APRIL 2019 - AudioFile
Corey Snow narrates this true story of an angry tiger on a murderous rampage in the Himalayan foothills. He does so with vigor and excitement, bringing across to listeners the panic of villagers in this region during the early twentieth century. Snow infuses the story, based on actual events, with empathy for the wounded Champawat tiger, as she came to be known. He alternates between a warm tone when describing the tiger's dilemma at continued human encroachment on her habitat and an academic one for the details of British colonial history that provide rich historical context. Snow captures the drama of the tracking and hunting by both the tigress and the British young man tasked with stopping her. M.R. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
11/19/2018
Historian Huckelbridge (The United States of Beer) showcases his storytelling skills effectively in this suspenseful look at “the most prolific serial killer... the world has ever seen,” a Royal Bengal tiger that purportedly killed more than 400 people in Nepal and India in the early 20th century. The narrative’s dramatic impact is lessened by endemic speculation, including attributing thoughts to the animal itself. The facts require no such embellishment to hold the reader’s attention: a single tiger, prevented by a mouth wound from subsisting on its normal, more agile prey, began hunting people in 1900, kicking off a reign of terror throughout the Himalayan foothills that was ended in 1907 by Jim Corbett, a railway employee and noted hunter retained by the British government to kill the beast. Huckelbridge conducted much of his research using Corbett’s own book, and corroboration of many details is lacking; Huckelbridge even presents an epilogue that attempts to validate the Champawat Tiger’s body count. He is more convincing, and intriguing, in contending that the bloody episode resulted from the British Empire’s “irresponsible forestry tactics, agricultural policies, and hunting practices,” and was thus an avoidable disaster. Despite its flaws, this is a gripping page-turner that also conveys broader lessons about humanity’s relationship with nature. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Gripping. ... From 1900 to 1907, a female Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) killed hundreds of villagers in northern India and Nepal. This compelling account hinges on that grisly story, but digs deep into causation.” — Nature
“Thrilling. ... Fascinating. ... Exciting.” — Wall Street Journal
“A vivid portrait. ... No Beast So Fierce excels as an intelligent social history and a gripping tale of life and death in the Himalayan foothills.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Fascinating. … Multilayered. … A superb work of natural history.” — Booklist, starred review
“Riveting. ... A haunting tale.” — Scientific American
“[A] terrifying story. … [A] harrowing tale. … Takes readers on a fascinating journey through the natural history of a tiger.” — Science News
“Hucklebridge details the surprisingly methodical and incredibly blood machinations of ... perhaps the most murderous non-human animal in recorded history.” — Popular Science
“A great tale and study of man versus beast, or rather, beast versus man. The seminal battle between Jim Corbett and the Champawat Tiger stands as an epic encounter of the ages. Dane Huckelbridge’s No Beast So Fierce will make you rethink your position in God’s universe—and on the food chain.” — JIM DEFELICE, #1 bestselling coauthor of American Sniper and author of West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express
“A gripping page-turner that also conveys broader lessons about humanity’s relationship with nature.” — Publishers Weekly
“Absorbing. … Awesome. … Thrilling.” — SanFranciscoBookReview.com
“[A] gripping tale. … [A] mesmerizing man-beast encounter that Huckelbridge narrates quite brilliantly. … A fitting tribute to Jim Corbett and the Bengal tiger.” — Khaas Baat
“A suspenseful narrative. … Huckelbridge continues to demonstrate his versatility and skill as a writer with this book.” — Lincoln Journal-Star
Science News
[A] terrifying story. … [A] harrowing tale. … Takes readers on a fascinating journey through the natural history of a tiger.
SanFranciscoBookReview.com
Absorbing. … Awesome. … Thrilling.
Popular Science
Hucklebridge details the surprisingly methodical and incredibly blood machinations of ... perhaps the most murderous non-human animal in recorded history.
Nature Lib
Gripping. ... From 1900 to 1907, a female Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) killed hundreds of villagers in northern India and Nepal. This compelling account hinges on that grisly story, but digs deep into causation.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
A vivid portrait. ... No Beast So Fierce excels as an intelligent social history and a gripping tale of life and death in the Himalayan foothills.”
Scientific American
Riveting. ... A haunting tale.
Wall Street Journal
Thrilling. ... Fascinating. ... Exciting.
starred review Booklist
Fascinating. … Multilayered. … A superb work of natural history.
JIM DEFELICE
A great tale and study of man versus beast, or rather, beast versus man. The seminal battle between Jim Corbett and the Champawat Tiger stands as an epic encounter of the ages. Dane Huckelbridge’s No Beast So Fierce will make you rethink your position in God’s universe—and on the food chain.
