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First Blood Mass Market Paperback – February 1, 2000

by David Morrell (Author)

306 customer reviews

Book 1 of 3 in the Rambo: First Blood Series

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First came the man: a young wanderer in a fatigue coat and long hair. Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of FIRST BLOOD to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small-town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with -- or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky.

Millions saw the Rambo movies, but those who haven't read the book that started it all are in for a surprise -- a critically acclaimed story of character, action, and compassion.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"I've been a Morrell fan for years -- and now more than ever".

-- Dean Koontz on Double Image

From the Back Cover

Millions saw the Rambo movies, but those who haven't read the book that started it all are in for a surprise -- a critically acclaimed story of character, action, and compassion.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (February 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446364401
ISBN-13: 978-0446364409
Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.8 x 6.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
Average Customer Review: 306 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #172,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1094 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Ghosts
- #1612 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > TV, Movie, Video Game Adaptations
- #2393 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Military

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James Thomas Jeans

Better than the film in some ways, worse in others

August 25, 2016

Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase

Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve been a fan of Rambo. But I wasn’t a fan of the Rambo that most people think of when they talk about the character. My first exposure was Rambo: First Blood part II. It was nearly 20 years before I saw First Blood from beginning to end, and I was immensely surprised by the tonal differences from the sequels.

Surprised, but not upset. First Blood was a pretty damn fine film, and when I found out that the series was based on a book, I knew I wanted to read it. It would be another handful of years before I got around to it: I’ve only just read the book this week.

The first day I had it, I burned through 100 pages in a single sitting. That’s not how I tend to read, because as much as I enjoy reading, my eyes aren’t what they once were and the constant pain in my body makes it difficult to focus on reading for long periods of time. I moved through the remainder of the book much slower than in that first sitting – about 20 pages at a time – but I still got through it in five days. That’s a lot faster than I read most books.

I'll avoid talking too much about the plot, as most people will know it by now. But there are some things I want to touch on.

Spoilers below.

What really stands out about the book is just how... proactive Rambo is when compared to the film version. He has no qualms with straight murdering people: during the jail escape, he immediately disembowels a man with the razor Teasle is trying to use to shave him. Later in the woods, he uses a rifle to kill the police office that’s shooting at him from the helicopter and managed to force the thing into crashing, killing the pilot. He then lays an ambush for Teasle’s men and wastes no time gunning down the 70-year-old dog trainer.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Once he’s switched back on during his Vietnam flashback, he never shuts it down again. The movie version seems reluctant to cause harm, he goes out of his way not to kill people. Not so in the book. Rambo’s body count is astronomical. It’s an interesting thematic difference.

The whole third act is really different from the film, especially where Trautman is concerned. In the book, Trautman knows Rambo by reputation alone, they don’t share the close familial bond depicted in the film. Trautman’s role in events is greatly increased in the film, and it’s for the better.

Over all I think it's a very good book, I highly recommend people read it. The film does some things better, but the book gets deeper into characterizing both Rambo and Teasle, something the film could have desperately used. I'd also suggest giving the film a watch as soon as you're done reading the book. They compliment each other well, especially if it's been a while since you've seen First Blood.

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Lo Soldato

One of my favorites, but...

January 24, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I read this book as a teenager after seeing the movie. I had no idea how different the book would be.

Like the movie, there's a lot of action. Conditioned by the movie, I saw Rambo was the hero, and Teasle was the antagonist. But the book isn't necessarily written that way. The two are the two sides of America during the late 60s.

I've reread this book several times, mostly the way one watches the same movie now and again. I'm too emotionally attached to be an objective reviewer.

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

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SvenStadt

Fans of the movie will enjoy this read! Southern audiences will enjoy it even more!

March 11, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This novel is a good read, very enjoyable. Having seen the Stallone movie version first, tainted my understanding of it, though. It is much different from the film. The setting is the American South, and it reads as a distinctive Southern story. Some of the dialogue is written in a way that is hard to follow; real people don't talk the way the long-winded characters in this novel do. The first act gets a little tedious, although it could be seen as a 'point of no return' act which was done in a very foreboding, effective manner. The Rambo character bears almost no resemblance to the movie version; He kills Gault in a different way in the novel. He is caught and manages to escape from Teasle about four separate times on the vagrancy beef before the final escape. The novel Rambo is more talkative than the movie version. Novel Rambo strikes a tone of being more belligerent, more 'anti-social' than the movie version, and with a major chip on his shoulder; movie Rambo was portrayed by Stallone as more a-social and generally more worn down from life. I haven't finished it yet so I can't give it 5 stars.

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Boston Reader

His Name Was Rambo

May 11, 2014

Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase

Word of Advice: Do NOT Read the "Rambo & Me" Introduction by the author. There is a huge spoiler that'll ruin the ending for the reader. Anyways, on with the review. The first thing you want to do, is forget everything you maybe already know about Rambo as best you can. Here Rambo isn't another one of Sly Stallone's characters from the 80's. Here he is just a young vagrant walking or hitchhiking on the roads. But he is only half the story. The other half is Police Chief Teasle, who for the most part calls Rambo "The Kid" from his perspective. He just takes him for another college-age hippy vagabond and unlike in the movie where Rambo had an army jacket and dogtags, there is nothing to indicate that Rambo was a veteran. The movie made Teasle an antagonist and someone to almost come to hate, while the book might make him a more likable character than Rambo, which was definitely more likely before the movie came out. Teasle has his personal issues in his life such as his divorce, his wife moving away and his relationship with Orval. Over time you see Teasle become more and more fixated on getting Rambo, but you can't really hate the guy. Rambo on the other hand was a person who had gotten in confrontations and even killed before being sent to war. In the book, he has a huge chip on his shoulder about what he had gone through in Vietnam which is why he is probably more the antagonist then Teasle. He's more ruthless in the book than he was in the first movie. One guy in a helicopter and maybe two state police officers and a national guardsman. One maybe four was the maximum killcount in the movie, in the book that number is bigger and the destruction at the end is even greater. Compared to the character from the novel, Sylvester Stallone's character from the film was toned down and easily sympathetic. Sam Trautman was also another character who also greatly differed from the his movie counterpart. Col. Trautman in the book wasn't Rambo's commanding officer in Vietnam, but rather in charge of the facility that trained him. Sam Trautman is supposed to represent "Uncle Sam" as Dr. Frankenstein who created the monster.

This book is 100 percent anti-war. It is about a small version of the Vietnam war being brought back to America as a Korean Was veteran and police chief hunts down a disturbed Vietnam War veteran who can easily take a life like it was nothing. It doesn't just show the brutality of fighting a war, but also the outcome and the aftermath. Soldier come back with scares. Some are more brutal than others and others aren't scares you can see. Those were the kind of scares Rambo carried. Uncle Sam needed a fighting machine and in the end received a monster.

Read this book, not only if you are interested in the source material that led to the creation of one of the most memorable and influential action heroes of the late 20th Century, but also if you want to read a good psychological thriller that explores war and what it leaves in its path of destruction as it's brought home.

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First Blood Mass Market Paperback – February 1, 2000

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