Predator: A Novel

Aliens / Predator / Prometheus Universe

by Paul Monette, John C. Thomas, James E. Thomas

While on a rescue mission for the CIA, the members of an elite paramilitary team are killed, one by one, by an unseen enemy in the jungles of Central America

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Media Tie In, Novels, Monsters

200 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1987

About the author

Online Guide to Paul Monette's papers at UCLA:
http://findaid.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/...

In novels, poetry, and a memoir, Paul Monette wrote about gay men striving to fashion personal identities and, later, coping with the loss of a lover to AIDS.

Monette was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1945. He was educated at prestigious schools in New England: Phillips Andover Academy and Yale University, where he received his B.A. in 1967. He began his prolific writing career soon after graduating from Yale. For eight years, he wrote poetry exclusively.

After coming out in his late twenties, he met Roger Horwitz, who was to be his lover for over twenty years. Also during his late twenties, he grew disillusioned with poetry and shifted his interest to the novel, not to return to poetry until the 1980s.

In 1977, Monette and Horwitz moved to Los Angeles. Once in Hollywood, Monette wrote a number of screenplays that, though never produced, provided him the means to be a writer. Monette published four novels between 1978 and 1982. These novels were enormously successful and established his career as a writer of popular fiction. He also wrote several novelizations of films.

Monette's life changed dramatically when Roger Horwitz was diagnosed with AIDS in the early 1980s. After Horwitz's death in 1986, Monette wrote extensively about the years of their battles with AIDS (Borrowed Time, 1988) and how he himself coped with losing a lover to AIDS (Love Alone, 1988). These works are two of the most powerful accounts written about AIDS thus far.

Their publication catapulted Monette into the national arena as a spokesperson for AIDS. Along with fellow writer Larry Kramer, he emerged as one of the most familiar and outspoken AIDS activists of our time. Since very few out gay men have had the opportunity to address national issues in mainstream venues at any previous time in U.S. history, Monette's high-visibility profile was one of his most significant achievements. He went on to write two important novels about AIDS, Afterlife (1990) and Halfway Home (1991). He himself died of AIDS-related complications in 1995.

In his fiction, Monette unabashedly depicts gay men who strive to fashion personal identities that lead them to love, friendship, and self-fulfillment. His early novels generally begin where most coming-out novels end; his protagonists have already come to terms with their sexuality long before the novels' projected time frames. Monette has his characters negotiate family relations, societal expectations, and personal desires in light of their decisions to lead lives as openly gay men.

Two major motifs emerge in these novels: the spark of gay male relations and the dynamic alternative family structures that gay men create for themselves within a homophobic society. These themes are placed in literary forms that rely on the structures of romance, melodrama, and fantasy.

Monette's finest novel, Afterlife, combines the elements of traditional comedy and the resistance novel; it is the first gay novel written about AIDS that fuses personal love interests with political activism.

Monette's harrowing collection of deeply personal poems, Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog, conveys both the horrors of AIDS and the inconsolable pain of love lost. The elegies are an invaluable companion to Borrowed Time.

Before the publication and success of his memoir, Becoming a Man, it seemed inevitable that Monette would be remembered most for his writings on AIDS. Becoming a Man, however, focuses on the dilemmas of growing up gay. It provides at once an unsparing account of the nightmare of the closet and a moving and often humorous depiction of the struggle to come out. Becoming a Man won the 1992 National Book Award for nonfiction, a historical moment in the history

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've developed a fascination over the years with film novelizations. When I was younger, I understood that books were often turned into movies, but I never understood why anyone would bother reversing the process. Movies are an essentially visual storytelling medium, and they work within the confines of that technology. The idea of translating prose to screen was understandable to me, but doing the opposite made no sense. Movies aren't books.

Nothing brought this point home to me more than reading R.L. Stine's novelization of Spaceballs back in grade school. Spaceballs relies almost entirely on toilet humor and visual gags, so Stine was ham-strung trying to translate those to a text-based medium. On top of that, Spaceballs was a junior novelization, meaning all the profanity and innuendo got bounced out the airlock, censored for protection of our youth. That's all well and good, except that presumably the target audience for a young adult Spaceballs book was . . . let me check my notes here . . . young adults who had already seen Spaceballs.

Obvious problem is obvious.

