Rogue World

By Ryan Schutz

Three planets exactly the same size floated through space. They were alive. And they fed off the light of the stars. When they discovered a new star, they left their orbit for the energy of greater stars. Millennia passed, and new stars burst into existence. And the planets moved slowly toward the new stars like moths to a flame, sometimes taking decades or centuries to arrive.
Planets were knocked out of the orbits they held. These planets were not alive, but the inhabitants were. Many lives were lost as a result of this planetary movement, their populations scattered to the stars.
The strongest beings crafted a plan. They lured the planets out to the farthest arm of a galaxy. They made the illusion of a new star, brighter and stronger than any other in the galaxy. But the planets eventually came to realize they had been fooled, and war broke out.
The planets took the DNA of races they had encountered and combined them to breed an army. The planets combined their energy to send their consciousness, which created wormholes through space, sucking in creatures from other planets.
The war was never ending.
Eventually, there was a great cataclysm. Stars exploded, and black holes were formed. An entire arm of the galaxy collapsed.
The three planets were hurled into space. Their very cores froze. They ceased all consciousness. They wandered the darkest parts of the universe asleep. They traveled so far that they lapsed in and out of time.
They awoke orbiting a young star, hidden and surrounded by millions of dead planets. They had been carried into a dead galaxy with one surviving star. It was young and small, but it was strong. The planets slowly regained consciousness and realized that their surfaces had been colonized by another race from across the stars.
This race was strong and violent. They liked this race. They wanted to use them for revenge on the beings who tricked them. But these samples had flaws. They had sicknesses and diseases that made them unfit. The planets needed fresh samples.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496926241

Ryan Schutz

Ryan lives in Colorado with his wife, Charity; his son, Jesse; and his family. Ryan works three jobs and has little time to spare. When he does have leisure time, he enjoys cooking and writing and most especially spending time with his family.

Book preview

Prologue

Three planets exactly the same size floated through space. They were alive. And they fed off the light of the stars. When they discovered a new star, they left their orbit for the energy of greater stars. Millennia passed, and new stars burst into existence. And the planets moved slowly toward the new stars like moths to a flame, sometimes taking decades or centuries to arrive.

Planets were knocked out of the orbits they held. These planets were not alive, but the inhabitants were. Many lives were lost as a result of this planetary movement, their populations scattered to the stars.

The strongest beings crafted a plan. They lured the planets out to the farthest arm of a galaxy. They made the illusion of a new star, brighter and stronger than any other in the galaxy. But the planets eventually came to realize they had been fooled, and war broke out.

The planets took the DNA of races they had encountered and combined them to breed an army. The planets combined their energy to send their consciousness, which created wormholes through space, sucking in creatures from other planets.

The war was never ending.

Eventually, there was a great cataclysm. Stars exploded, and black holes were formed. An entire arm of the galaxy collapsed.

The three planets were hurled into space. Their very cores froze. They ceased all consciousness. They wandered the darkest parts of the universe asleep. They traveled so far that they lapsed in and out of time.

They awoke orbiting a young star, hidden and surrounded by millions of dead planets. They had been carried into a dead galaxy with one surviving star. It was young and small, but it was strong. The planets slowly regained consciousness and realized that their surfaces had been colonized by another race from across the stars.

This race was strong … and violent. They liked this race. They wanted to use them for revenge on the beings who tricked them. But these samples had flaws. They had sicknesses and diseases that made them unfit. The planets needed fresh samples.

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1

It was going to be a good day. I choose to have it be a good day, thought John Cook. Closing the door, he checked his pockets for his keys and wallet and then locked the door behind him. He didn’t really believe it, his thought about choosing to have a good day. He struggled with the concept. He really believed that the day would unfold as it always did, and he would deal with it as it came.

He was excited, though, because today he was going to go out and shoot his new rifle at the small range outside of town. He was just beginning his gun collection; this was his second rifle, and he also had a pistol. As he got to his car, he checked the trunk and made sure the firearms and other equipment were secure and slightly tucked away just in case someone decided to break into his car that day.

John had stayed up all night breaking down the weapons and cleaning and oiling them, something that he enjoyed. His father was an Army Ranger, and John also aspired to be in the military. He was going to college and was one of the top cadets in his ROTC class. They had sent him for some extra training as a reward for his hard work. He had gone to Airborne down in Georgia, which was jump school. The other class had been Robin Sage, which was the final leg of training for the Special Forces, where they trained and taught militias to combat their own governments. John was part of a militia, and he had learned a lot from it: how to assemble and disassemble weapons, how to make traps, and how to properly assault a target.

