The Hunger

Hunger #1

by Whitley Strieber

Beautiful and wealthy, Miriam Blaylock lock enjoys a house in Manhattan's exclusive Sutton Place, priceless antiques, a magnificent rose garden, and an ability to live forever, which inevitably destroys her unknowing lovers. Reprint.

Genres: Horror, Vampires, Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Gothic, Urban Fantasy

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

American writer best known for his novels The Wolfen,The Hunger and Warday and for Communion, a non-fiction description of his experiences with apparent alien contact. He has recently made significant advances in understanding this phenomenon, and has published his new discoveries in Solving the Communion Enigma.

Strieber also co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm with Art Bell, which inspired the blockbuster film about sudden climate change, The Day After Tomorrow.

His book The Afterlife Revolution written with his deceased wife Anne, is a record of what is considered to be one of the most powerful instances of afterlife communication ever recorded.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This vampire story was on my shelf for a very long time. Now I finally read it. Well, the concept of the timeless vampire (Miriam) and her often tragic story was very intriguing. I also liked the historic locations quoted here. The fact that she has difficulties to make newly transformed vampires (as her latest lover John) last as long as she links the plot to a research team focusing on ageing. We all want to find the ultimate formula to stop ageing. So far so good. But her involvement with Sarah Roberts (the researcher), Tom, the Riverside Institute (the rhesus monkeys) was typical 80s and at parts even a bit cheesy. You'll find an interesting highly erotic type of vampire here in some very cliche like situations and vibrant sex scenes. The action is okay and only at some parts a bit long winded. Overall a fine, well written vampire book that's different to other vampire stories and follows another approach. Therefore recommended!

[Grady Hendrix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of sex, lots of violence, only one monkey eating another one alive. Pretty much as good as it gets for vampire fiction.

[Willow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as a teenager, and it still sticks in my mind. Miriam’s memories are horrific. Whitley Strieber has a way of coming up with some truly creepy and unsettling ideas about eternal life that made me shudder. The whole idea that these vampires are not able to die, no matter what happens to their body is truly ghastly if you think about it.

Miriam is a monster, changing humans into vampires, knowing full well what will happen to her lovers. Yet Strieber always sympathizes with his monsters. Reading the book, you understand why Miriam does the things she does. You can’t entirely hate her.

I do believe the scene where Miriam and her sisters are riding in a coach and are accosted by a group of vicious vampire hunters to be one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever read. Of course I don’t read much horror and tend to shy away from books that will bother me.

Anyway, I really liked the way Strieber played with the vampire legend, creating a new race. I always love how so many authors create new and different worlds, playing around with vampire mythology.

[Rodrigo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sentimientos encontrados con este libro, pero al final ha pesado mas la decepción.
Unos vampiros muy diferentes a lo acostumbrado no les afecta apenas el sol pueden salir de día, no tienen colmillos!!! eso ha sido ya el culmen... usan un bisturí, al menos los acólitos, la vampiro real usa su lengua??
Estas diferencias me han chirriado bastante.
Luego el libro ha tenido partes interesantes como que la explicación de que es un vampiro es que es realmente otra especie, la parte científica ha esta bien pero que se sometiera por propia voluntad a ello...?? de verdad??
Al final parece que el tema mas recurrente es la soledad en la inmortalidad y la búsqueda de compañía a través de los distintos compañeros.
El final tampoco me ha gustado, muy soso, pero entendible por el tema de la soledad.
y enfrentamiento de inmortalidad vs amor verdadero.
Valoración: 5/10
Sinopsis: La juventud eterna es algo maravilloso para los pocos que disfrutan de ella. Sin embargo, para Miriam Blaylock es una maldición, una existencia arruinada por la muerte y el pesar, porque todos aquellos a quienes ama se marchitan y mueren. Ahora, atormentada por las señales de la inminente muerte de su adorable esposo, inicia la búsqueda de un nuevo compañero, alguien capaz de saciar su sed de amor y de resistir el paso del tiempo.

Ella es la hermosa Sarah Roberts, una científica brillante que podría conocer el secreto de la inmortalidad. Pero algo se interpone entre la embriagadora Miriam Blaylock y el objeto de su deseo: el doctor Tom Harver, un hombre que está a punto de descubrir que el amor y la muerte van de la mano.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The woman must literally be reliving her life," Tom said. "It must be a thousand times more vivid than a normal dream."
"I hope it's been a nice life."
"It hasn't," Sarah said. She knew that it was true."