Movie novelizations didn't change my mind until I read Alan Dean Foster's adaptation of Aliens. While Cameron's picture is a big-budget action extravaganza, apparently nobody bothered to tell Foster. Thus he approached Aliens the same way he approached his adaptation of Alien from a few years earlier: like a straight up horror film. Not only that, but Foster's adaptation had scenes appearing in the script, but sliced out by Cameron for the theatrical release, including the excellent sentry gun sequence, and Ripley finding the cocooned Burke and handing him a grenade. Up until Cameron put out the Special Edition LaserDisc for Aliens in 1991, Foster's novelization was the only way you knew those scenes ever existed.

And if the Aliens book was that good, then damn, the novelization of Predator by Paul Monette had to be equally as awesome, right? I spent months scouring used bookstores for a copy, turning up plenty of copies of the True Crime paperback of the same name by Jack Olsen, before I finally located one on the fifty-cent rack of a tiny hole-in-the-wall place in Speedway which has long gone out of business. Excitement at a fever pitch, unable to believe my luck, I got home, stashed myself in my room, cracked the cover, and started reading . . .

. . . only to discover the novel was nothing like the film. Characters went by different names, very little of the humor that lightened the tension was present, whole scenes missing, and the Predator itself, the most integral part of the film, the thing they named the entire movie for, bore zero resemblance to the costumed nightmare embodied by Kevin Peter Hall. Paul Monette, whoever the hell he was, had managed to ruin one of the greatest action films of the 80's.

I was crushed. I put the book on my shelf, but figured I'd never open it again. Downsizing my collection a year later, it hit the give away pile. I actually felt guilty passing it off to someone else, because they were sure to be as disappointed as I was. It was further proof of my first inclination towards adaptations: if you want to watch the movie, watch the damn movie. You can't count on the book.

Well, that was 1992. A lot's happened since then, and my older self has begun looking back on stuff I read when I was younger, wondering if it was really as bad as I remembered it, and giving it another try. Some stuff is just as terrible as when I first picked it up, but occasionally I'm surprised at what a few years and a lot of growing up can do for one's appreciation of the material. This brought to mind Paul Monette's Predator, and I was interested in finding out if it was as awful as I remembered. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, it took me all of a day to locate a dirt-cheap copy, and when it arrived I dug into it with tempered expectations.

As an adaptation of the film we got, it's still a failure. It was clearly based on an earlier draft of the Jim & John Thomas script, likely one bearing the 'Hunter' title before it was changed to 'Predator' midway through production. As such, it's lacking all of Shane Black's contributions and Schwarzenegger's improvisations, including the infamous "Stick around!" that everybody remembers. Many characters die differently, as the Predator creature hunts only with a spear-like bladed weapon (something it didn't acquire until Predator 2), so there's no laser-targeted shoulder cannon, no wristblade gauntlet, no flechette launcher.

As noted earlier, the Predator creature itself is completely different from the film version too. The hunter is still an alien which can camouflage itself almost perfectly, but it can also mentally infiltrate and take over the mind of any host body it desires, then assimilate that mind into its own to take complete control of it. Thus it can become a bird, soaring high above the jungle, or it can morph itself into a static part of a tree. The only life form the Predator can't latch on to and subvert this way is a human, and we learn early on that it's come to Earth not just to hunt, but to study us and discern why that is.

The basic premise is still there, with a group of commandos raiding a guerrilla outpost in Central America, then fighting an unseen enemy through the jungle until only one man is left standing in the final act. Only the internal bits have been altered and re-arranged. Same skeleton, different skin and muscles. The writing in Predator is beautiful, packed with metaphor and personal introspection from its characters and gorgeous depictions of the scenery, but an artistic rendering of the jungle and self-reflecting characters at the expense of a heavy focus on violence and combat are not what most readers have come looking for. Yes that's what Monette delivered. So what I was most curious to learn about this book was who Paul Monette was, and why someone picked him to write this book. What I discovered fascinated me.

Predator opens with a dedication by the author:

To Roger Horowitz

Achilles was not such a warrior
nor so mourned by his comrade-in-arms

So who is Roger Horowitz? He was Paul Monette's partner. Horowitz died from AIDS-related complications in 1986, the year before this book was published, likely around the time Monette was in the middle of writing. Monette himself died from AIDS-related complications in 1995, but spent much of his life writing poetry, novels, and non-fiction aimed at helping fellow gay men, whether closeted or out, deal with the trauma of losing friends, lovers, companions, and family members to the devastating disease.

