Best Predator Books: All 15 Predator Novels Ranked

Predator: If It Bleeds

A great Predator anthology with stories from different time periods. The historical hunts and the hunter point-of-view chapters are why it sits at the top of this list.

The Complete Predator Omnibus

The three Bantam comic novelizations in one volume: Concrete Jungle, Cold War, and Big Game. Concrete Jungle is the famous New York hunt, Cold War is the weak one of the trio, and this is still the easiest way to get those 1990s books.

Predator: Forever Midnight is John Shirley's 2006 DH Press novel and the worst Predator book. It follows commander Randall Ness on the colony Midnight, where Shesh-Kuk's Hish-Qu-Ten are hunting. Those hunters skip the honor code and go after women and children, and Shirley added a hormone-shift idea that later books dropped. The book also tried to reinvent Yautja culture and fully ignored what was already established. There is a long crash and jungle trek before the colony fight, plus extra local species that clutter the story. The plot is messy and the hunters are hard to take seriously. The Hish name only really comes back in Flesh and Blood.

The Predator is Christopher Golden and Mark Morris's 2018 Titan novelization of the 2018 film. The movie was bad and the book did not improve it. Fox recut the third act and Morris had to rush a rewrite, so it reads like a hurried tie-in. The book keeps introducing a new point-of-view character, then either kills them off or ignores them later. Quinn McKenna and a group of army misfits called the Loonies hunt the Fugitive Predator, then the Upgrade. It follows the recut ending and is not as weird or interesting as Monette's shapeshifter book. Hunters and Hunted from the same year is the better 2018 book.

Predator: Cold War is Nathan Archer's 1997 Bantam sequel to Concrete Jungle, based on the Dark Horse comic with the same name. Detective Schaefer and lieutenant Ligacheva go to the Arctic after a hunter ship crashes, six months after the New York hunt. It is a comic novelization like Concrete Jungle and Big Game, and it is the forgettable one of that trio. There is some political wrangling over the wreck, and Schaefer still does not learn much about his brother. The setting is fine, but nothing in the hunt really sticks. It also feels dated, like the Cold War itself.

Predator: Stalking Shadows is James A. Moore and Mark Morris's 2020 Titan prequel to Predator: Hunting Grounds. Scott Devlin is a bland lead, a Marine pulled into the 1997 clean-up in Los Angeles after the City Hunter hunt. The story jumps from there through Scotland, Venezuela, and later years, and it loses focus. Dutch Schaefer shows up, but the book keeps changing decades before any hunt lands. It is weaker than Moore's Hunters and Hunted, which stayed with one squad and the Florida Hunter.

Simon Hawke's 1990 Jove Predator 2 novelization is pretty good. It stays closer to the 1990 film than Monette's shapeshifter take, and it adds some interesting point-of-view material. The City Hunter studies the Val Verde recordings, Harrigan works the heat-wave streets, and Peter Keyes sits with Dutch after the jungle hunt. Hawke spends more time in the hunter's helmet than the movie does. It is not as weird or as interesting as the 1987 book, but it is the better of the two early film novels.

Predator: Eyes of the Demon is Bryan Thomas Schmidt's 2022 Titan anthology. It is a good collection, with fifteen stories, more hunter POV, and several female Predators. Dutch shows up again in Aftermath, still locked down after Val Verde, then hunting in Pisgah National Forest while Peter Keyes and the OWLF try to bring him in. Jonathan Maberry's The Fix Is In continues Hogarth Fix after Gameworld in If It Bleeds, and Tim Lebbon's The Titans puts Colonial Marines in the same far-future Spaceborne setting as Incursion. Field Trip is the live-birth story with Donatiki at a Hastings reenactment. Cannon Fodder is the last-chance hunt with La'vindi on Fourth-Salturna Exodus. Little Miss Nightmare is the Rome hunt with R'Kyn and bomber Tracey Dahl. The historical hunts in If It Bleeds were much better. This one is more uneven, especially in the far-future pieces.

The Predator novelization released in 1987 was the first Predator book ever and has to be mentioned in the list. The book was written by a poet, Paul Monette, who brings his style of having extensive nature descriptions in chapters. The novelization was based on an earlier draft of the script, which had a very different Predator. He was more like a chameleon, able to shape his form into an animal. The Predator acted less like a hunter, and more like a scientist, being interested in the physiology of the humans (he wanted to dissect them). He only had one weapon - the spear, but it had different functionalities. The finale of the book happens at the site of the Predator ship, with Dutch using the spear to kill both the Predator and blow up his ship. There are some weird racial undertones in the book, with Dillon being shown in a much worse light. Simon Hawke's Predator 2 novelization is quite good also, but not as weird and interesting as this one.