I have never read a book that so concisely illustrated that we, human or vampire, are all monsters. It was a vivid and brutal exploration of the hungers, of the love and hate, that drive us.

Miriam and Sarah, vampire and human, each see the other as a predator, each see their own motivations as noble. Because even monsters have high opinions of themselves.

There were flashbacks of Miriam's past filled with such grief, brutality, and fear that I was torn between tears and vomiting. I had to stop reading for days.

While this is a must read Classic of the Vampire Genre part of me regrets reading it. Sometimes I think it would be glorious to be immortal... but not after reading this. It's going to take weeks for the images of this story to comfortably fade in my mind.


"I love you," she said softly, remembering each person who rested here, each lost friend.

[Rocio Voncina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Titulo: El ansia
Autor: Whitley Strieber
Motivo de lectura: Letras Macabras (Isla Macabra 2023)
Lectura / Relectura: Lectura
Mi edicion: Electronico
Puntuacion: 2/5

Para ser totalmente sincera fue una lectura que sufri pagina tras pagina.

Ningun personaje me genero interes, y creo que esto radica en que la construccion y desarrollo de todos los personajes carece de cualidades que los hagan atractivos de alguna manera. Siendo este un libro sobre vampiros la presencia de estos no es satisfactoria, son personajes light, donde los rasgos tradicionales brillan por su ausencia.
Pocas veces he visto tanta falta de quimica entre las parejas que protagonizan una historia.

Durante la trama uno de los personajes recuerda su vida a traves de flashbacks, pero considero que no esta bien ejecutado, por momentos los flashbacks son a traves de sueños, por momentos son capitulos enteros, esta combinacion de tecnicas hace que la trama sufra saltos, por ende durante muchas partes de la trama la historia no fluye como deberia y esto genera como especie de "salto" que traba la lectura.
Una de las cosas que mas me molesto es que durante la trama no se llega a justificar porque se cometen ciertos actos, dando la impresion que casi todo lo que ocurre no valio la pena. No hay una verdadera motivacion logica por la cual una de las protagonistas hace todo lo que hace.
A esto debo sumarle que durante la historia se deja entrever que una adulta tiene un interes por una menor de edad y que ademas esta misma protagonista en una parte de la trama manosea a una mujer mientras esta duerme no me interesa cual pueda ser la motivacion para ambos actos, para mi esto es un enorme no, y jamas podria normalizar esta clase de comportamiento.

Faltaria agregar que quedan varios cabos sueltos, cosas sin resolver que me hace pensar cual fue la motivacion del autor para presentar estos puntos durante la historia.
Califico este libro con 2 estrellas porque estoy de muy buen humor, porque incluso he llegado a pensar que la calificacion deberia ser menor.

Hay personas que coleccionan postales, y despues esta Miriam que colecciona gente sin sentido alguno.

[Kenneth McKinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whitley Strieber was always one of those authors that I'd heard of from the 1980s, had a handful of his paperbacks sitting on my shelf, but never pulled the trigger on. Maybe it was because he was kind of looked upon as a flake later on after he came out that he was abducted by aliens. Ever since, he's wrote almost exclusively on alien abduction. It's really too bad, because the other day I was looking for something different to read and my eyes kept coming back to THE HUNGER. After burning through it, I'm sad that I haven't read more of his work and I'm really sad that he's not in the upper echelon of horror. If THE HUNGER is any indication of his writing ability, he has the chops. Also, seeing that this was written in 1981, he was ahead of his time for bringing bloodsuckers into present day and altering them to a more believable folklore.

Miriam Blaylock has been through a few lovers. It would make sense seeing that she's been around since before Christ was wearing diapers or whatever babies wore back then. Miriam turns her partners into what she is, a vampire. But not the Count Dracula kind of vampire. No, she can walk around in the sunlight with only minimal discomfort. She doesn't sleep in a coffin. She casts a reflection in a mirror. Unfortunately, what she can't have is a partner that lives as long as she does. While she lives forever, her partners that she's turned through the ages live to be 150-200 years and then mysteriously lose their power to rejuvenate through their feedings. It's like a switch is suddenly turned on and their Hunger comes more and more frequently until they have to feed all the time just to stay alive. Beside herself, Miriam learns of Sarah, a sleep researcher who stumbles upon the mechanism of immortality in lab monkeys, and takes a keen interest in her work. Will she finally be able to use Sarah to put a stop to her loneliness once and for all or will her immortality always be a curse?