Reading Predator with this in mind throws an entirely new light on the story. Now knowledgeable of Monette's background, the story suddenly becomes an allegory for the very real devastation and havoc wrecked by AIDS on its unsuspecting victims. Consider:

- The Predator travels invisibly, unseen by human eyes, jumping cross-species like HIV/AIDS. Without special equipment, without knowing what to look for, without the telltale signs of its presence, the humans in the story can't even detect it even after they become aware it's coming for them.

- Dutch and his commandos are among the most rugged, manly men on the planet: fearsome in their ability to wage war on any front, using everything from guns and blades to their own fists and teeth to get the job done. They are in the prime of their lives, the apex of human physicality, and they represent a cross-section of races and nationalities. None of that matters. The creature killing them is indifferent to this and slaughters them wholesale. HIV likewise doesn't care how healthy you are, your ethnic background, or your virility. It, like the Predator, is a silent killer that respects nothing except what it can extract from you for its own biological and instinctual needs.

- A group of Green Berets and a number of guerrilla insurgents are the first to fall victim to the Predator, but Dutch doesn't find out who or what killed them until much later. Not even Dillon, the CIA agent in charge of the operation, spills what's going on until after Dutch has sussed out the situation for himself. In the 1980's, the US government treated both AIDS and its victims as non-topics of conversation. Because of this, it took the Center For Disease Control, the one group most capable of fighting it, years to get the funding necessary to research it and even figure out what they were dealing with. Untold numbers were infected and died before the US government and the medical community took it seriously, and publicly explained what they were fighting.

- Dutch is targeted by the Predator and manages to win, but he's physically, emotionally, and mentally shattered by the experience, a shell of his former self. HIV/AIDS wasn't necessarily a death sentence back then, but those who survived, and those who watched their loved ones waste away, especially in the 80's, rarely emerged unscathed.

- Anna, the only woman in the novel, is not directly attacked by the Predator, but she's an eye-witness to its ruthless ability to carve through people. At the book's conclusion, she's seen huddled up to Dutch in the helicopter, and Monette alludes that she plans to stay with him no matter what. HIV, while not unknown in women, was far more prevalent among men in the 1980s, and even today the overwhelming majority of new infections occur among the male population. Anna, despite not being hunted by the creature, became a victim anyway, a circumstance shared by the friends and loved ones of those battling HIV/AIDS.

- One of the book's final lines is Dutch, reflecting on his experience:

He had had his private war, and the winning of it, and whatever peace it left behind, were things he would never speak. It was a kind of homage to the men he'd lost.

For most people, especially those in the gay community, a battle with AIDS was something you didn't talk about. People with HIV/AIDS were marginalized and shunned due to a lack of awareness about the disease, how it was transmitted, and the risk of infection. Their grief was private; people omitted any mention of the virus from the obituaries of loved ones out of fear and respect for the deceased. Even the medical profession struggled with this: doctors and nurses were concerned about inadvertent transmission and/or contamination that could result from treating HIV-positive patients, which often resulted in sub-optimal care, or none at all.

* * * * *

In literary criticism and interpretation, it's taught that one's interpretation of a work is correct so long as one can provide enough evidence to back it up. I'm not sure I subscribe to that in all instances -- while I've seen some head-twisting interpretations of what seem like otherwise-straightforward stories which all hinge on a few words of spoken dialog or description, neither am I about to claim Monette deliberately turned the story of Predator into an allegory for the fight against AIDS, nor will I make some outlandish case about the sexual orientations of the characters.

What I will say is Monette did what every writer does, whether by accident or by choice: filtered the story through his own life experiences. Do I think he was the right choice to adapt Predator? No. While he's great at painting pictures with his words and making us feel the oppressive heat of the jungle, he's not that good at writing the action which drive the story. Whether it's the assault on the guerrilla encampment or Schaefer's last stand against the Predator, the action is bare-bones and makeshift, with Monette using just enough words to explain what's happening.

Those bits of introspection I mentioned, though? The scene setting? The emotional breakdown of the men as they confront the truth of what they're up against, and the fact they and their comrades aren't likely to survive? Monette nails these like he's lived through them. Only now I know that's no surprise, because he has, and he did. Monette's Predator is not a great book, but that doesn't mean it's awful either. He made it an interesting one both to read and to explore, built on the framework of his own experience fighting in a different sort of private little war.

Maybe that's good enough.