He could not wait to smell the gunpowder in the air and feel the rush of shooting something, but that would all have to wait. Right now, he had to get to work. He was a server at a small breakfast restaurant. He enjoyed the food and the hours. He had not been there long, but he seemed to fit in with the crew. John was by no means the best server there, but he did try his hardest. He thought that this was just one stage in his life and would help him get through college.

He lived in a house with several other guys, one of which worked at the same restaurant. He did mind them. They all had different dreams and ambitions. The diversity made living more fun but also a challenge. He had to learn how to get along with others. Most of the people he had grown up around were military. His roommates were not.

John sighed as he drove his car. He did not have a girlfriend and was for the most part very alone. He thought at times that this lifestyle was best for him, because he eventually wanted be part of the Special Forces in the army and thought it would be best if he did not have the pressures of a family back home. But sometimes he could not help but wonder how his life would be different if he chose a civilian life—maybe a life less frightening. There were some pretty girls that he worked with, and he often found himself flirting with them.

The traffic was light, and it was just a few minutes to work. The brisk morning air filled John’s lungs as he got out of the car. He locked the door and started to walk toward the building. He could smell bacon in the air. A smell that few can resist, he thought. John instantly realized how hungry he was and that he had forgotten to eat the night before.

A few of the workers who did not speak English well were out back smoking cigarettes before their shift. They were kind and polite to John and offered him a cigarette. John kindly refused. He had not yet learned their names.

He walked in the door, and a rush of noise and fragrant odors came at him. John clocked himself in. Eric was entering an order on the other computer. Morning, handsome, Eric said sarcastically. John smiled. Eric was one of his roommates. He was tall and had dark hair. They were both muscular and liked to work out together.

Morning! responded John as he finished clocking in on the computer and then turned to tie his apron to his waist.

Eric finished ringing in the order, printed the ticket, and then turned to smack John’s butt. Yeah, baby! Eric said. They were both straight but were good enough friends to pull off such a stunt.

Eric walked away. John’s senses went dull. He felt like he was vibrating. He felt tension in the air, like there was too much static electricity. The lights flickered. Things went deafeningly silent for a moment. His legs were weak, and he felt like he needed to brace himself on the counter. He felt it only for a moment before it passed.

He oriented himself. That was weird. He tried to pass it off as nothing.

Charity was in the bathroom washing her hands and fixing her hair. She looked at herself in the mirror with a slightly dissatisfied look. She wanted to be home with her family. She was worried about her parents. She only had taken this job so she could help her parents out.

She was very close to her parents and loved them dearly. She and her sister both lived at home with them and worked for the family business. It was a cleaning business. It had been good to them for many years and more than provided a comfortable lifestyle for a family of four. Unfortunately, after twenty years, her parents were getting older and could no longer put out the work they once had. And with the economy as it was, people were pinching every penny they could, so the jobs were becoming scarcer. To help out with the bills, Charity had taken a job as server at a local breakfast restaurant.

Charity had never really been a fan of making friends. She always had been close to her family and preferred to just remain to herself. She did not have a boyfriend. Her older sister was engaged and was going to be married in the summer. The guy was nice enough and had a great heart for the family. He also helped out in the cleaning business as much as he could. She did, however, wish that she would meet a guy, but she had some pretty high standards that she justified to herself.

She left the bathroom and stared at the room for a moment. There were a lot of people going about their business—eating, talking to their parties, and then leaving. It was not a bad job, but it was not easy either. John walked out from the kitchen and looked over at her. She stared at him. He was her least favorite person. All the other coworkers, stupid guests, and poor management she could put up with, but John was the one person she could not stand. To her he just seemed too arrogant and too cocky. He was always cracking jokes and playing around.

John looked over and caught Charity staring at him, and then they turned and walked over to their tables and checked their sections. Charity figured he knew about her distaste for him, but she felt that he didn’t care. They would get into small arguments and quarrels on how to do things appropriately. While Charity was always trying to do the correct thing, John did things the way he felt they should be done. John usually sided with the guests and often made the kitchen stumble with odd requests. The manager would at first agree with Charity and then ultimately give in to John.

Charity rather despised him, and in her own way she tried to compete with him. For example, she knew he could never do his side work as perfectly as she could. John seemed to never care about that and often had to redo things that he failed to do right the first time. She didn’t have any other major problems with the rest of the staff peers. It was just John. And everyone knew it.

Her family didn’t like John either, just based upon the things that Charity had told them. They had met him and had not been impressed.

Charity didn’t mind his roommates and found that they were much easier to get along with. She did like Eric and found him very attractive.

She didn’t feel right. She had not felt right all morning. Her stomach felt queasy, and her hair had been very staticky since she arrived. She took a lot of pride in hair. She felt like it was one of the beautiful things about her.