THE HUNGER hits on many great points that I've never seen before in vampire lore. Strieber does this by slowly unveiling Miriam's existance through the years in a series of flashbacks. In doing so, he creates a mythos that I can really buy into. I love how he explains certain vampire folklore through the years with a much more believable explanation, i.e. Why they need blood, how it helps them regenerate, etc. THE HUNGER is impressive and it stands more than equal next to my copies of SALEM'S LOT, THEY THIRST, and NECROSCOPE.

4.5 Blood-Thirsty Chromosomes out of 5


You can also follow my reviews at the following links:

https://intothemacabre.com

http://intothemacabre.booklikes.com

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5...

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Más lograda como novela que desde la perspectiva de género.-

Género. Ciencia ficción (sí, de verdad, por el enfoque del asunto de fondo; aunque todos sepamos que, en realidad, es narrativa fantástica).

Lo que nos cuenta. Miriam y John se alimentan de la sangre de sus víctimas. Ella tiene más de tres mil años de edad y John apenas la acompaña desde hace un par de siglos, pero Miriam le ama; tanto como a todas las otras parejas que ha tenido a lo largo del tiempo, ya que aunque su sangre les da cierta longevidad no consigue ofrecer su aparente inmunidad al paso del tiempo. John comienza a tener, primero, alteraciones de sueño, y después comienza a envejecer con rapidez. La investigación de un grupo de científicos sobre trastornos de sueño llama la atención de Miriam.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is similar to the film, with a few changes. The book tells alot more of Miriam's backstory, and goes into vampire physiology in more detail. I thought the middle of the story got bogged down, and could have been better with some editing. An OK read.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read this back in the day before Strieber started with his 'non-fiction' alien abduction novels. What was it about the 80s that spawned so many vampire novels, with many authors attempting to reinvigorate/reinvent the vampire trope? The Hunger, Strieber's contribution to this, joined with the choir in putting a new spin on Vampire lore, wrapping it (rather ham-handedly) with Lamia legend.

Miriam, our antagonist, has lived for 1000s of years; indeed, she has memories of sating her hunger around the Nile in a fledgling Egypt! Lamia (vampires, although Strieber never uses the term) need to feed once a week or so, reducing their victims to hollow husks. After a 'feed', they need to Sleep for 6 hours. Forget all the typical vampire lore-- sunlight, garlic, crosses, etc.-- lamia can pass a normal humans (except they never eat food). Miriam gets lonely, however. She has the 'power' to transform humans via a blood transfusion, but they do not become lamia per se; they can live a long time, but eventually they age and break down. When that happens, Miriam picks a new companion-- she alternates between women and men. Miriam's current partner, one she picked up a few hundred years ago in England, at the start of the novel shows the classic symptoms of breakdown; she knows he will not last long, so she has been looking for a new 'partner', a women this time.

Our protagonist, Sarah, works as a medical researcher investigating the causes of aging. This part of the tale did not age well at all, IMHO. Somehow, by sleeping deeply, (Strieber has all kinds of pseudo science language here to depict it), people can halt the aging process. She has been experimenting with monkeys for years. Miriam sets her sights on Sarah-- maybe she can figure out via modern science why her partners eventually breakdown! Sometimes they last 1000 years, sometimes just a few hundred. So, Miriam connives a way to meet Sarah, hoping her lamia wiles will induce her to joining her as a partner...

Suspenseful at times, I found it harder to suspend my sense of disbelieve as the story progressed. Why did not Miriam do more to keep her current partner in check when she knew he was failing? Hell, she has an attic full of former partners so she knows the pattern! These 'people' do not die, but age dreadfully and can no longer feed, becoming husks. Instead, she lets him run amok. Second, would someone so wily as ancient Sarah, who Strieber presents as obsessed with her personal safety (lamia can die just like a human after all), put herself at such risk to snare Sarah? I mean, come on! Finally, Sarah's partner Dr. Tom Haver was such an asshole I wanted him to die slowly. Jeez. 3 hungry stars!!

[Jesus Flores · Rating 2 out of 5]

Creo que tiene algunas ideas interesantes, y todos los sueños-flashbacks de Miriam a su vida en el pasado fueron muy interesantes. Pero lo de John resulto bastante meh, y la relacino de Tom Sarah me daba una flojera, Lo de la investigacion de Sarah parecia importante, pero creo que apresuran demasiado ciertos eventos y le quitan lo interesante.

