Predator: Big Game

Predator Novels

by Sandy Schofield, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith

The Slayer and the Slain--

A modern Navajo warrior follows the trail of his people's most savage legend come to life.

Deep in the rugged New Mexico desert, a strange aircraft has landed. In response, the commander of a nearby army base sends out search patrols. What he doesn't know is that an alien Predator has arrived, hunting for human prey. But Corporal Enoch Nakai, a Navajo soldier, sees the creature in action--his buddy slaughtered in a blinding flash--before narrowly escaping with his life.

For Nakai, it is a Navajo legend come back to life: the return of the Horned Monster, who was destroyed by the hero Nayenezgani, the mythical Monster Slayer. Shunned by his comrades, Nakai knows there is only one hope. He must rediscover his Navajo roots by following in the Monster Slayer's footsteps. Using the wisdom of his ancestors, Nakai will confront the Predator in a final battle worthy of legend. But this time, will the hero emerge the victor?

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Aliens, Adventure, Action, Graphic Novels

226 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 2, 1999

About the author

Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith use the common pseudonym “Sandy Schofield” for a part of their collaborative works.

Reviews

[✨Bean's Books✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Navajo warrior sets out to find his roots as he battles the infamous Predator in the New Mexican sands.
This is a very solid comic series. Good artwork, great story, lots of blood. Gotta love it!

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another subpar installment in the Predator universe akin to mediocre fanfic at best. Schofield crams clichés into this like a baker stuffing jelly rolls. Our hero/protagonist this time around is a Navajo, Corporal Enoch Nakai, who is stationed at a base in the New Mexico desert. Of course Enoch's grandfather was a famous 'medicine man' who came from a long line of the same. Of course Enoch's father was a drunk, and Enoch has battled his own addiction problems. Of course Enoch is dating an Indian hottie who helps him keep an even keel. And finally, of course, the Predator lands by the army base and starts hunting...

Besides the basket full of clichés populating the story, Schofield also starts each chapter with the musings of Enoch's dead twin brother, who is destined to help Enoch destroy the mythical monster (it seems sometime in the past a Predator came to the same area...). Schofield does manage to toss in some good action sequences as you might expect in this franchise, but that really is the only redeeming value; even so, they read like a pastiche of Dutch's epic showdown in the Predator movie. As much as I liked the movie, I think I am done with these bad fanfic novels. 1.5 stars.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice story for the Predator universe. Recommended

[clumsyplankton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts off good leads to just fairly bad writing

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one starts out with some surprisingly good writing, then quickly devolves into the same 'ole, same 'ole basic Predator storyline we've seen done a million times before. Only instead of Arnie, we have a Native American hero with all the attendant stereotypes you'd expect from a pulp novel like this, such as visions from the spirit realm, the main character's battle with alcoholism, and the fulfillment of ancient prophecies. Over-the-top silliness abounds.

[Andrew Bird · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and enjoyable entry in the predator franchise. Whilst it doesn’t break any new ground, the familiar story beats and events make it an enjoyable read nonetheless. I would recommend for any fans of the predator franchise or anyone who enjoys an easy sci-fi action/horror read.

[G. Edweird Cheese · Rating 2 out of 5]

i love the predator. the movies, the comics, and the other books ive read, but this one? this one is just a rip off. just replace Arnold with a stereotypical indian (i wont say native american, cause that would be am insult to them) with a drinking problem and the jungle for a desert. Add in cliche army people: the racist, the best friend, the kindred spirit, the boss who dosnt listen, and the boss who lets you do whatever you want and you got Big Game.
it sucks, too, because the other books are pretty good. i would rather belive danny glover can huff and puff his way around after the predator than think that this novel would happen. its a cheap dime store book, pulp, and dosnt add anything to the predator myth or story.
pass on this on.

[the tony.]

I really enjoyed this book. My first and only Predator book I have read and I can only hope the books to come are just as great. The author was able to quickly build certain characters without losing focus on the storyline/plot. I found myself really rooting for the main character, Nakai. I also enjoyed how each chapter started off with an interlude of Nakai brothers spirit, gave it a very unique/Native American feel to the story. I kinda wish this could’ve been a movie, yet I’m glad it wasn’t because Hollywood would’ve ruined it. Finished it in 2 nights.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this Predator novel even though there really wasn't a whole lot to it. A Predator goes hunting at a military base in the desert, but he didn't count on a Navajo Warrior to be standing in his way. Plenty of action and destruction just as you'd expect from a Predator story.

There's nothing groundbreaking here, but if you like the Predator franchise this is pretty much just what you'd expect.

[Chris The Lizard from Planet X · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Predator: Big Game" by Sandy Schofield is an adrenaline-fueled roller coaster ride that dives deep into the world of the iconic Predator franchise. With a gripping storyline, intense action, and a suspenseful atmosphere, Schofield delivers a thrilling novel that will captivate fans of the Predator series and newcomers alike.