She felt like wherever she walked, the floor seemed to be unstable, and she thought she was seeing things out of the corner of her eyes.

The lights flickered.

Eric brought some food out to a table of young women. John knew Eric had always had a way with the younger women. They all checked Eric out—or at least John felt like they did. Eric was twenty, and they looked to be around the same age. Eric was younger than John and interested in doing something with health and fitness. He had random girlfriends at times, none right now. He was not really good at getting into a close relationship. He would always mess it up by saying the wrong thing. John felt like Eric tried to be the bad boy with the heart of gold. John felt like he was afraid of commitment and somehow sabotaged his relationships.

Eric’s father used to beat him before he got really big, and as a result, he really tried hard to impress everyone he came across. The people who never really seemed to be impressed were the people he looked up to. Eric believed that was why they were best friends. John was able to see past Eric’s performances.

Okay, ladies, anything else I can get for you? John heard Eric saying to some young ladies, trying to sound suave. The girls declined. Eric then said, Well, if you need anything, I will be over there! He flexed and pointed his finger. The girls giggled, and he smiled again and walked off. John rolled his eyes.

The problem with Eric was that he flirted with everyone. Not a moment later he was up at the host stand flirting with the two young hostesses. They were also around the same age as Eric and John.

Hello, ladies! Eric said as suavely as he could. They both looked at him admiringly and responded in kind. How was your night last night? Did you do anything fun? Anything I should be jealous of? They again laughed.

No, we just hung out together and watched a movie, Trisha said as she looked at Katrina. We wished you were there though, she added as she smiled back at Eric. Trisha was a blonde and definitely bubbly, while Katrina was a brunette and more reserved. Eric had a thing for blondes but had failed to have enough courage to ask Trisha out. Eric had made small passes at Trisha but had been shot down.

I do too! he responded. But you never called!

John walked up to Eric and the ladies. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t feel like he had to. He smiled at all three of him and looked outside. He felt like he was still waking up and was part of a dream.

Katrina broke the silence. Hey, good morning—how are you?

John smiled directly at her. Good, and you?

Not bad. Still tired from last night.

What did you do last night?

We watched a movie together! interrupted Trisha, obviously wanting to bring the attention on her.

John looked over at her with a slightly smaller smile. Oh really? Which one?

Trisha’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. In fact, the whole room had become silent, and he was not the only to notice. John looked around cautiously and tapped his ears. Then all the sound came back with a loud ripping noise followed by the sound of explosions. The floors started to shake and vibrate. John ran outside, followed by Eric and the hostesses and then other people from inside the restaurant. They stood out in the middle of the parking lot, trying to find the source of the sound. The sound was all around them.

The ground was shaking tremendously, and people could barely keep their balance. John leaned onto a car for support. Light faded from the sky. Then everything went silent again, followed by another thunderous noise, and a strange light burst into existence less than a hundred yards away from where they were standing. They all peered at it in shock.

Things started to slowly creep toward the light. The light was pulling things closer to it. The other people standing around started to notice the pull too. More people from other locations came out to watch. Some were running away from the light; others were staring directly into it. The force of the pull grew stronger and stronger, as if gravity had changed directions. Rocks and other debris started to fly into the light and made small lightning bolts as they hit. The more people started to notice, the more they tried to flee.

People were crying out in fear and in curiosity. John started to feel the pull. He took a few steps back only to be pulled forward the same distance. He knelt down to the ground and turned to scramble away, and the pull grew stronger and stronger. He lay down on the ground flat on his face. Larger and larger pieces of debris were flying toward the light. He could hear the sound of car tires screeching away. He could see people starting to slide past him.

Katrina was on the ground next to him. She started to move closer to the light. John reached out toward her and tried to help her. The sound of people getting swept away could be heard as they flew by screaming. Katrina was panicking. Tears were running down her face. Her tears flew toward the light. John managed to grab hold of a bike railing with one hand and held onto Katrina with the other. The pull was beginning to lift both of them off the ground. John looked back at Katrina and noticed Eric flying away into the light at the same time. He cried his name. He noticed other people he knew but could not help.

John looked back up at his hand, which was being strained. His fingers were slipping one by one. He looked again only to see whole cars being flung into the vortex. His hand finally slipped off, and he and Katrina were cast into the light. He could feel the light stinging his body. He felt short of breath and a pressure that made his body seem like it was going to pop. Light blurred by him as if he were flying through a tunnel.