SPOILER

SPOILERS

Me gusto eso de la relacion del sueño con la recuperacion vampirirca, y el problema de los convertidos con el ansia. Me gusto el final de Sarah, eso medio lo redime

2.5 star

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Hunger is a pretty good vampire novel from 1981. It's Strieber's second novel (the first, The Hunger, was a pretty good werewolf novel) and was adapted to an aggressively Goth film in 1983 starring Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie. It's got some interesting twists on the vampire (a word not used in the novel) concept, but that gets a little lost in the graphic sex and violence of many of the scenes.

[Will Errickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE HUNGER is a gripping, exciting, illuminating read. Strieber strikes out on a successful path through the psychological intricacies and intimacies that grow between predator and prey, the seduced and the seducer. There is real darkness here, human darkness and human pain, loss and despair. But also there is the pain of being inhuman, of being, by one's very nature, condemned to exist with a restless intelligence, an insurmountable will to survive, an utterly endless appetite. A mainstream, bestselling thriller with plenty of audience-pleasing sex and violence, the novel is also richly veined with concerns about love, relationships, aging and the waning of desire. One of the great vampire novels that never even needs to use the word. Highly recommended!

[Niki · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 stars.

I really wanted to like this book. There were parts that were brilliant (Miriam's memories, the vampire lore, their hunger, basically everything that had to do with the vampires), but yet I kept feeling like something was missing. Even though I was thinking "Oh boy, this is really cool" while reading particular scenes, I didn't actually enjoy the book much, but I can't put my finger on why.

Maybe I just didn't like the human characters and didn't care for them? That's probably it. I was definitely very tired of hearing about how ~brilliant~ Sarah is all the freaking time. Her and Tom humping every chance they got grew tiring too, I guess that Whitley Strieber was going for an "erotic horror" feel. I don't think he succeeded.

I'll say one thing, though: the book was better than its movie adaptation, that bored me to (un)death. But still neither was very enjoyable, not for me at least.

[TheVampireBookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book follows two characters who eventually meet. One of them is a vampire weary of life on her own and who is always searching for a companion (it seems whoever she turns has an expiraton date) and one of them is a scientist trying to cure sleep problems and accidentally brushing upon expanding lifespan by altering sleep.
The two views are very interesting because while following the vampire's plot line, one can feel empathy knowing what she's been through and her actions are absolutely justified. However, seeing it from her "companion's" (=victim's) point of view, she looks like a selfish monster who shouldn't exist.
That being said, I liked this idea of good/bad not being clear but I didn't really enjoy the way it was put together. The book somehow flowed slowly and steadily and the plot twists weren't big enough to thrill or excite.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this, it was a solid vampire novel. The main character, Miriam, is monstrous at times but I loved her wickedness. She takes on human lovers for companionship gives them her blood so they live extended lives but eventually her lovers age and wither away. John, her current lover, begins to age and Miriam panics & seeks out a way to stop his aging. Sarah a scientist researching immortality is targeted by Miriam. Miriam feels Sarah might hold the key to keeping John young. But as John becomes more unpredictable consumed by his hunger, Miriam begins to look to Sarah not as a way to cure John but as a replacement for John.

For Vampire/horror lovers this one is worth checking out.

[Malice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creo que mi gusto por este libro está bastante sesgado por la película, así que no lo tomen muy en serio.
Me pareció un libro entretenido y pude conocer mucho más de la historia de Miriam y John, y cómo se relacionan entre sí, así que solo por eso le puse tres estrellas.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Before reading this, I never imagined it was possible to hate every single important speaking character in a story, but here we are at The Hunger. I hated weird Miriam and the way she keeps her lovers alive, folded knees to chest in boxes, traveling the world for centuries with a woman who won't let them out or let them die. I hated stupid Sarah, and her stupid psycho idea that death was a curable disease, not a natural part of life. And I really hated Sarah's manipulative boyfriend who inwardly celebrated Sarah's apparent failure at the beginning of the story.

These three people creeped me out to no end, and I couldn't figure out what it was the author wanted us to feel, exactly. I didn't get a real impression of what kind of people he wanted his characters to be, besides nasty. Tom loves being bigger and taller than Sarah, he loves her being subordinate to him, and having control over her body, and says he loves her as an act of aggression instead of a showing of genuine affection. Sarah is all over the place. She's Tom's little girlfriend, all sweet and caring but then carelessly calls him names and inwardly has no positive feelings at all toward him, doesn't trust him, and almost never says she loves him back.

