Predator 2: A Novel

Aliens / Predator / Prometheus Universe

by Simon Hawke, Jim Thomas, John Thomas

[back cover copy]
The ship came in low over the western hemisphere, powered by a technology unknown to human science. Its destination: the city of Los Angeles.
For the predator, it is the ultimate sport–the killing of human prey.
For the citizens of Los Angeles, it is a nightmare beyond belief.
For newsman Tony Pope, it is the story of a lifetime.
And for Detective Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, it’s another dirty job that’s got to be done….
It’s kill or be killed.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Horror

231 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1990

About the author

Also published as J.D. Masters.

He was born Nicholas Valentin Yermakov, but began writing as Simon Hawke in 1984 and later changed his legal name to Hawke. He has also written near future adventure novels under the penname "J. D. Masters" and mystery novels.

Reviews

[Charlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two things I learned from being a fat kid:
1)Most fat kids are smart enough to know they are fat kids.
2)Their peers will take every opportunity to remind them anyway.
...And that pretty much puts a blanket over my adolescence. I had the good fortune to be blessed with wits (and tits-see fig.1)enough to grasp the cold realities of "the awkward years" early enough to realize that middle and high school were of minimal if any importance and began waging a campaign of academic sloth and apathy of anti-epic proportions. Which brings me to PREDATOR 2:THE BOOK. Halfway through 8th grade, I was assigned a midterm book report-the catch being the class could only report on books from the shelves in our classroom. Just before deciding to fuck off the whole ordeal and make off to the restroom with a hoarded Swiss Cake Roll, I half, or even quarter-heartedly looked across the shelves and THERE IT WAS. Burning like the bush what guided Moses, I plucked it off the shelf and opened it randomly to...A TWO-PAGE SEX SCENE!!!! Yes, true believers, the novelized version of PREDATOR 2 contains many lascivious revelations which the film skirts. Ever wonder how the female cop wound up preggers? IT'S IN THERE. Ever wanted to hear the deep inner monologue of The Predator itself? IT'S IN THERE. Ever wonder what happened to Schwarzennegger's character after the first movie? FUCKIN' A. IN THERE. Plus a bunch of unnecessary sub-sub-erotica. The only thing PREDATOR 2: THE BOOK is missing (which you can't fault the amphetamine-addled ghostwriter for) is the kinetic phosphorescence of the maestro, Gary Busey. Anyway, to make a long story, er, slightly less long, I got an A+ in English for a book report on PREDATOR GODDAMN 2. Who says the American educational system is dead? If you are or are a parent/guardian to an overweight adolescent, GET THIS BOOK.
ADDENDUM:
-Do NOT get this book.
-No matter what amazon says, or how much i wish on the contrary, I'm almost positive Danny Glover Did NOT write this book.
-I later lost the weight and it was easy, so now I have the right to give fat people a hard time.

[Mikepottz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novelization is far superior than the OG. The spacecraft powered by unknown technology to humans headed towards California in 1995, undetected by any of the tracking stations and satellites. It was a scorching summer. LA was a war zone. Drug cartels were in a heated fight with police. Police officers down, grenade launchers sending bodies spiraling through the air. One hard assed cop, Harrigan played by the legendary Danny Glover in the movie. Basically he is just way more bad assed than his character in Lethal Weapon. Awesome cover of him on the book cover. His character in this is in his 30s haha. The predator was invisible due to the light bending camouflage screen. The predators had hunted for dangerous game throughout the universe for over a millennia. They were a race of warriors. They sought to prove themselves, stalking any creature. They would always take a trophy, a skull and spinal cord. They would clean it, polish it, and adorn their living quarters. A nod to the OG with mentioning that a predator had been destroyed by a human. Thanks Arnie. This had been studied and now humans were considered more dangerous prey. The predator observed Harrigan fighting the cartel and found him to be a warrior. As any cop related story a police captain berates Harrigan and Harrigan replies with, "you are cutting off my dick and shoving it in my ass". The predator was like a ghost, however there was a hint of physical presence. The predator when appearing is 8 foot tall, space helmet, small cannons mounted on his shoulders, hellish yellow eyes, reptilian skin with armor. A dart found at the scene is not found on any periodic table haha. The predator will not kill a female warrior with an embryo. They want this baby to be a more formidable opponent. Under the predators helmet his face is snake like, tiny eye sockets, pincers, shark like teeth, essentially looking like an upturned crab. A mention of Mel Gibson (awesome). Harrigan will cause the destruction of this creature and change his view on aliens.

[clumsyplankton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good adaptation

[R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book . . . when I was about 10 years old and I read it along with the movie. Now I probably wouldn't appreciate it so much but gotta be true to how it felt at the time twenty years ago.

[Paxton Holley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent adaptation of the movie. It added some scenes and a few details to the nature of the Predator.

Now we just need a legacy Predator sequel starring Arnie and Danny Glover.

[Irwin Fletcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think many people would say that Predator 2 is better than Predator, but the novelization of the sequel sure is a hell of a lot better than the one for the original. The first novelization seemed to be hampered by the fact that it was seemingly written prior to the film being cast or even having a finished script. The alien in the story bears little resemblance to a Predator and the whole thing was just a bizarre mess. Predator 2 seems like it was written by somebody who had gotten to see the actual film. And the author does a decent job of expanding and explaining things that might not be obvious in the film and giving some more insight into the characters.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

The sequel that no one really asked for.

In June 1996, Los Angeles is enduring a heat wave and a crime wave, so the pressure on police officer Michael Harrigan to solve a strange string of murders is mounting. Harrigan thinks the culprit can be found among the warring gangs and drug cartels, but FBI Special Agent Peter Keyes knows the horrible truth: their killer is a fearsome extraterrestrial with keen hunting abilities that include superior night vision and the power to make itself invisible.

