Thunder Without Rain: A Memoir with Dangerous Game, God's Cattle, The African Buffalo

by Thomas McIntyre, David Mamet (Foreword), Joel Ostlind (Illustrator)

“When you hear thunder without rain–it is the buffalo approaching.” This line from a Yoruba hunting poem conveys the magnificent power of the African buffalo, also called “God’s cattle.” Hunter and writer Thomas McIntyre has pursued this special animal for the last forty years, and he now shares his expertise in Thunder Without Rain. McIntyre's topics are wide-ranging, from the various species of the African buffalo and their territories to the cultural importance of buffalo and its place among wild bovids. Other material he covers European, and American methods for hunting buffaloHistorical explorers as buffalo huntersGreat buffalo hunters, including Theodore Roosevelt, Robert Ruark, Craig Boddington, and Robert JonesErnest Hemingway’s writing on buffaloCorrect cartridges for hunting African buffaloAnd finally, what makes buffalo so dangerous—and so sought after?After exploring all topics related to the African buffalo, including hunts of his own, McIntyre ends with the fate of modern buffalo hunting, now often guided and for a high price, and the sustainability of this practice. In Thunder Without Rain, McIntyre confronts his obsession with African buffalo and brings the reader along for a fascinating journey.

568 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 11, 2023

About the author

Tom McIntyre was born a third-generation Californian, studied under the Jesuits at Loyola High School in Los Angeles, and attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He has traveled to every continent except Antarctica. His first stories were published in the mid-1970s in various free-press newspapers in the Pacific Northwestr; and he has since written hundreds of articles appearing in Sports Afield, Field & Stream, Gray's Sporting Journal, Petersen's Hunting, American Hunter, Men's Journal, Outdoor Life, Bugle, Sporting Classics, Fly Rod & Reel, Wyoming Wildlife, Texas Sporting Journal, The Hunting Report, Garden & Gun, and The Field in England, as well as in a score of anthologies. He has been co-winner of Best Magazine Story for Best Sports Stories, awarded by The Sporting News. Tom is on the mastheads as a contributing editor of both Sports Afield and Field & Stream magazines, and has written scripts for more than 750 episodes of outdoor television programs, including "Buccaneers & Bones," featuring, and narrated by, Tom Brokaw, and the documentary, "Wyoming: Predators, Prey, and People" for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Tom is the author of the critically acclaimed books "Days Afield," "Dreaming the Lion," the award-winning "Seasons & Days," and the editor of, and contributor to, the outdoor-story anthology "Wild and Fair," featuring Pulitzer Prize winners David Mamet and Philip Caputo. Skyhorse Publishing brought out his "Shooter's Bible Guide to Optics"; and Bangtail Press, www.bangtailpress.com, has published his novel, "The Snow Leopard's Tale," called "mesmeric," "a gem," "a mystical pilgrimage," with noted author P. J. O'Rourke saying of it, "McIntyre's meld of man and beast alerts the beast in me and alarms the man." Tom writes a hunting column every-other Thursday for The Sheridan Press, www.thesheridanpress.com. Tom is at work on a novel about Henry Morton Stanley and a non-fiction account of the making of the novel, "Bambi." You can follow Tom on Twitter @mcintyrehunts. Bryan Ruark, Tom and his wife Elaine's son, attends the University of Iowa; and Tom and Elaine, one tabby cat, and a springer spaniel reside in northern Wyoming, where the deer and the antelope continue to play.

Reviews

[Bryan McIntyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

McIntyre’s last book is not just a hunting book, it is a meditation on man’s relationship to the natural world. Interweaving biology, history, and personal recollections, Thomas McIntyre shows us that we are all people of the buffalo. Through his book we see that our past, present, and future are forever in twined with the cattle of God. This is a book that will make you laugh, weep, and yearn for the wild.

[Kris Reid · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the most self indulgent texts I’ve ever read. I ordered it based on the author’s appearance on the meateater podcast and the recommendation of David Petzal of field and stream.

This was a mistake.

To put it simply—based on this text, McIntyre was the kind of person who rolled the windows up and locked the switches before farting; he loved every one of his own emanations, no matter how shitty they would be perceived by anyone else.