Miriam's personality is all types of otherworldly weirdness I don't have the patience to get into. On the other hand, Miriam was the only character who was well-formed. The humans were too many things all at once and not very memorable other than the fact that I hated them.

The best part of the book, in my opinion, was the reimagining of vampires as a completely separate species, not descended from humans, but able to give humans vampire characteristics for a time.

[Latasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read this before, a long time ago. I remembered that I liked it and I thought I remembered how it ended but I guess not! I don't think I've ever read a vampire book where the author has so successfully shown us that vampires are not humans. Miriam is not human in the least. Whitley Strieber does a beautiful job with this. I love the flash backs! that's almost always my favorite part of any vampire book. I'm glad I took the time to reread this.

[Valeria Cardoso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Para mí, este libro nunca termina de despegar. La idea me pareció buena, aunque creo que sólo se queda en eso. Los personajes no me gustaron, son sosos y sin profundidad, a pesar de que había muchísimo para explotar sus motivaciones. Lo único rescatable, a mi punto de vista, fueron los recuerdos de Miriam.
Esperaba mucho más.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a vampire's 300 year old lover seems to be dying, she needs to find a new husband that won't fade away. A scientist appears to have just the solution.

I liked the movie better.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s no way around it: I did not enjoy reading this book. To be fair to the author, however, I must admit that I came to it out of long-standing fandom for the movie, starring Catherine Denueve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie. I’m sure that Strieber HATES that movie for what it did to his book. My experience was the opposite, however: for me the book failed in every way to live up to the movie. Which is totally unfair, because the book obviously came first, and can’t be held accountable for my expectations. But, there it is.

So, what’s wrong with the book? Although it’s impossible, I’ll try to forget the movie and talk about why I probably never would have read this book at all had it existed without a filmed version. First, it’s a vampire novel that came out after “Interview with the Vampire” which neither builds on Rice nor transcends her. Strieber seems to be interested mostly in building a scientifically plausible explanation for a non-human species whose need for blood is tied in with their extreme longevity and vulnerability during periods of torpor. I suspect this idea came to him after reading an article in “Scientific American” or some similar source about the possible effects of sleep on aging. He does seem to have done a lot of research on blood and sleep science. In the end, though, it doesn’t manage to be very convincing, nor would it be all that interesting even if it were.

Secondly, there isn’t an appealing character in the bunch. Strieber’s characters are self-interested to the point of sociopathy. For the vampires, this makes some sense: They have to kill people in order to survive, so naturally their empathy for other living sentient creatures is going to be switched off, or else they’d starve to death. Fair enough, even if it doesn’t confirm a romantic Gothic take on the tragedy and beauty of the concept. But, his doctor characters are, if anything, even worse. Although I don’t think the term existed yet in 1981, they are classic yuppies of the “Me Generation,” who, to borrow words from Robert Anton Wilson, “use each other for crying towels and masturbation machines.” Each of them is clearly incapable of real feelings for the other, and yet at the end Strieber tries to transform their “love” into some kind of heroic salvation! I don’t know what it says about his relationships up to this point, but it certainly didn’t work for this reader.

One final point, which I’ll admit is nit-picking. For some reason the legal team of a clinic is willing to assume that a patient has no legal rights that will hold up in court, simply on the basis of a blood test claiming that the patient is “not human,” despite the fact that said patient looks human, speaks, owns property and has the basis of a legal identity in the United States (she also happens to look white and be rich). This is beyond unbelievable. I assume Strieber had never even met a lawyer when he wrote this.

So, if you haven’t seen the movie, go ahead and disregard most of this review, and give it a shot. If sociopathic vampires are your thing, go for it.

[Hungry Bug · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 ⭐️
Вибираю іспанську версію через кіно обкладинку, бо фільм мені сподобався більше)) і вина цьому не тільки прекрасні актори (David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon 🥵), а добре передана втома самотності)) Книга же трохи єбліт, що несерйозно насправді 🤓 не хочу тошнити, але в мої часи вампірів боялись і поважали 🤣🤣🤣

[Thiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was first drawn to this book because of the 1983 homonymous film starred by Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. The film is considered by some an 80’s whimsical experiment and it is definitely not a commonplace vampire story. Although I did not quite like the movie the first time I saw it, some disquieting elements of its plot convinced me that the book could be a very interesting read.