Lincoln Journal-Star
A suspenseful narrative. … Huckelbridge continues to demonstrate his versatility and skill as a writer with this book.
Khaas Baat
[A] gripping tale. … [A] mesmerizing man-beast encounter that Huckelbridge narrates quite brilliantly. … A fitting tribute to Jim Corbett and the Bengal tiger.
Nature
Gripping. ... From 1900 to 1907, a female Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) killed hundreds of villagers in northern India and Nepal. This compelling account hinges on that grisly story, but digs deep into causation.
Wall Street Journal
Thrilling. ... Fascinating. ... Exciting.
starred review Booklist
Fascinating. … Multilayered. … A superb work of natural history.
Wall Street Journal
Thrilling. ... Fascinating. ... Exciting.
Nature
Gripping. ... From 1900 to 1907, a female Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) killed hundreds of villagers in northern India and Nepal. This compelling account hinges on that grisly story, but digs deep into causation.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
A vivid portrait. ... No Beast So Fierce excels as an intelligent social history and a gripping tale of life and death in the Himalayan foothills.”
MICHAEL WALLIS
I had a feeling this book would hook me from the get-go. I was right. No Beast So Fierce is much more than a cautionary tale of the Man-Eater of Champawat, a Royal Bengal tiger responsible for hundreds of deaths in Nepal and India, or, of Edward James Corbett, the legendary hunter who shot and killed the big cat in 1907. Dane Huckelbridge’s remarkable narrative also reveals the circumstances that cause tigers to stalk human prey as well as Corbett’s transformation into a conservationist and ardent champion for protecting the animals he once hunted.
Library Journal
Winter 2018
Hucklebridge (The United States of Beer; Bourbon: A History of the American Spirit) uses the century-old story of the hunt for a human-eating tiger in British India to explore the consequences of human encroachment on wild habitats. Central to the story is Edward James Corbett, the British railway worker who achieved fame by killing the "Man-Eater of Champawat" in 1907 and went on to extinguish a series of large cats in India in the first half of the 20th century. In the process, he learned of the plight of the Bengal tiger and became a conservationist. Corbett wrote books about his exploits, then used some of the profits to fund a tiger preserve in a national park in India. Hucklebridge notes that tigers had once been cautious around humans and that only when the forests were taken for agriculture and their natural prey disappeared did they begin to hunt humans out of desperation. The author details the fearful power of a tiger attack but closes by stating that it does not match the wanton killing humans have inflicted on such beasts. VERDICT For lovers of history, nature, and adventure stories.—Caren Nichter, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin
APRIL 2019 - AudioFile
Corey Snow narrates this true story of an angry tiger on a murderous rampage in the Himalayan foothills. He does so with vigor and excitement, bringing across to listeners the panic of villagers in this region during the early twentieth century. Snow infuses the story, based on actual events, with empathy for the wounded Champawat tiger, as she came to be known. He alternates between a warm tone when describing the tiger's dilemma at continued human encroachment on her habitat and an academic one for the details of British colonial history that provide rich historical context. Snow captures the drama of the tracking and hunting by both the tigress and the British young man tasked with stopping her. M.R. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-11-13
The tale of a killer tiger in the days of the Raj.
In November 2018, authorities reported the killing of a female tiger that had killed at least 13 villagers in the hill country of central India. The problem of killer tigers is growing there, reports continue, because critical habitat and suitable prey are scarce. So it was more than a century ago, when, writes Huckelbridge (The United States of Beer: A Freewheeling History of the All-American Drink, 2016, etc.), a tiger called the "Man-Eater of Champawat" killed a reported 436 people. And not just that; in the author's overwrought formulation, that tiger becomes "a serial killer that was not merely content to kidnap victims at night and dismember their bodies, but also insisted on eating their flesh." Well, yes; it's in the job description of a tiger that can't find a deer to bring down. Intriguingly but somewhat clumsily, Huckelbridge joins the tale of the tiger to the history of colonialism and its extractive economies, with deforestation and habitat destruction combining to make of the Champawat tiger "a man-made disaster." Surveying other such killer animals, among them a wolf or feral dog that killed 113 people in France and a Nile crocodile reputed to have killed 300, the author chases down the known facts of the tiger, which had roamed well outside its territory into the foothills of the Himalayas and was hunting the most readily available prey. Its end came at the hands of a game hunter named Jim Corbett, who tracked him down after a long search that turns purple at key moments: "And all at once Jim Corbett understands what's been done to this poor creature, a story written in malice and pain. But the number 436 leaves no room for pity, and twenty feet affords him no chance at escape." Such flourishes are unnecessary given the inherent drama of the story and the nice irony that Corbett would become a leading advocate of tiger conservation.
An overwritten narrative that will be of some interest to fans of apex predators.