The trip took less than thirty seconds, and at the end of the tunnel was a dark whole. Everything that was in the light shot out into the darkness like coming out of a tube. John hit the ground hard. He had lost the ability to hold onto Katrina’s hand as soon as they entered the light. The land was not completely dark—just dark by comparison. He rolled on what felt to be grass and pushed himself from the ground and looked back. There were many things coming through the light in all directions. He took a quick look around and noticed trees. He was in a forest. He realized he had almost landed on someone else. He looked back again and tried to get up. His adrenaline was pumping as he tried to escape the other debris coming out of the light.

The vortex lit up the forest around John as he dodged debris and other people. He was running in one direction when a person flew in front of him and hit a tree. He heard a loud crack of bones and watched a mangled body hit the ground. He stared at it for a split second. He noticed other people running around him, trying to escape the chaos. He found himself following another man until a car flew in front of him and crushed the man ahead of him. John tried to swallow. He ran another fifty yards before he felt that he was brave enough to turn around and see what was going on.

The light lasted for another minute before collapsing on itself. Then everything went silent and dark. John stared around him. Slowly, he started to hear the sound of people. His eyes adjusted to the light, and he could see people moving in the darkness. He started to move in their direction. He walked slowly and tried to help any others he found on the way. Most of the people only had minor bumps and bruises, but some were in serious condition; they wouldn’t last long without medical attention.

A group started to form, and people were making a real effort to gather any survivors that could not make it back on their own. One man in particular could be heard above the others, calling out orders or asking for volunteers to go search for others or to help gather wood for a fire. John noticed Eric helping out and trying to carry someone to where everyone was gathered. The person was obviously injured and could not move on his own. John quickly moved over to help, nodding at Eric, and he responded, You okay?

Eric nodded. You?

John nodded back.

After the people were gathered and a fire was started, people started to sit and calm down and rest a bit, if possible. A second fire was started shortly after. Trisha and Katrina had survived and joined them near the fire. They both quietly stared into the fire, occasionally looking up at either John or Eric. People could be heard talking off in the distance.

What do you think happened? Trisha asked.

Eric looked at John. Um … I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to wait for morning light.

Why are you making spears? Katrina’s voice was nervous.

John looked her in the eye. I just want to be safe and prepared.

For what? Katrina snapped.

John looked over at Eric. We don’t know.

You’ll be just fine, Eric added and glanced at John.

Yeah, we’ll be just fine. John did not seem that reassuring.

The light from the fire seemed to darken the forest around them. No one wanted to venture out into the unknown. The trees were tall, and the sky could barely be seen, save for a few bright stars. There was no sound except the people in the group and the crackling of the fires.

The man with the heavy voice who had been calling out orders earlier stood next to one of the fires and addressed the group. Okay, we have a problem …

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2

The man looked like he was in his late forties. He had salt-and-pepper hair. Charity remembered him from earlier in the day. She had waited on his table. She watched as he addressed the group of survivors. She looked around at all the strangers.

Okay, we have a problem! he started. He seemed to command everyone’s attention. I don’t know if you noticed, but most of us were enjoying some breakfast when a weird light sprang out of nowhere. We all got sucked in. And now we are here … He paused. Now does anyone know where we are? The group stayed quiet and looked at him vacantly. Neither do I. He touched his face, pondering. His eyes stared hard into the fire. All eyes focused on him. Okay, we will have to wait until morning to start figuring things out. He began to look around again.

What about the wounded? someone called from within the crowd.

The man sighed. Is anyone here a doctor? His head panned the crowd. No? Then we do what we can.

Charity watched as he stepped down. He was as perplexed as everyone else was. He sat down on a log and stared into the fire. She looked back into the forest and gazed into the darkness. She could hear the distant voices of people communicating. Some were complaining. She shook her head and looked down at the man who was barely conscious.

He sounds like he knows what to do, said the man. He looked like he was in his midthirties and had dark hair. Even in the dark, Charity could see he had lost a lot of blood and was very pale.

She gave a caring smile and nodded. Yeah, in the morning, all will be different. If there is a morning, she thought. Her hands were covered in blood.

She had some real first-aid training, and she just did what she thought were the right things to do. She kept pressure on the wound—in this case a massive gash in a leg. She could have tried to clean it if she had any water or antiseptic, but she had to make do with what she had. She wrapped it with an extra t-shirt that someone had. The shirt was soaked with blood. The man kept asking to be pushed toward the fire because he was cold, obviously because of the loss of blood.

Where are you from? she asked.

I … uh … I’m from California, originally. I came here for my wife. She is probably wondering where I am right now. He smiled and tried to laugh, but it only turned into a cough.

Tell me about her. She smiled back, trying to get his mind off of the pain.