[Benji's Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

A faithful adaptation, though focusing on a different kind of creature. Almost as if they gave the writer the theatrical script for the movie, but when it got to scenes involving the creature, the description was like a group of elementary kids explaining a battle sequence.

"So then this hunter comes out of the forest and becomes the forest, basically and like, he...he becomes the trees! The army men can't see him because he looks like trees, like a transformer for trees and stuff."

The writer sees that in the script and does his very best to put it into an actual coherent story, but instead of making the comparison that the Predator is like a chameleon, he says the Predator can actually bend his cells to become branches and/or creatures. Whereas, in the film, it's just a cloaking device that has him appear as invisible.

The book as a whole was a good read, albeit a bit outdated, with instead of calling most characters by their names, they're known by stereotypical racial slurs.

Other than that, it's worth at least one read, due to the authors ability to really make you feel like you're in the jungle with Arnie. Heat blazing, bugs buzzing, etc.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe this is the book from the movie, Predator. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, don't laugh. It's a great book. It's like bloody damn poetry.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating little oddity of a novelization. Monette truly fuels some of his anger into this novelization, as he wrote this whilst his partner was dying of aids. The book is mostly a faithful adaptation of the movie, albeit with a VERY different concept for the central Predator of the film.

Elements of this are really quite good, but THERE'S A LOT OF REAL BAD RACISM on display, so uh be warned.

It's a complicated beast of a book.

[Andrew Hood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read with Monette's non-fiction and own biography in mind, this novelization oddly becomes a decent parable for the cruel, chaotic devastation of AIDS in gay communities throughout the 80s.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This probably sits closer to the 2.5 star range

Now, I'm not usually one to sit and read novelizations of films, and despite being an avid reader I have realized that these novelizations can be a little bit different from the film itself because, I think, they're based on the original treatment. At least most of the time, so if there are scenes cut or changes are made during filming, the novel can have pretty different things. I read the first comic book series first and I'm glad I did, because at the end of the first issue of Predator: Concrete Jungle instead of having the usual letters column, they had an interview with someone who worked on the film. (I forget who off-hand and I don't have the comics nearby. I, also, don't know if the collected edition above published the interview.) In that interview it was stated that quite a lot of changes were made during the filming of Predator, especially with the way the creature looks and the ending of the film itself. So, when I sat down and read this novel, while I was shocked at the vast changes made, I was prepared for them!

In that interview in the comic book they provided some early sketch ideas for what the Predator would look like, and while it had the iconic mouth, it did not have dreadlocks and it did not have the same type of mask at all... or much of a mask for that matter. In the original story boarding ideas when the movie was originally called Hunter, I imagine this is the script that Paul Monette was working from when he wrote this novel. So, this has the original alien creature and it has the originally proposed ending. In the interview one guy recalls changing the ending of the film after filming had already begun. Stan Winston was brought in for the final design of the Predator we all know and love. But the original design was created by Richard Edlund and ultimately rejected, the description of this designers Predator matches the novel. In order to write the novel and release it around the same time as the film, obviously Monette was writing before or while they were filming, so all these drastic changes that were made... well Monette would have never known. So, I'm sure this is one of the major reasons this novel is rated down pretty heavily, because it really does feel like a pretty different film.

As a writer, I think Monette did a good job in telling the story. I've read a few reviews that state you can glean an allegory to the HIV/AIDS epidemic at the time in the 80's and that is probably true since it affected the author through his partner. So, I'm sure some of that worked it's way into the novel to some degree, but maybe less so than some others are supposing in their write-ups.

The things that are the same is the general overall story. Commandos drop into a jungle environment to take out insurgents. Meanwhile an alien hunter stalks the commandos and hunts them down taking trophies of the kills. Just about everyone has the same name as the film, the only change in names is the Green Beret that was killed. The original name in the novel is J.S. Davis and in the film it was changed to Jim Harper. I only bring this up, because I feel like there should be a story behind this name change, it's such an innocuous detail to adjust. Who cares if the guy's last name is Davis?

