The Hunt

by David Francis

The crisp Autumn air calls to Elmer, an old man who has lost faith in life, to climb the mountain of his youth in search of the great, majestic Whitetail Buck. Not fearing death or his advanced age, Elmer picks up his rifle and enters upon his last journey reliving memories from his past as he climbs the great hills of Jenkins Mountain searching for a trophy buck. The historic mountain provides bounty for the hunter that is willing to sacrifice, and the king of the mountain crowned with fourteen glorious points leads the hunter to his final glory.

219 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 18, 2008

About the author

David Francis, based in Los Angeles where he works for the Norton Rose Fulbright law firm, spends part of each year back on his family’s farm in Australia. He is the author of The Great Inland Sea, published to acclaim in seven countries, and Stray Dog Winter, Book of the Year in The Advocate, winner of the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Prize for Literature, and a LAMBDA Literary Award Finalist. He has taught creative writing at UCLA, Occidental College, and in the Masters of Professional Writing program at USC. His short fiction and articles have appeared in publications including Harvard Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Southern California Review, Best Australian Stories, Australian Love Stories, and The Rattling Wall. He is Vice President of PEN Center USA.

Reviews

[Per Gunnar · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have read David Sherman’s StarFist series and I quite liked the books in that series. Not all but quite a few of them. So when I stumbled over this one by the same author I thought, why not. The blurb states that this is a “very non-traditional vampire” novel and that it is indeed. Unfortunately, to me it is not a vampire novel at all. This is just another crazies goes on killing spree type of stories. A kind of Natural Born Killers wannabe.

Yes the characters in this book does have to drink blood, they are a bit stronger than ordinary humans and they do live a bit longer. But that is it. They are only a bit stronger, they only live a bit longer and they really do not have any of the attributes that we normally consider to be connected to vampires. There is none of the mystery and the “cool” that I associate with vampires. I know that the blurb stated that these vampires can go out during the day, eat garlic and so on. However, these “vampires” are so far off from what I was expecting that, to me, they are not really vampires. Vampires are mythological figures for which you have certain expectations and none of those are really fulfilled by this book.

It could still have been a read worthy book but I am afraid that I failed to be taken in by the story itself as well. It is really just a fairly unintelligent mad killing spree with sexual overtones and quite a few back flashes. Rocks was initially built up as an interesting character but just before he could assert himself he is turned into some fumbler carrying a lot of psychological baggage from the past.

Then we have the end. Well, it sure as hell put an end to the story. Needless to say it is not a happy ending. It is also an unnecessary ending that felt to me that it was just put in as a cheap way to create some drama at the end.

First book I have read since 2012 that I have put on my “rubbish” shelf I am afraid.