He looked up and began to talk about his wife. He was obviously in love and found her to be the most amazing person.

Do you have any kids? Charity asked.

No, not yet, he said slowly as if realizing his situation. We were trying though.

Oh, I am sorry. She looked down. Well, maybe when you get back.

How about you? Do you have a boyfriend, husband, kids?

No. She looked away. It’s just me and my family.

Well, any single guy that would pass you up must be an idiot. I can tell, even in the dark, that you are beautiful. He tried to smile. He was starting to shiver. Tell me about your family.

Charity gave a half-smile. Thanks. She then proceeded to quickly tell about her family. She looked off into the dark forest again. She stared only for a moment and then looked back. So, are you close to your … She trailed off. She noticed that the man had passed out from fatigue or possibly from pain. Charity hoped for the first.

She suddenly realized how tired she was and took one last look around before lying down. She lay awake for some time.

John did not get much sleep. He dozed off and then woke up. When the morning came, it was surreal. The forest was lit dimly, and everything was rather still. He had stoked the fire all night. He was hungry and feeling the stress of the situation. He felt a little nauseated as he sat up.

He noticed several people were up and moving around. Some more people had passed away during the night due to their wounds. Their bodies were cold and pale. John stared at them for a moment, wondering if this was going to be the fate of everyone. He bit his lip as he always did when he was deep in thought.

John looked around him and saw Katrina and Trisha snuggled together, obviously trying to conserve body heat. Eric was cuddling his makeshift spear.

John could see off into the forest for some way before trees blocked his view. He noticed a lot of debris that had also come through the vortex. There was mostly trash and odd objects of no value to him at the moment. There could have been a gold bar lying in plain sight and he would have stepped right over it for some stale crackers.

The debris had scattered in all different directions. As he looked around, he noticed that some of the people had started to walk into the forest. They seemed to be trying to look around to get a feel and possibly find supplies.

We should help, he stated to himself but then looked at Eric as if he were listening. He rolled to his feet and took a step toward Eric in order to wake him up.

John shook him. Eric woke up startled. What? What!

Hey, people are starting to wake up and look around. I think we need to do the same.

Trisha and Katrina woke up to the talking and sat up to listen.

Everyone made some type of painful noise as he or she got up off the ground. Eric and John picked up their spears, and the four of them started to make their way into the forest. They decided to go in a direction away from everyone else. They discovered mostly just more trees and trash along the way.

They came across a car that had turned over and was lying belly-up. It had bloodstains on it, and it smelled foul. As they walked around it, they noticed that an arm was sticking out from beneath it. John checked it for a pulse, but it was cold and lifeless. Check the inside, John said. Maybe there is some food and water in the car.

They scavenged the car and did find some gum and some water. They rationed it out and continued.

They never left the sight of the fire

Reviews for Rogue World

[maneekuhi · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Rogue Male was first published at the outbreak of WWII and was described as a spy novel. I can't imagine why. This is a novel about a man-hunt. There are no intelligence agencies, no moles, no dead drops, nor coded messages, Mata Hari's, poison pills. Yet in a poll recently conducted by the Guardian looking for the top ten spy novels of all time, a number of readers suggested "The Rogue Male". I suggest two stars. An English aristocrat, an excellent hunter, has Hitler in his rifle sites and just as he is about to pull the trigger.....Well, he is captured but quickly and rather easily escapes. He reaches England and for some reason I never did understand, he refuses to seek assistance from the police knowing full well that Hitler's guys will be tracking him down to the end of the earth. He eventually gets to the English countryside and in great detail describes the elaborate hidey hole he constructs for himself. But enough of the plot. At this point there was still more than a third of the novel left (actually the last third was pretty good) but it took too long to get there and I just wanted it to end.Completed 11/3/11.

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is an acknowledged classic by an author I often enjoy, and i have owned it fr years, but i don;t think I have actually read it through. Ias many readers know better than I, it concerns a British gentleman and experienced hunter who decides to shoot a cruel dictator (by implication, Hitler an implication made explicit on the cover of a more recent Penguin edition) who was responsible for the death of the woman the hunter loved.He fails, but ends the book setting off to try again.

[debs4jc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The main character is a big game hunter and he, apparently on a lark, decides to try and see if he can use his big game skills to get into a position where he can assasinate a world leader. (I won't say who as the book doesn't, but it is set just before World War II). Well he gets caught and gets in big trouble and the entire story is pretty much the story of how he struggles to get away and then stay hidden from his enemies. It is a classic tale of survival against the odds so don't miss it if you like those kinds of stories.