In "Predator: Big Game," Schofield takes readers on a pulse-pounding adventure set in the rugged New Mexico deserts as a Navajo Army Private Enoch Nakai finds himself trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse with one of the universe's most notorious hunters, the Predator. As the tension rises and the body count mounts, Private Nakai must use their wits and resourcefulness to survive the Predator's relentless pursuit.

Schofield's writing style is fast-paced and immersive, seamlessly transporting readers into the heart of the action. The vivid descriptions of the Predator's hunting methods, its advanced weaponry, and its terrifying presence create a sense of dread and anticipation that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. The author's attention to detail and knowledge of the Predator lore shine through, making "Predator: Big Game" a must-read for fans of the franchise.

The characters in "Predator: Big Game" are well-developed and relatable, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Schofield delves into their backstories and motivations, allowing readers to form a connection with them as they face the Predator's deadly game. From the tough and resourceful protagonist to the diverse group of supporting characters, the cast adds depth and emotional investment to the story.

The action in "Predator: Big Game" is relentless and brutal. Schofield captures the primal and savage nature of the Predator's hunt, delivering intense and gripping sequences that will leave readers breathless. From high-stakes confrontations to thrilling escapes, the book is filled with heart-pounding moments that showcase the deadly cat-and-mouse game between the characters and the Predator.

One of the highlights of "Predator: Big Game" is Schofield's exploration of the Predator's culture and mythology. The author delves deeper into the enigmatic alien species, shedding light on their rituals, technology, and motivations. This adds an intriguing layer to the story, providing fans with a deeper understanding of the Predator universe.

While "Predator: Big Game" is a standalone novel, it stays true to the spirit and tone of the original Predator film. Schofield captures the essence of the franchise, maintaining the sense of dread, mystery, and primal excitement that made the movies so popular. Fans of the Predator series will appreciate the nods and references to the iconic film, creating a sense of nostalgia and familiarity.

Overall, "Predator: Big Game" is a heart-pounding thriller that brings the hunt to life on the pages. Sandy Schofield's skillful storytelling, well-developed characters, and intense action make this novel a must-read for fans of the Predator franchise. With its suspenseful atmosphere, relentless action, and exploration of the Predator's world, "Predator: Big Game" delivers a thrilling and immersive reading experience that will keep readers hooked until the very end.

[Kelvin Hawkes · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Yautja are such a profoundly interesting and strange society, their honour Code and Rituals complex and full of depth, their entire lifes dominated by the hunt.

here some unborn twin won't shut up about some spirit stuff wth

[Matt Tyrrell-Byrne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite cool, like a 90’s-00’s version of Prey.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sandy Schofield is a penname for the husband and wife writing team of Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryne Rusch. I thought this was an enjoyable read. Quick, with a fair amount of action. The predator seemed different from in the movies but they do have different personalities so it's OK to see variability.

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me eight days to read this. No. That’s not a typo. Eight freaking days to read a 226 page book. For some, that would be an accomplishment, but for someone who can read 500 or 600 page books in 1/2 the time, talking a week and day to read a novel under 300 pages is not a good record to have.

I freely admit that between having a one year old son and going back to teaching after summer break sapped a ton of my energy and what little free time I did have was quickly gobbled up by other adult responsibilities, however it still shouldn’t have taken me so long to finish Predator: Big Game because even if I’m exhausted and even if I can only squeeze 20 min at a time into reading a book, I usually make an effort to try. That didn’t happen with this one.

The problem with Big Game is the problem that happens to a lot of novels that are focused on the same IP. In this case, it’s Predator, who, after 2 films, 2 previous stand alone novels, 3 crossover novels with the Xenomorphs from Alien, and God knows how many comic books, has become incredibly stale and unoriginal.

There was a minor attempt made in Big Game to change it up a bit, make it more along the lines of a “hunter vs. prey” trope, but even then, half way through, it becomes a matter of “so what?”. After all, if you’ve seen just the last 20 minutes of Arnold screaming “if it bleeds, we can kill it” and telling everyone to “get to the choppppppaaaa”, you know where the plot of this one is gonna go.

And even then, I could forgive the basic plot had the writing been any good. Hell, Nathan Archer wrote the 2 previous novels in this series and, even though they were ridiculously unoriginal, at least they were well written, testosterone fueled joy rides that never apologized or tried to be anything else. That’s not the case with Schofield’s take on the titular creature. I’m not saying Schofield is terrible, it’s just that there’s nothing here to make Big Game fun of memorable. I flew through the first 2 books because I loved how Archer wrote and how he made his characters stick out and come off the page. In Big Game Enoch Nakai is just boring, despite his background as a Navajo Indian…which, come to think of it, is almost criminally cliched, complete with visions of great spirits, family alcoholism, and expert tracking abilities, as well as the typical rampant racism from non-Indian characters and his eventual triumph over evil.

