Home > Mystery & Thrillers > Espionage > The Hunger

The Hunger

List Price: $24.95

Save 30.0%

You Pay: $17.47

Want this eBook?Our eBook Library Software is required to purchase and download eBooks. Download it here.

Tell a Friend

Overview

Now back in print, this sensual tale introduces Miriam Blaylock, an ageless creature who can give long life to her lovers--those whose blood she doesn't drink. When her husband dies, Miriam finds a new love in Sarah Roberts, a sleep researcher who has discovered the blood factor that may contain the secret of immortality.

Editorial Reviews

Most readers know Strieber for his bestselling books about his alleged contacts with aliens (Communion, etc.). Yet before he met the saucerians, Strieber wrote immensely popular horror novels, some of them filmed (as was Communion which, nonfiction or not, is a horror classic). The most imaginative was The Hunger (1980), which posited an ancient race of vampires that created humanity and has directed our species' history. In his first novel in seven years, Strieber returns to the opulent, ferocious world of Miriam Blaylock, the beautiful, powerful and rapacious vampire who dominated The Hunger (and was played by Catherine Deneuve in the film version). It's time again for the vampires' centennial conclaves, and Miriam is in Thailand, hoping to find a mate at the Asian gathering. Instead she encounters a possibly mortal enemy, Paul Ward, a CIA operative heading up a hush-hush team dedicated to wiping out the vampires. The novel's first two-thirds offers a tour de force of mythmaking (as Strieber redefines the world through vampiric eyes) and emotionally intense action (as Ward's team stalks Miriam and her ilk). The last third, set in Manhattan, is less successful, as Miriam, intent on destroying Paul, lures and seduces him and then falls in love, as does he with her. This turn doesn't quite convince, and the contrived ending shrieks sequel. There's much here to admire, not least Strieber's expert modulation of tone and dialogue as POV shifts from Miriam (fluid, refined) to Paul (muscular, slangy). While not as original as its parent, this bloody, lush and gripping novel trumpets a welcome return to fiction by Strieber and could win award nominations. (Aug.) Forecast: All signs point up: the sale of film rights to Columbia/Tri-Star, a seven-city author tour and 20-city national radio satellite tour, and the republication of The Hunger in June (ISBN 0-7434-3102-2) with a teaser chapter from The Last Vampire. Expect this one to bite into bestseller lists. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Whitley Strieber

Whitley Strieber is a writer. He was born on June 13, 1945 in San Antonio, Texas. Strieber earned a B.A. from the University of Texas in 1968 and a certificate from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Strieber worked at an advertising agency from 1970 to 1977, going from account supervisor to vice president. His first bestseller was The Wolfen. It was made into a film, as was his novel on the vampire myth, The Hunger. Strieber published Communion: A True Story in 1987. It described his personal encounters with extraterrestrials and led to hundreds of letters describing similar experiences. Strieber wrote another book, The Breakthrough, and a novel, Majestic, on the same subject. He founded the Communion Foundation in 1989 to assist in establishing a productive relationship with alien beings.

Customer Reviews

There are no customer reviews available at this time. To add your review, Register or Sign In to your account using our free eBook Library Software.

Additional Info

Imprint

Pocket

Filesize

596.18 KB

Number of Pages

384

eBook ISBN

9780743436441

Excerpt from: The Hunger by Whitley Strieber

Rome: 71 B.C.

She hated the city and hated it most in August. The streets burst with filthy life; rats and flies and the sneering, diseased poor of the Empire. Carts piled with everything from sausages to silks poured through the gates, choked the narrow alleyways, jammed into the forums. Exotic crowds from the edges of the world shoved and brawled and stole in every corner. Over it all a blue haze of smoke from countless sausage-stands and bakeries hung like dead fog. Rome was drowning in humanity: naked slaves, nobility preceded by lictors and followed by streams of clients, soldiers in creaking leather and clanging brass, aristocratic ladies held above the mass on litters, all surging around the gaudily painted temples of government, religion and wealth.

She drove her chariot like a centurion. Two slaves walked ahead of the horse and chariot with whips to force the crowd aside -- she didn't give a damn how it made her look, she had no time for the effete ministrations of lictors with their delicate rods. She was in a hurry and Rome was just going to have to move.

As she proceeded along the Nova Via toward the Appian Way the crowds thinned somewhat; nobody was going out the Capenian Gate today.

The lush palaces on the Palatine Hill and the brightly painted Temple of Apollo disappeared behind her. Now her slaves were trotting. Soon she would flail her horse and burst past them. She was growing frantic, the heat made time short.

On this day she would find one of the strongest men on earth and make him her own. She passed under the Appian Aqueduct and through the Capenian Gate. Now that she was outside she thrashed the horse, rattling past the Temple of Honor and Virtue and over a little hill. With shocking suddenness the horror was before her.

Even in this age of cheap life it stunned her.

A dense, roaring mass of flies darkened the sun. Lining the Appian Way for miles, rising and falling over the gentle Campagnian Hills, were twin rows of crosses. The entire army of the slave rebel called Spartacus was being executed. They had been here for three days. The question was, could she find one still living?

Such a man would have to be incredibly strong. Miriam's father had theorized that selecting only the very strongest might be the solution to their problem. In the past they had too often chosen badly, and the transformed had always died.

Miriam needed this man. She longed for him, dreamed about him. And now she arranged her veils to keep out the flies and prodded her horse to find him. The shadows of morning stretched before the crosses. At least Miriam was alone on the road; travelers were detouring along the Ardenian Way as far as Capua in order to avoid this disgusting mess. Miriam's slaves came up behind her, gasping from their run out from the city, batting at the flies that settled around them. Her horse snorted nervously as flies alighted on its face.