Fortunately, I did not get disappointed: indeed, I found the book even better than the movie.

It tries to reconcile the popular myth with modern science, and the vampires are depicted in a very believable manner. The word "vampire" itself is not mentioned anywhere in the whole book, what may be an attempt to avoid the expectation of a more traditional version of the myth.

Strieber’s vampires are not supernatural creatures but another species that evolved in parallel to humankind. They do not burst in flames when exposed to sunlight, do not fear holy places or symbols and do not have fangs, although they still need blood to survive.

The author’s approach delves deep into the human dimension of the apparently inhuman and explores different levels of vampirism inherent to everyday relationships. Each lover somehow seems to feed upon the other’s love.

There are some interesting romantic triangles in this novel and Strieber deftly portrays love as being finite and selfish. The way Miriam’s lovers wither but are not really capable of dying, being kept in chests, works as a great metaphor. In the end, the object of love is not important, but the love projected onto it.

Although there are some inconsistencies in the way some characters behave by the end of the book, it is a very good novel and I would recommend it.

[Mei · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting take on vampires. Uses a lot more science and a lot less superstition than your average vampire book, and creates some very compelling characters. All around I really enjoyed this. I'd consider reading the other books as I liked it so much, but it really doesn't feel like it needed to be expanded upon at all.

Fun note: I actually watched the movie before reading the book. It's also very enjoyable (but very different)... the book is better, but the movie has David Bowie in it, so I'll call them even. :)

[Eli Bishop · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a frustrating mix of good ideas, interesting details, cardboard characters and horrible prose.

It deserves credit for what was at the time a fairly fresh take on vampire fiction. It's heavily influenced by Interview with the Vampire, in that the vampires have a secret society with roots in ancient Egypt, they aren't dead but instead hyper-alive, and they can pass on their powers by giving you some of their blood; but where Rice (until later books) doesn't really try to explain any of this, Strieber puts a science-fiction spin on it and puts the vampires up against a human who might actually figure out what makes them tick.

Unfortunately, that's also the biggest problem with the book. The middle third or so is almost entirely devoted to a research project, with pages and pages of technobabble and academic politics. If I had read this in the early '80s as a young fan of horror and technothriller paperbacks, I might have enjoyed this combination of the two genres for its surface shininess; Strieber does know how to get some pulp energy out of beats like "This blood isn't human!", "These brainwaves have extra high voltage!", etc. (He also deploys all the standard pseudoscience truisms, e.g. quantum theory proves that synchronicity is real, and you don't use most of your brain.) But ultimately none of this stuff matters—the scientists don't actually discover anything that will either help or hurt the vampire. And it makes the vampire look incredibly stupid, since her decision to let them study her makes no sense at all for someone who's spent 3500 years trying to avoid human attention.

But the rest of the book is about other things. There's an extensive backstory for our lead vampire Miriam, in various places and eras, trying to survive various threats while she keeps losing her chosen human companions—the people she vampirizes, unlike her, aren't really immortal. This is pretty interesting, probably involved a lot of research, and is also extremely gory. It doesn't give any particular depth to Miriam as a character, though; all we really know about her is that she would like to have a longer-term relationship, and that like all vampires, she's obsessively concerned with security (they're so determined to live forever that, in the present day, they'll only drive cars with the highest safety ratings).

The present-day storyline is about Miriam's life with John, her current ex-human consort; John's discovery that his lifespan is about to run out; and the head of that research project, Sarah, who catches Miriam's eye first because she might be able to cure John, and then because she might replace him. It's a good idea for a triangle (which became pretty much the entire focus of the movie adaptation) but there are a couple of problems here too. First, John's and Sarah's stories never intersect in any way; Strieber is so determined to keep them apart that it becomes unintentionally funny how close they can get without meeting. Second, John has basically no identity outside of his life with Miriam, while Sarah, until very late in the book, doesn't even get her own point-of-view narration—she's described either by Miriam, or by her dim boyfriend Tom who thinks things like "Sarah's miracle was the purity of her womanhood." Sarah also has virtually no agency: once Miriam decides to woo her, there's pretty much nothing a mere human can do (and unlike the movie, this is portrayed as not in any way consensual; Sarah is 200% straight, and Miriam even molests her in her sleep). So, rather than three people pursuing various goals, we basically have one person who has a chance and two who have no chance.

