinion. Hunter is a nearly textbook Gary Stew. The doctor (I don't remember the name of) was extremely 1D as were the rest of the cast. Their interactions were very awkward too and their actions were very out of place sometimes. Hunter, for example, smiles or frowns at the oddest of times and it makes me very confused because his thought process is going one way and then his expression makes the reader rethink whatever they understodd from his inner monologue. It's very annoying and jarring.

The monster itself and the science behind it seem very sketchy to me. I also found that the explanation behind it came a little too late, especially considering that the writing was doing a poor job of keeping me interested. I was also very confused by the monster's thought process. It is aware of what it is but for some reason also refers to itself as "we"? It also seems to have memories of be aware that it is partially a humanoid species and that it was a savage before modern humanity arrived. The whole science aspect was extremely strange and did not make a lot of sense.

The one thing I enjoyed was the character Chaney. His part interested me a tiny bit and his dialogue seemed somewhat better too compared to the other characters. Unfortunately, my patience had run out by the time he was introduced and I only read a chapter or two with him in them then stopped reading this.

I did not manage to finish this, I made it about 35% through.
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Short review on Litsy

I had high expectations for this but was disappointed. The writing is bland and awkward, the characters are very 1D and the dialogue is stilted and awkward. Character interactions are very strange and the science behind the experiment is very sketchy. The beast's thought process is very confusing to follow and raises a lot of questions. Chaney is the only somewhat tolerable character in this. I read about 35% and then gave up.

1/5 stars

Nathaniel Hunter and his wolf, Ghost are the best trackers out there. Usually just lost people and kids. He is wealthy from finding cures for disease from plants. There is something out there killing people, not for meat or protection but because it can. It also, walks on 2 feet and no one knows who or what it is. Hunt has been contacted to go to Alaska in the wilderness, to find whatever it is, but not to kill it. Is this a monster or a man? This becomes a life or death situation, full of mystery and madness. Some will go to any lengths to live an immortal life. Who will live, who will die and where did this *thing" come from? Full of suspense and action. I received this book from Net Galley for an honest review and no compensation.

This was the kind of book/movie that I adored when I was younger. Relentless action, superhuman (metaphorically) hero Vs superhuman (literally) monster. Matthew Reilly meets Michael Crichton.
Now though, I basically resent the days it has taken me to get through it. I had no idea it would be so long! The story would have been satisfying at half the length. I also assumed that it was a new release, but it was actually published in 1999, and is just being re-released now, with a (great) new cover.

Nathaniel Hunter (yes, really) is the world’s greatest tracker, and despite his vast wealth as a result of his scientific discoveries, is happy to live in a cabin in the wilderness, rescue lost children when needed, and stay away from people, needing only the company of his pet wolf, Ghost. Now that should’ve been my first clue, after all, if you were going to copy the name of fictions most famous pet wolf, surely you’d reference it in some way. But JBH obviously got there before GRRR...
Recruited on to a mission to hunt down a mysterious and vicious creature which has devastated several remote Alaskan research bases, he joins an elite group of international soldiers to hunt it down. It’s not really a spoiler to reveal that the monster is part man part Predator (except it’s not alien, it’s prehistoric) created my the mad scientists seeking immortality.

Like pretty much every action/horror movie of the 80s and 90s, characters will be picked off one at a time in as many gruesome ways as possible, and this is described in great detail. Actually, everything is, and this was my biggest problem with it. The hunt goes on, and on, and on, with each encounter involving a play by play description of every single move and shot taken, none of which seriously harm the monster, which then retreats, feeds, gets described all over again (in great detail, naturally), then we are reminded at how skilled, strong, heroic and downright manly our hero (Hunter) is, until the creature attacks again. The chapters are ridiculously long, but the paragraphs on the copy I received not well demarcated, so it would take a while to realise we’d changed scene. Then he’d go back to another long winded description of every single gun, lovingly named, and the shooting would start again.

My other big problem was the completely nonsensical science and medical descriptions. The author just throws terms into a word salad and invents others, when the boffins talk to each other. They are looking down an electron microscope, first looking at protons, then DNA sequences, then describing the characteristics of the monster from just looking at its genes. I don’t mind suspending disbelief to some extent in sci-fi, but this was ridiculous. It wasn’t even the book’s age that was the problem, it’s that he clearly didn’t ask anyone who knew anything about science for advice.

Eventually, I was just bored, and wanted it to be over, but the Kindle only gave me percentages rather than page numbers, so I kept going, and going, thinking surely something other than a gun battle will happen... Then the end, and a feeling of “is that it?”

Read this if you like action, lots of action, cheesy stereotyped characters, lots of guns and violence, and a completely predictable ending. It really would’ve been much better as a movie (and would’ve only wasted two hours of my life.)

Thanks to NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.