For the most part I loved the changes they made from the original script. I think if they had gone with this treatment the movie would have been, almost bad, and not the iconic film that we got in the end. Aside from the creature and ending, I think the best overhaul they did to this script was just take out all the racism. It's incredible how overtly racist this original treatment is. When you read this novel, just try to imagine Arnold calling Carl Weathers the N-word? I just can't imagine it. As far as I could tell Weathers character, Dillon, was the only black man in the book and he was outright Dutch's enemy. He was incompetent, bad at his job, etc. As being the only black character amidst all the other racism, it kind of stuck out pretty hard that this original treatment was incredibly problematic. It was never stated that the character Mac was black and Bill Duke did an incredible job in that role, but in the book Mac and Blain spend some serious time throwing around racial slurs and telling jokes. It really sets a different tone of the story from the type of comradery we got in the movie.

In addition to this, the cast is fleshed out with a Native American named Billy Sole. In the film, this came off as an awesome story arc. Here was Billy at one with nature and seemingly having a sixth sense due to how in tune he was with the world around him, so his fight with the Predator was a big deal. In the book, he was a lot of those things, but also not as much. During one of the iconic scenes where Billy thinks he sees the Predator watching them off in the distance, in the book he goes into like a spirit journey and passes out after putting himself into a trance. This just seems like a weird thing to do mid-combat exfiltration. So, I'm glad they pulled that from the film. But then the racism comes up again (maybe)... everyone calls him Tonto. Historically, Tonto is the side kick of the Lone Ranger. The original author of the Lone Ranger, Trendle, doesn't appear to have had that in mind because, according to what I read, he was told by local members of the Potawatomi tribe that it meant "wild one" in their language. But fast forward quite a few decades and portray the character Tonto as not speaking English well and the connotations of the word known by Europeans to mean "stupid" or "moron" from languages like Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. Now, I'm just speculating, but I would be shocked to find out if we asked the original author of Predator what "tonto" meant in the context of his script, he would respond with "wild one".

All the racial slurs that are brought into this book, except the N-word, are played off as "terms of endearment". It's the whole "boys will be boys" type of attitude with the whole thing, which creates a whole different dynamic for the group. Maybe it was a bit different back in the 1980's, but by the late 80's, I feel like a lot of these attitudes were changing pretty fast and to read this now in 2021 it's outright shocking and it just reads as being offensive for the sake of being offensive. Maybe this is a realistic portrayal of a tough as nails commando unit of the times, but boy am I glad they changed all that for the film. The worst thing we get is bad sex jokes and, frankly, I'd rather deal with those than having Arnold call Carl Weathers the N-word on screen.

Okay, so that dynamic was drastically overhauled... now onto the creature. In the interview I read, it seemed that during filming they wanted to make drastic changes to the Predator creature compared to the original descriptions. Hence, even changing designers of the Predator suit and everything. The original notion of the "invisible hunter" or "like a chameleon" stayed with the idea in what we got, but the original version is even more fantastical. The concept that the creature was a humanoid lizard stayed true into the film, but in the book it took the notion of chameleon to the extreme. At one point it turned into a bird before it killed Hawkins. Rather than simply having a cloaking device to bend light around it, it literally transforms into other things. There's even one line in the novel where it sort of states that the creature is so unfeeling, because its kind doesn't face death, instead they just transform into other creatures forever. So... they're immortal?? At least, that's the impression I walked away with. I'm glad that narrative was changed and the whole shape shifting aspect, it's just so intensely implausible where the film felt like it tried to stay grounded with the alien species just being a highly advanced hunting culture. The only weapon the Predator has in the book is a spear, there's no other high tech gadgetry like we got in the film. The spear was clearly inspirational, because it does show up in the second film as the Predator arsenal is fleshed out even more during that movie. In any event, I was happy with all the changes they made to the alien creature during filming. While it still had a bit of that man versus monster feel, the film felt more like man versus advanced technology even more so, which is a vibe I like a bit more.

The most drastic shift was the ending of the film. First off... apparently Arnold was supposed to be running around completely naked for the final battle. I just imagine Arnold reading this and being like "Can't I, at least, wear pants?" Really though, full frontal male nudity is still a "shocking" thing even in 2021, so back then it was even more of a no no, so the film was adjusted accordingly I assume. In this ending the Predator is killed when Dutch throws the spear at the creature. In the both the film and the book he sort of misses, but catches the creature with shrapnel. In the film, the Predator was not injured that much, but in the book the Predator was severely wounded and retreats to the ship. That's right, in this original ending Dutch makes it to the Predator ship! He fights the Predator their and uses the spear the Predator carried with it. There is still a giant explosion at the end, but in this ending the ship is the thing that is detonated not the bomb the Predator carries with it. It's interesting to see that this is basically the ending they went with for Predator 2. Albeit it was done much better in Predator 2, but the seeds of the idea were clearly there in this ending.