This is interspersed with lots of murders. Strieber clearly put some thought into how a vampire would resemble an organized serial killer, but apart from the verbose details of how they picked the lock on a house or whatever, these all kind of blur together into a lot of "Yes, we must kill people, because that's our way, and also they taste really good." There's one of these that should be particularly upsetting for several reasons (this was in the movie), but it's forgotten about very quickly. There are also some extremely clunky sex scenes; I'm going to generously imagine that the awkwardness of these was intentional, as the book often seems to take Miriam's point of view that human relationships are stupid.

It ends in a way that makes the rest of the book almost entirely irrelevant, and leaves things open for a sequel, which he apparently wrote a couple of.

[Gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the movie didn't hold my interest as much as I thought it would, this book kept me up reading way past my bedtime like few other books have recently.

The vampire mythology presented in this book is the main reason for my love of it. Not incredibly erotic (despite its claims), but definitely interesting in the same vein as I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. In both books, they try to scientifically describe the vampire (in The Hunger, Miriam - our only true vampire - is never actually called a vampire ... which adds that much more to the mythos of her) and in this one the science is just as much to blame for the catastrophes that befall the characters as Miriam herself. This alone inspired my own version of the vampire mythology, something I hope to weave into a novel (or two).

In any case, any horror fan and especially any vampire fan, needs to read this book.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true page turner. Well-written and smart. A wholly original vampire novel.

[LO Loverun (A. Lavas Lead) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating my experience with the book: 2.5 out of 5

Mild spoilers follow.

I recently finished rereading The Hunger by Whitley Strieber, a book I first encountered in high school, probably around 1987. Back then, I was aware (via the film adaptation) that the story had a fair amount of sexual content. Rereading confirmed that memory, though “a fair amount” is relative. These moments stand out stylistically and feel intentional, though I remain unsure of their purpose beyond titillation. The sex scenes are written in a style I think would qualify as erotic, and they seem designed to arouse the reader. In the context of the larger story, they raise more questions than they answer, particularly about the nature of pleasure for an immortal being, and how such pleasure might be sustained over centuries.

At its core, The Hunger is an examination of the “superiority” of Miriam Blaylock, a being who enjoys an inhumanly long life at the cost of murdering innocents. Miriam is lonely, and every few hundred years she curates a new companion, transforming them into long-lived creatures who must kill weekly to stave off their own Hunger. What she does not tell them is that they are not truly immortal. After a few centuries, they age rapidly into a state of total physical ruin, unable to die. Miriam then seals them in metal coffins to endure eternity in darkness—adding insult to horror by continuing to profess her love.

Miriam is, by any reasonable measure, profoundly evil. One can argue that predator–prey relationships in nature are not “evil,” and that evil itself is a construct of human society. I don’t disagree with that in principle. But human society is where we live, and where moral responsibility operates. Diluting evil in our art by reframing it as biology, inevitability, or superiority risks diluting it. We can have endless conversations about psychology, sociology, and evolution, but if the development of human consciousness is good for anything (still an open question), it is the ability to recognize evil and choose not to commit it.

While I appreciate complex, multidimensional villains, I’ve outgrown the edginess that diffuses evil with justification. I can respect an author’s commitment to rendering a character so fully that she appears sympathetic—after all, we are all the hero of our own story—but here this is a razor-thin line. The Hunger hovers uneasily between “Miriam is evil but does not see herself that way” and “Miriam is sympathetic and anyone in her position would do the same.” If the latter is the takeaway that is what resonates the most widely, then perhaps humanity is due for a climax in the manner of The Cabin in the Woods.

Curmudgeonly yours, LO.

[Kristi Hovington · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw the film of this sometime in the late 80’s/early 90s; I was fascinated with David Bowie and went from Labyrinth to The Hunger; obviously some striking differences between the two films for a then pre-teen. But I remember liking the film, so when I saw this book for $1 at a second hand shop the other week, I thought, why not?

This book is interesting in terms of vampire lore; the main character is portrayed sympathetically and with care, even though society sees her as a monster. The author takes pains to show that humans are capable of equal, or more, monstrosity as vampires, and I enjoyed that juxtaposition à la FrankensteinIn. In terms of where this fits in vampire canon, there are new breeds of lesser vampires, genetic mutations, etc. The writing, though, leaves something to be desired. This is a rare instance of the film being better than the book, though I really do appreciate the author’s portrayal of Miriam.