I wish I could recommend this one as much as Concrete Jungle and Cold War, yet I just can’t do it. It’s no surprise now why it took Dark Horse seven years to publish any new novel in this series and keep it going with a completely new direction. I’m also not really shocked that they had to ship this series out to an entirely different publisher after Big Game basically derailed what Archer had set up.

[Phillip Murrell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was terrible. The authors were ignorant on both how the US Army operates and how the Yautja behave. The main character calls his sergeant "Sir" several times. The same sergeant has the ability to pull leave (NOPE). The Soldier can't go into town to see his girl, despite only being forty miles away. Furthermore, he has all the Native American tropes that make you cringe (former alcoholic, spiritual world powers/prophecy, etc). On top of that, he doesn't seem to care that his entire base was destroyed, nor the implications of power on that scale.

The Predator in this book murders unarmed civilians (always established as a big no-no). It also killed non-sentient beings with the same brutality. This book was more fan fiction than a licensed product. I should have known it would be bad when the attention shifted away from Schaeffer and Rasche.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only good thing - really - about this woefully generic novel, is the cover artwork.
It starts off with an interesting premise, but swiftly just treads the same old boards... Each scene plays out with exactly the same ebb and flow ((disposable) character set up - Yautja presence - grisly (disposable) character death and/or action) and it gets boring very, VERY quickly!
I am surprised I stuck with it and once I finished it, I removed the cover and threw the rest of it in the recycling bin!
If you're a fan of the Predator franchise, avoid and read Concrete Jungle, Cold War or South China Sea instead! These are more worthy of your time by a country mile!

[Mason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyable for middle schoolers. There's no suspense since the Predator is in every other chapter. You get the same cliches of a Predator story. The main character is likeable, but most characters and the plot have very little depth. This is a short read but I wouldn't say anyone over 15 would thoroughly get anything out of this book.

[Bryson McCheeseburger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Total pulp, but as a Predator fan, I can't crap on it too much. Somewhat basic story, and the ending leaves a little to be desired, but all in all, a good vacation novel that you can drop in the sand, get wet at the beach or accidentally get some sunscreen on and not worry about it. Just a fun little read with a tonne of killing.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tie-in to the Predator comic of the same name (which I've never read), itself utilising the monster from the classic 1980s Arnie action movie.

Not the best book I've read, nor even the best Predator tie-in: it's pretty obvious where this is going right from the start.

[Alex Klimkewicz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read it back in middle school. Enjoyed it then, along with several other Aliens, Predator, and Aliens vs. Predator books, but I probably wouldn't read it again.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed this novelization of Dark Horse Comics 4-issue series. Granted, it has been several years (maybe a couple of decades, actually) since I read the miniseries, but I distinctly remember not liking the miniseries much at all despite thinking it was a good concept. I might change my mind if I ever read it again, but I digress.

I read this book over breaks at work; it held my interest throughout and I while I did not find it hard to put down, it was easy to pick back up and start reading again. The character development is decent; I liked Nakai (a Navajo) as well as Tilden (a Zuni who joins the story in the latter half of the book). I thought the author(s) did something interesting by including Nakai's twin brother who died with their mother during childbirth; his "story" takes place in "the spirit world" (as it were) and provided a different perspective to the story. The twin tells why Nakai is "the monster-slayer" and the steps he must take to fulfill his destiny, as it were. On the one hand, I thought it added an extra element to the story. The "action sequences" are pretty crazy in terms of what is described. I was not sure how much I believed what was written, but that is okay.

The Predator in this book something else, though - "he" seems more powerful and more capable than what is shown in the movies or in Dark Horse's first two miniseries. It is able to leap crazy distances, jump over buildings, and survive an incredible amount of firepower launched its way. I know the creature is not human, is an alien, but the creature described does not match up with what I saw in the movies. Also, the movies indicated that the creature would not kill unarmed people, yet the Predator in this story does kill a couple of unarmed citizens, which was out-of-character for it and its "code of honor." Its death at the end was a little anticlimactic, too, to be honest - it has survived multiple rifles and machine guns being fired at it as well as rockets and heavy slugs from an attack helicopter, yet it gets injured in a fall when a rotted tree it jumps on collapses under its weight? Not that this injury kills the creature; Nakai is badly wounded and ready to die when the ammunition on his lost ammunition belt begins exploding in a fire and distracts the creature, allowing Nakai to pull out his pistol and shoot it multiple times in the head and thereby killing it. It was poetic but, at the same time, anticlimactic. Which is fine - I don't know that I would have believed Nakai surviving hand-to-hand combat with the alien hunter.