One last tidbit, in the film the Predator is eventually crushed. A somewhat comical ending to such a huge threat and in the interview the person that worked on the film said the idea was actually taken from a Looney Tunes episode. Despite that, I think Dutch's character setting up the elaborate traps and being in that situation it makes for a really good ending to the film, despite it's influence.

I can't imagine many people are running out to pick up a copy of this novel, it's turned into a bit of collector's item and can sell around a hundred dollars or so at the moment second hand. However, I am glad I read the novel, because it serves at an interesting piece of Predator lore of what the franchise was originally supposed to be. I'm glad they made a lot of the changes they did, it really changed the tone of voice of the film and, I think, the franchise as a whole. They really turned it into something everyone can enjoy in my opinion. (Well, provided you enjoy Sci-Fi movies and the like...)

[Irwin Fletcher · Rating 1 out of 5]

To quote Dutch in the movie (not in this lame novelization) this book was one ugly motherf***er. Not only did this author likely not see the movie yet I imagine it was written prior to it even being cast and just going by an early draft of the script. For instance Mac is a white guy and the Predator bears almost no resemblance to what was in the film. It's some kind of dumb shapeshifting thing that can turn into anything it comes into contact with, including trees. It has some kind of mind control powers as it sees a hawk flying around, reaches out to it mentally and forces it to come to it, then after touching it turns into a hawk. At one point it basically just turns into the wind, dispersing its atoms and floating on the breeze "as disparate now as a virus". The only weapon it uses is a spear, no shoulder cannon or retractable claws.

The characters are completely unlikable mainly for being a bunch of racists. Most of the team seems to resent Dillon for being black almost as much as they do for him being an unwanted outsider from the CIA, particularly Mac and Blaine. Dutch at one point calls Dillon the N-Word. All the non-white members of the team are basically lazy stereotypes, Dillon being from the hood, Ramirez from the barrio and Billy has magical Indian telepathy he inherited from his ancestors. And just in case you forget they're not white the author will remind you every few seconds. I lost count of how many times Dillon was simply referred to as "the black man" (instead of just using his name or saying He) after 30 times. Even if that doesn't bother you it will by its repetitiveness, it's at the very least just bad writing.

Chances are if you love the movie you'll hate this book, it has the same basic plot but the characters and the alien are unrecognizable and the action falls flat on the page.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get to the choppa! I ain't got time to bleed.

Alan "Dutch" Schaefer and his team is sent to South America to rescue hostages from Communist insurgents. Accompanying them in the mission is Dutch's friend and CIA agent Dillon. After completing the mission, the team proceeds to the extraction point when they are hunted down one by one by the titular Predator, an extraterrestrial warrior who has arrived to Earth to hunt humans for sport.

To me, a nice bait-and-switch: the movie starts out as your typical 1980s action movie before turning into a suspenseful horror film once the Predator makes his presence known to both the protagonists and the audience. This established John McTiernan's Hollywood career; he would go on to direct Die Hard (and its second sequel, Die Hard With a Vengeance) and The Hunt for Red October, among others. The Predator went on to become an iconic creature, along with another 20th Century Fox abomination, the Xenomorph from the Aliens series.

There is even incredibly memorable and quotable dialogue from many of the actors, especially Schwarzenegger: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? YOU ARE ONE BIG UGLY MOTHERFUCKER!

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well that was fun. As a Predator novelisation, this worked pretty well. I appreciated that this was based off of the original screenplay as I wasn't just reading a movie I'd seen a hundred times.
The fact they used the script means that, the Predator in this novel is not the Yautja Predator we know, but the original monster from the script. Y'know, the one they wanted Jean-Claude Van Damme to suit act for before he bailed from the movie. We'll I liked this monster. More or less the same as the Predator, this monster felt more animalistic in its hunting than our pred. Less ritualistic.
I was kind of hoping for more characterization amungst the cast, as we know them well from the movie. But I didn't really get anymore character growth that I didn't know from the movie. Aside that the whole cast loves being racist to each other (although I think that was the author being a weirdo and not knowing how to make people of different ethnicities interact)

[clumsyplankton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good novelisation of a great film

[Corey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting from a film perspective, how the original script of Predator (presumably what the author was working from) is markedly different from the finished product. The alien is far more of a natural chameleon here than it is a warrior with advanced technology, and while the plot beats remain about the same, the dialogue is markedly different, and not for the better. The filmmakers' decision to get rid of the script's many, many, many instances of casual racism immeasurably improved the movie.