[datrappert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Intense story of a sportsman who has to go on the run after narrowly escaping death at the hands of a foreign power who believes he was attempting to assassinate their leader (never named, but as this book was published in 1939, Hitler is the obvious real-life parallel.) This is a claustrophobic first-person story where the narrator's only trusted friend is a cat, and he holes up in a grave-like burrow for weeks on end. While there is considerable action, the story is told at a slow, highly detailed pace. What makes the book so fascinating, besides the extremely literate prose of author Household, is the self-discovery the protagonist makes during the course of the novel. While outwardly a tale of suspense, this is even more a psychological study of a man awakening to a new (truer?) knowledge of his own identity.

[clfisha · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The hunter becomes the hunted in this psychological, English classic tale of 30s.A unnamed English gentlemen gets caught 'hunting' a powerful European dictator, his protestations that is was purely a sporting exercise is ignored as he is tortured and then pushed of a cliff. Murder attempt bodged he goes on run, dragging his broken body through Europe and fleeing for rural England where he goes to ground like a wounded animal. Wanted by the sinister foreign forces and UK police (for murder of aforementioned spies) we get not only a detailed look of the how but also the mentality, of the hunted man. Understated though it may be it’s as fascinating as it is tense, the idealist discussion never overwhelm the drama and the ending is one of the most excruciatingly claustrophobic tales I have ever read. Oddly to its 1930s setting works in its favour as does its deeply, overtly masculine tale (no women allowed here). The characters are a dying breed of English upper class gent, the world is changing and he knows it. Not only does a doomed foreshadowing falls across the plot but it enforces a more believable character. A well deserved classic tag, inspiring many tales in genre (oddly including Rambo). I haven’t read anything quite like this before and I recommend it to all fans of thrillers and hidden anglophiles.

[anniemod · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

At the start of WWII, an English sportsman crosses over from Poland and gets very close to assassinating an European dictator. Even though at that point the nationality of that dictator is unknown, the following events leave only Germany as a possibility (Russia is to away for the trip home with the ship. Technically speaking he claims that he was just trying to see if he can get close enough, just as a sportsman - but a man with an optical gun pointed to the head of a country will never believed when he says so. And when he is caught, he is tortured and left for dead (in a pretty inventive way) but he beats all odds and survives. And at this point the novel opens. It takes very little time for the secret services in the country to realize what happened and to start the hunt. But behind the hunt (which is executed very well - both in the enemy territory and in England) there is another story - the story of a shattered love, the story of what the main protagonist was not ready to admit even to himself, the story of what he was doing at that forest with a gun. It's a complex tale - with a thriller at the top, masking the psychological novel under it. If someone expects high speed chase with cars and trains and whatsnot around Europe, they will remain disappointed. Most of the story is stationary; the only movement is to get everyone in position before the real game begins. And throughout most of the story, there is an easy way out - a way that the unnamed protagonist does not want to take. Because his life is not the most important thing in the world. The protagonist narrates the story - the book is his diary. That centers the view that we can see and leave a lot of actions unseen until they start influencing the protagonist. And it is the diary's writer choice to remain unnamed - even if his name will probably save him, it is not how that game is played. At the end of the novel is somewhat open-ended - if it was written nowadays, I would expect the second novel within a year. But the story is told, it is just that there is the possibility for something else happening later (and when it was written, it was really open-ended - with the war still going and the dictator still alive).It is a marvelous little novel - part thriller (imagine a current action movie chase minus the cars), part spy novel (because there is no other explanation for some of the protagonist action), part psychological suspense story that will become so popular in the decades since the writing of the novel. I will definitely check some other books from the Household.Edition notes: I read this novel in the edition published by Folio Society in 2013. Rooney's choice to illustrate the book in black and white fits the mood of the novel. The page and a half illustrations are showing the vastness of the landscape (each of the full page illustrations have a small part on the facing page, needed to close the picture and provide the detail that make the picture part of the novel. I am not very good with art - but in that book, the art complimented the story without repeating it (while at the same time still showing pictures from the novel itself).

[eliza.graham.180 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I heard this years ago on BBC Radio 4 as a dramatisation and became hooked. At the time Rogue Male was out of press, and I had to wait until a friend started working at a secondhand bookshop and found me a copy. Something about the descriptions of a man hiding out in the deeply-banked lanes of Dorset, living like a wild animal, reading the landscape for signs of human predators, and surviving on his wits, continues to grip me.

[mathmaverick-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent thriller! Reminded me a lot of The 39 Steps.

[librisissimo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Prescient page-turner.