Predator: Incursion is the first part of the Rage War trilogy, which also includes Alien: Invasion and Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon. Titan sold it as a Predator book, but there are not many hunters in it. They show up more in the later parts of the series. The novel is set hundreds of years later than any other Alien or Predator book, in the 27th century. Attacks by Predator ships in the human sector of space triggered a response by Colonial Marines. Lieutenant Johnny Mains and the VoidLarks are forced to land on a Predator habitat space station, quite unlike anything seen before. The story is more complicated than that setup, and it takes some cues from the Mass Effect series.

Predator: Flesh and Blood is one of the few Predator novels set in the future. It explores a feud between two branches of a criminal family at the same time as two clans of Predators try to work together to hunt them. The parallels are quite obvious and it does not end well for any of these groups. The main character is Andar Ciejek, the son of a crime boss whose death brings the families together. He tried to leave his life of crime behind him and is quite a sympathetic character. The book features a lot from the main Predator's (Bet-Karh's) perspective, quite possibly the most of any Predator novel. The hunters call themselves Hish, after the name used in the previous Predator: Forever Midnight book, without the hormone-shift package.

The problem with the original trilogy of Predator novels (Concrete Jungle, Cold War, Big Game) is that they don't expand on the Predator culture and lore, and don't feature anything from their POV. They are all based on Dark Horse comics with the same names. While the novels expand on the characters more, we are missing out on the great artwork. Predator: Big Game explores more on the Predator-Indian connection hinted in the original Predator movie. We follow Corporal Enoch Nakai's adventures in the deserts of the American Southwest and his run-in with a single insane Predator. Nakai turns up later in the Predator: Hunters comic series.

The Predator: Hunters and Hunted novel is the best thing that came out of The Predator movie (apart from the Fugitive Predator). The 2018 film novelization sits near the bottom of this list. This prequel is one of the better Predator novels. It tells a simple story of a squad of soldiers (called the Reapers) out to hunt the Predator before the events of the movie. They are only hunting a single Predator and they have several skirmishes with him. The book expands on the background of Project Stargazer and the characters of Traeger and General Woodhurst (who was cut from the movie). Probably the best character in the book is Pappy Elliott, the CIA trainer of the Reapers and a Vietnam War veteran, who had a run-in with a Predator in the jungle. The event still haunts him and he wants revenge. The final fight of the book happens at a carnival during a tropical storm and really memorable. If only the movie could have been more like the book. Moore later wrote Predator: Stalking Shadows with Mark Morris as Titan's Hunting Grounds prequel.

Predator: Concrete Jungle is one of the most famous Expanded Universe stories and is based on the comic with the same name (but is unrelated to the video game). It follows the brother of Dutch Schaefer who is just named Schaefer (why not give him the first name in the novel?). Schaefer is a police officer in New York City and encounters an aggressive group of Predators hunting in the city during a heat wave. The attack might be related to his brother Dutch but might be a coincidence just the same. Schaefer is quite a bland character, but his partner brings life and humanity to the story. Schaefer's main motivation seemed to be to find out what happened to his brother, but we don't learn much. The Predator 2 movie was probably heavily influenced by this story. The book and comic have a sequel titled Cold War set in the Arctic.

While Predator: South China Sea is on top of many fans' best Predator books list, it is not at the top of this one. It is a very good book but perhaps suffers from being a bit overlong (there's a lot of fat on the bones) and having a lot of criminal characters. When most characters are murderers, thieves and assassins, it's a bit harder to like them. There's also some unusual elements about the South China Sea Predator using an electric surfboard to travel to swamps and a human changing into the Swamp Thing after being infected by the Predator's wristblades. The characters are quite colorful, the action was well written and the Predator was one of the most vicious and very experienced. Used copies are hard to find. Titan should re-release this in an omnibus. Jeff VanderMeer later found a lot of success with the Southern Reach trilogy, with the Annihilation novel being released as a highly praised movie.

If Predator: South China Sea ramped things up with a lot of characters and action, then Predator: Turnabout took another route. Having an aging sniper and a school teacher trekking in the Alaskan wilderness was quite unique for a Predator story. This is the only book that would work well even without the Predators, as it featured poachers as villains already. The main villain is a well-fleshed-out character himself, with his motivations and backstory made clear. The downside is that there is nothing from the Predator's POV and they are rarely present in the story. The novel took some cues from the Grizzly Man documentary, as the brother of Mary lived together with bears and was finally eaten by them.

If It Bleeds is probably the best Predator book ever. It is a collection of short stories from different authors that expands the Predator timeline in different time periods. There is something for everyone. We get to know what happens to Harrigan after Predator 2. There is a story about Predators vs. Vikings. Rematch sends Vagouti and Nakande after Sloane, a sequel to Predator: Turnabout. Many of the stories feature chapters from the Predator's POV, which is great. There's even a prequel to the Rage War trilogy. While Aliens: Bug Hunt took a similar route with a collection of short stories, it just failed with most of the stories being bad. Titan later published Eyes of the Demon as a second anthology.