Also weird: the author plainly didn't know that Schwarzenegger was going to star. The character of Dutch (named Alan on the back cover (???)) reads far more as a Bruce Willis-type wisecracker than it does the stoic oakman he became (again, for the better).

[Suzette Banick · Rating 1 out of 5]

to be honest the only thing that kept me reading after the first chapter was a love of the movie. The writing was amateurish, the dialogue was chunky, and the messed up the alien. The predator I have loved from the movie is replaced by a pink and red chameleon. This was probably based on the first screenplay, the one that was trashed when they got a new director. The new director was said to have completely change the alien and if this is a taste of what could have been, I'm glad it was scrapped.

[Mikepottz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt like I was in the dense, thick, humid jungle with the commandos doing recon, feeling the intense humidity, hearing the birds and insects reverberating in my ears and experiencing the deadly fear and smell of inevitable death. Yes its not the same as the movie but a gripping well written read.

[Scott Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although was a great film novelisation I only gave it four stars because it deviated enough, slightly but enough for me to drop a star

No shoulder mounted cannon, cloaking effects were different and no fluorescent green blood.

WHAT!

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

don't know why this differs from the movie, its a great movie but a terrible novel at times it reads as if the writer has let a child have a bit of a go.

[Trey Murrah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much more in depth than the movie.

[Paxton Holley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great novelization of the film. Lots of added elements.

[TheGeeksAttic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deeper discussion and review by Paper Movies

Predator Review - Novelization
https://youtube.com/live/dZqJ66uaNU4?...

[Brannigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The novelization to the movie Predator is very interesting. Like all novelization should you get to enter the mind of the characters so you get to truly understand their motivation outside of facial expression, body language and tone. You also get small sections of the story that got cut from the movie. These two reasons are why I enjoy hunting down novelization to movies I love. Granted some of the authors aren’t the best but it still gives you a second take on the same story.

One other reason I bought this particular novelization is because the creature villain didn’t fully flesh out until well into the filming of the movie and novelization are written from the script often before or at least during the same time as the filming so the creature in the book is very different from the final version we see in the movie. The book villain is very much an alien insect like creature that seems to have the ability to morph its shape instead of using the invisible cloaking technology seen in the movie. It’s alien culture is also different as it uses terms like drone, and soldier to describe others of its race. It also has orange blood instead of green and it uses a spear as a weapon instead of a shoulder rocket.

If you are a fan of the films, comics and other books I’d recommend the book if only to see what almost was.

[Malignant · Rating 3 out of 5]

The novel version of the cult action movie "Predator" is not exactly a must read, but for someone who's a fan of the franchise, it might be interesting, mostly due to the fact that the book was based on an early draft of the script, which was later modified. The novel has the same protagonists as the film, but a completely different creature with different motives to kill. It also features the original finale that was ment for the movie but dropped due to budget limitations (The basic concept of this finale was later used for the sequel film).

[B3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Predator has always been my all-time favorite movie. I finally got around to reading the novelization, and it absolutely delivered. The book adds depth and context to key moments from the film, while also highlighting and embracing the changes made for the big screen — like its less flawed/racist heroes making them more endearing and the redesigned, less reptilian, more humanoid alien. For me, it’s an imperfectly perfect gem — a true treasure for any fan.

[DeeJay Trump · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremendous!
**** 4 Stars.

[Mark Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, the author managed to cram an action packed sci-fi thriller into a 150 pages and with the film visuals playing along in my head as well it was a hell of a ride.
Only real difference was the alien creature itself, basically think of that other 80's classic "The Thing" and you're somewhere near.
The final showdown again different to the film, can't believe it's took me this long to actually get around to reading the novel.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novelization of the move "Predator." Pretty good. I enjoyed the movie a lot, though.

[Brian Tucker · Rating 2 out of 5]

So...following up "War & Peace" with the novelization of Predator might not have been the best idea. :) Who knew? #gettothachoppa #moviebeatsbook

[Bill Carlson II · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the best movies ever, but the novelization is kind of a mess. Lots of unexpected racism and the Predator description in the book makes me glad they overhauled it for the movie.