[edgeworth_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is another book I read after plucking it from the Classics list of the New York Review of Books, and while I was reasonably entertained, I can't say it held up to the high standards of Inverted World.Written and set in 1938, Rogue Male begins with a famous English sportsman recounting his attempt to assassinate a European dictator. The book goes to great lengths to avoid stating precisely who the dictator is and which country he rules over, but if you read between the lines and carefully follow the implications, you can deduce that it is probably HITLER. ADOLF HITLER. IN GERMANY. The hunter, one of those unnamed stiff upper-lip narrators in the grand tradition of 20th century British literature, maintains that he wasn't going to pull the trigger - that he was simply seeing if it was possible. The German agents who come across him in the act aren't convinced of this even after an extended torture session, and so they eventually try to kill him by throwing him off a cliff to make it look like an accident. He survives, however, and manages to evade pursuit. After successfully returning to England, he realises that national borders are of no interest to his pursuers, and the hunt continues.What I found most odd about this book was that the narrator decides against turning himself over to the British government, suspecting that they will simply extradite him to maintain good diplomatic relations with Germany. While this is true (appeasement and all that), it seems quite bizarre from a modern perspective. It would have seemed bizarre to readers even a few years after the book's publication.In any case, I found Rogue Male to be a fairly quick read, a standard thriller with a good bit of dry wit sprinkled throughout. I saw nothing of the "lip-chewing tension" that other reviews harp on about, but neither was I bored by it.

[cbjames_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household begins where a more typical espionage thriller would end-- after the assassination attempt has failed. When the novel opens, the unnamed narrator has already been captured by his enemies, he has already undergone intense interrogation and has already escaped. He is on the run, trying to flee one country for another, looking for a place to hide. We do not know who he is, who he tried to kill, who he is working for or even if he is someone we should be siding with. What he tells us is how he escaped from his captors, how he got back to England and how he built what should have been the perfect hiding place. This makes Rogue Male a kind of procedural. But it's not a police procedural clearly, we are following the how-to story of someone operating outside the law. How the narrator bluffs his way onto a ship heading for England, how he finds the place to dig his hide-out, and the hide-out itself are fascinating reading. Along a nearly abandoned road in Wales, the narrator finds a brush covered spot where he can tunnel out a large warren, large enough to streach out when he lies down and to sit up straight when he sits up. He disguises the hideout so that it looks like a badger's home and basically locks himself in, planning to hide there until it is safe enough to leave the country.So we know he was not working for England when he made the assasination attempt, but who was he working for and who was he trying to kill and, of course, why. This makes for an uneasy sort of dramatic tension in the novel. The reader naturally wants a narrator to succeed, and this narrator is a likable one, sympathetic since he is the victim of a brutal interrogation and was left for dead. Will his pursuers find him? Should we want them to? This tension makes the novel's 190 pages difficult to put down.The cover of my edition, not the one pictured, links the author, Household, whom I'd not heard of before reading Rogue Male, with Eric Ambler, John le Carre and John Buchan. I'm in agreement here. Rogue Male was published in 1939 so it has much more in common with Eric Ambler and early John le Carre. Household can certainly hold his own in this company. I'm giving Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household four out of five stars. If you're looking for a good spy thriller this summer, look to Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household is a incredible adventure story. A professional hunter slips into an unnamed country, stalks and aims at it’s dictator leader. He is caught, tortured, and thrown off a cliff but survives and manages to make his way back to England only to find he isn’t in the clear yet as agents of this unknown country are on his trail. The book is a first class survival story, as the protagonist now goes into hiding in rural Dorset, living in an expanded rabbit’s burrow with a feral cat as company. What makes this book different from a straight adventure story is the reflections of the main character. With a lot of time on his hands and with paper to write, he keeps a journal and records his thoughts and philosophies. It seems as if this is all that keeps him human as he is living like an animal and using animal-like skills to engage in a battle of wits with his stalker. As the story unfolds the reason he hunted the dictator is revealed to have been a private act of revenge rather than a patriotic strike for freedom.I had some prior knowledge of this book from the 1941 movie called Man Hunt. This movie was based on Rogue Male but other than the opening sequence was very different. In the novel, it is clear that the unnamed country is Germany and the dictator is Hitler even though this is never put in black and white. The movie, filmed during the war, glorified this attempt on Hitler’s life and patriotism was front and center.For me, Rogue Male was an excellent read. The author manages to tell a story of depth without over writing. It is simply told, concise and vivid. I thoroughly enjoyed this taunt, tense thriller.