I think this is one of the most underrated movies of all time. I prefer the first film rather. The character of Keyes was originally going to be Dutch Schaeffer from the first Predator film, once again played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, Schwarzenegger refused to reprise his role because he didn't like the idea of Dutch becoming a villain. Just like its predecessor, it has a good bait-and-switch: the movie starts out as a standard early 1990s action movie before turning into a suspenseful horror thriller film once the Predator shows his presence to the audience and protagonists. It helped further expand upon the Predator mythos and started the popular comic book series of Alien vs. Predator. At least it takes the setting from the jungle to a city which is pretty interesting, but the portrayal of the near-future of 1996 is ludicrously inaccurate; it therefore looks more like the present-day. The Predator's new weaponry is pretty creative, but, for unexplained reasons, the Predator acts more like an anti-hero in this film compared to the villain he is in the first film, and he now only kills characters who are armed with weapons. The scene where the Predator brutally kills people on the train is awesome and terrifying. There are also great action scenes, especially during the opening and the final battle between Mike Harrigan and the Predator. This scene, however, can be quite risky for viewers with photosensitive epilepsy. And Jerry Lambert is highly annoying. Also, the Xenomorph skull, while a great Easter egg, partially sets up the two Alien vs. Predator movies. At least the Dark Horse Alien vs. Predator comic books, some of my favorite comics of all-time, were quite popular at the time.

Do not waste any time with this.

[Lucas von Lucasberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novelization of an amazing movie. i actually read the novel before i saw the movie. This kind of puts me in an awkward position because, to be cool, you're always supposed to like the book more than the movie, but what do you do if the book is based off the movie? I'm so confused. I guess I'll say i liked the book better on the assumption that it was so kick-ass because the movie was so good.

when i finally watched the movie, i was over at Eduardo Morales's house. his mom, having pre-viewed the movie, watched the first thirty minutes of it with us so she could fast forward through the sex scene. ever since then, that's the only way i can stomach watching hetero-sex. thanks ms. morales for that pointer. that was also the first time i ever ate salsa verde, or as i call it, SAL-za VUR-dy. I'm from indiana. when she announced she was bringing in chips and homemade salsa, i was astonished by two things: 1. I didn't know salsa came not in a jar. and 2. I didn't know salsa could be green. This day was truly a life altering experience. Now that I think about it,I never did hang out with Eduardo again. I hope his mom is doing okay.

[Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is exactly what you would expect the novelization of Predator 2 to be. I like a couple of the passages when decontextualized and there are some funny Lethal Weapon references. But on the other hand there are parts like this:

"[...]'This material doesn't correspond to anything on the periodic table.'
'What the hell are you saying?' Lambert asked.
She looked at him, blankly. 'I don't know what I'm saying.'
There was an awkward silence for a moment. The periodic table, Harrigan repeated silently to himself, thinking back to his high school science classes. THAT'S THE TABLE OF ALL THE ELEMENTS IN NATURE. So what the hell is she saying? That whatever this thing is made of doesn't exist in nature? How is that possible?" (p. 118, my emphasis)

However I did have a lot of fun prominently reading this in trendy coffee shops, restaurants, and concert venues.

[Артюхин Алексей · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Predator 2". The story itself looks a little different after the first brutal confrontation between Dutch and the alien hunter. The scenery is completely changed, other characters are introduced to us. I would like to see what happened to the main character of the first book, but this is not available to the reader. This is probably the first disappointment of the sequel.
The work is independent and generally quite interesting. This novelization, like the previous product, does not stand out in any special way. The narrative is quite stingy and impetuous. Sometimes it seems that the author is simply describing what he saw on the screen, where the main characters were Gary Busey and Danny Glover. However, there are a lot of significant differences between the book and the movie in terms of some little things that generally do not affect the plot narrative.
I remember and probably even liked that the story is told by several characters. This allows the reader to slightly open up the stingy world of the city, which revolves around the main character. Some of the movie scenes here have been expanded, which allows you to better immerse yourself in the events.
The story of "Predator 2" is not remembered by anything remarkable. This is a fairly dry narrative of what fans have already seen on the screens. This book is more for fans of the genre and the Predator universe. After all, just by seeing the movie and then reading this book, you won't miss anything, and maybe even be disappointed. However, as a fan of stories about extraterrestrial hunters, I liked this book. I have read it with interest a couple of times, but I do not dare to advise others to read it.
8 out of 10

[Mark Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fast paced rollercoaster thrill-ride of a novel.
Only 150 or so pages but crammed full of tense action scenes just like the film.
The book was brilliant.
You not only get the thought processes and inner monologues which the film's can't really give to you, you also get more details from the Predators pov, the only downside and this is just nitpicking on my part, the first book is referenced and erases the creatures original form to what we now call the Yautja and the final fight scene between Harrigan and the creature ends slightly differently.
I liked the little in-joke that the author included by mentioning Mel Gibson, if you know you know.
Again this is a first time read of the film tie in novel, seen the film a dozen or so times over the years and is still watchable, even if you catch it half way through whilst channel surfing.
Going for a shower now to wash the mud, blood and sweat from my bruised and aching body, no wait that's Harrigan.

[Melissa C. Nower · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was fantastic to read. Especially in reading from the Predator’s POV. Great novel to the movie!

[Donald Trump · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a 'Loser'!
* 1 Star.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great companion piece to the film. Enriched it for me.

[Bryan Thomas Schmidt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done novelization of an underrated film with a few useful extra scenes to flesh things out. A good Predator thriller. Recommended.