Also, the damage caused by its "laser weapon" - in the movies, it might blow holes in people, but it also cauterized the wounds. In the book, the laser causes people's bodies to explode into pieces. It was pretty gory, on the one hand, to read about the amount of blood and body parts lying scattered across the fields of battle, so I don't know if it was an attempt on the part of the author(s) to be "more realistic" in terms of what might happen to a body if struck by a high-powered energy beam/laser?

Also, at one point, two teams of soldiers appear to have the creature pinned down - regular soldiers and heavily armed SpecOps soldiers. Despite the sustained rate of heavy fire, none of these soldiers manage to severely wound the creature. There is something like thirty soldiers shooting at the creature, and it survives practically unscathed. I found that hard to believe as well, especially when it is heading straight into the incoming fire and not necessarily trying to dodge it (at least, that is how I took it). I could maybe see the "normal grunts" missing, depending on their training and how seriously they took maintaining their proficiency, but the special forces guys? I could not see them missing the creature as badly as they did.

I might have said at one point that I felt some of the depictions were stereotypical (well, Nakai getting drunk and "falling off the wagon 'again'" is a bit stereotypical, but anybody who survived what he survived prior to that point might also have "fallen off the wagon" and gotten drunk as well). However, after taking some of the Native American classes I have taken and reading some of the literature for those classes, I thought some of the depictions of Nakai's brother and the "spirit world" (for lack of a better word or way to put it) seemed decently respectable in how it was presented. I did not feel it was in any way meant to be mocking, so there was that.

It was a fun book to read. It gets a little crazy in parts, but I am still glad I took a chance on reading it. And, as I said above, I did like it more than the comic miniseries it was based upon, so that should count for something, right? I’d probably rate it 2.7 – 2.8 stars rounded to 3 despite some of the weaknesses in the book.

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like this one. I love that it had a balance between the Predator and Humans; they were far more evenly matched. I mean, the Predator still powerful, but Nakai was just as skilled in stealth, tracking, and speed, as the Predator. And the book illustrates it perfectly in so many ways.
I also like the Navajo's spiritual overlay of the story. The spirits watching over and giving more details than you wouldn't have gotten just through the main character, Nakai. Though after 10 chapters, I felt they were just repeating themselves, and I kind of wished that they gave more information on the history of their people instead of repeating. They talk about the myth being told, but the myth is of the future, not the past. So, as the story went, I wish, they told more of the past to enhance the character's roots and training. They say the Grandfather taught him everything; it be nice have more on that through the spirit since he been watching and waiting. But honestly, that was just my train of thought.
It's still a very good book.

[Zoe Furley · Rating 4 out of 5]

an action packed rendition of the old school comic series ! never stopping for a moment and how a Predator tale should be.
The spirit world and perspective of unusual characters such as some of the animals or outline characters gave this story more depth and perspective to which i really enjoyed. Nice little quotes from the original film 'If it bleeds' are the basis for most of these types of books.

The ending in my opinion is satisfying with an awesome little twist :) it may be viewed as a typical predator tale , but they never cease to surprise me in the variations and interpretations of different encounters and scenarios.

[Christopher Dodds · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was amazing well thought out characters and story . The story of a Navajo u.s soldier going up against a predator was sooo good, how he hunted it and it him,the predator was menacing and very dangerous but was also depicted as different type of predator than the others.
As I read this after watching prey, can't help but notice how similar it was to it especially the ending that I thought this book ending was better

[Mr Chuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Predator vs Navajo.

The big Pred is on a hunting holiday and visits a local army camp for some head and flaying souvenirs.
However, one of the soldiers is a Navajo and he has some grandfather knowledge that will help him fight and take down the beast.

A simple story and enjoyable. Medium Predator story.

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Otra decente adaptación de un comic publicado durante la época en la que Dark Horse tenía los derechos sobre Predator. Ya había menciones del vínculo entre el monstruo y la cultura Navajo, pero creo que aquí se excedió un poco con los prólogos místicos al inicio de cada capítulo. por lo demás, la novela cumple con la acción y la cruzada de su protagonista contra el cazador extraterrestre.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read most of this, but I don't know how to enter a did not finish. Either way, it's the same as Concrete Jungle and Cold War, just with a different character. Pointless if you've read one of the other two.

[Daniel Gaddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was similar to the other books in this series. A good story foundation. Some decent writing and then some not-so-decent writing. If you're a super fan like me, though, this is worth the time and money.

[Adam Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this for the most part, however the repetitive chapter headers from his brother's perspective became quite redundant and tedious. Also, all superiors hating/disliking him just because he is Navajo also became a worn out trope.

[Chris Neumann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of pulpy Predator goodness. A fun time and exactly what I wanted to read.