[lamour_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the greatest chase stories that I have ever read. A hunter stumbles on to Hitler's lair in the forest somewhere in Germany. He lines up a shot on Hitler although he has no plans to actually shot him. However, he is discovered before he can get away and then the chase is on across Europe to England.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I started this book thinking that I already knew the basic plot from watching the film. I quickly realized that I had confused this with another story with a slightly similar premise of a man being hunted.In this, the unnamed protagonist is both the hunter and the hunted. I was bothered for a while in the first section with this man's motivation for his "sporting stalk" of a leader of a foreign country but this is eventually explained in the final section.Now that I have finished, I do vaguely recall seeing a film based on this (starring Fred McMurray I think). If I am remembering correctly, there were some pretty significant differences & the book is better. I will have to look for the film so I can refresh my memory.

[shadow__1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great literate action story. The main character is so thoroughly disaffected and alienated from himself that his motivation, though powerful is initially a mystery both to us and to himself. Told in a deft oblique style that circles ever closer to plain statement of fact as the story grows in intensity.

[caklr650 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very Pre War English. Meaning dry and somewhat tedious at times. The book is full of minute detail about the english countryside that seems to me at least to lose alot in the voyage over the pond. I certainly wouldn't rate it as one of the best thrillers of all time as others have done.

[heggiep · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A 145 page chase? That's what I thought I'd gotten myself into, part-way through the book. Essentially true but with enough interest, including the tricks played on the mind of a 'hunted' man, to have me racing to the end.

[chatterbox_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had heard of this first when I ran across the 1976 or so movie with Peter O'Toole on late-night TV -- and found it so chilling that I had to turn it off. And then I never knew what had happened! Then caught the 1942 version of it ("Man Hunt"), which was a good noirish movie, although (understandably) propagandistic, since it was filmed during the war. Household's book was first published in 1939, and it's a first-person chronicle by an unnamed narrator of what he describes as a "sporting stalk" of a famous dictator personage in a country adjacent to Poland. Well, a bit of a no-brainer to figure out who that might have been in 1938/39... He's caught, tortured, and left for dead -- until the evildoers figure out that he survived and is making his way home. It's a great chase novel that turns into a game of wits as the narrator (a famous sportsman) turns to his hunting skills to protect himself from his pursuers and literally goes to ground in a burrow in Dorset. Even knowing the story, there were times when I found myself holding my breath. This isn't a great, classic suspense novel, and I wouldn't have thought it warranted an NYRB seal of approval, but it's a brisk and entertaining read that sometimes requires the reader to suspense incredulity and remind him/herself that this was the 1930s, when the narrator might reasonably not want to have taken what appear today to be the logical steps to protect himself by going public. The final third of the book contains some intriguing twists, as the narrator admits some things to us for the first time -- and realizes some things about himself, his motivations and his next steps. That added some nuance which I don't recall being part of the more straightforward movie versions. 3.8 stars, recommended.

[carltonc_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good thriller, which rather like John Buchan’s novels (John Macnab as well as Hannay stories) I also enjoyed as it provides an insight into attitudes in England (not Britain, as Buchan) in 1939. Published in May 1939 before the outbreak of WWII, the object of the initial assassination attempt is not named, but is obvious.The novel now conjours up that period of time in England when another European war seemed likely, and conflict in the Spanish Civil War is referenced, but war was not yet certain.Some of the writing is very much of its time, with which some may be uncomfortable, such as: She was a sturdy wench in corduroy shorts no longer than bum-bags, and with legs so red that the golden hairs showed as continuous fur. Not my taste at all. But my taste is far from eugenic.

[jonfaith · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The novel, as expected, is much more fleshy and reflective than the film. Even bereft of such, i would've enjoyed this one. Shades of Mr. Greene abound.

[page.fault · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Rogue Male is very strange. Something of a precursor to James Bond or the Bourne Identity and all that, and a solid member of early noir, the story features an unnamed protagonist who decides that hunting lions and other furry critters just isn't exciting any more, and that the next logical big game is a totalitarian dictator. The story details his attempts to off said dictator, and, when the tables are turned, the henchmen of said dictator trying to off him.

I couldn't warm to our rogue male, nor could I really sympathize with his goals. He eventually reveals that his reason for Dictator Hunting is in revenge for the death of his true love, but it takes a really long time--and a long slide from my ability to sympathize--before he admits this. The story is strangely propagandist (it's the late 1930s...guess who the dictator is?), yet (to me at least) completely devoid of introspection. I don't get it, and I just couldn't like The Male.

[mstrust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The story begins with our unnamed narrator seemingly ready to assassinate the leader of an unnamed European country, but he's discovered, beaten and expected to die. He doesn't. Severely injured, he manages to escape the country even with every government agent on his tail. Once back in England, he's suspicious that he's still a wanted man, which proves to be true.Action-packed and suspenseful, and even though it was published in 1939 it retains a modern, and at times, frantic pace.