what can I say about this book. There is nothing Steven Graham Jones can't write or do in the world of horror. His books are so well written and so intense, and the representation is phenomenal. Truly he's one of the best horror authors currently. And to read this after seeing sinners? Please continue branching out in other areas of horror to write

Thank you to the publisher for an arc of this novel.

This is by far probably the most intense book I've ever read in my life. The fact that the story is based around a real life massacre and near extinction of the buffalo makes it even more hard hitting. Also, while the name of the story is very suited for the story within, the true depth really gut punches you about half-way in, and calls for a moment to pause and reflect.

The writing style, descriptions, gore, and truth of colonization and too hard to look away from in this masterpiece. The story told is unapologetic and raw but non-linear, which allows the reader to observe the full-scope of what happened to these communities from various angles. The end of the novel and the full realization of the ramifications of everything that occurred had me stunned. This was my first novel by this author, but it certainly won't be my last.

I love this story with gorey horror and historical horror. Who is the villain the vampire or colonizers? Nobody writes horror like Stephen Graham Jones ! Love the multilevel and layers to the story.

He is a fun gory author. I like the story and the characters. The plot was amazing. I like his other books as well.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I looooved this book. It is easily vying for my favorite Stephen Graham Jones book. I have been obsessed with pretty much everything he writes, and for a long time, my favorite of his books was "Only the Good Indians" but this one is right up there. It was dark with amazing, fantastic elements that drag you deeper and deeper into the story. This is a story that grabs you and refuses to let go even after the final page. It is a beautiful mix of historical elements and fantastic elements that all speak to the truths of the Blackfeet people and their loss of the buffalo.

as an established horror fan myself, definitely check the content warnings on this one. this is one of those books that’s tough to read primarily bc the most horrifying things in it are the ones that actually happened. this is my 6th title by stephen graham jones, so i’m prepared to get emotionally wrecked alongside vivid gore, but his foray into historical fiction (further back than the 1980s, at least, sorry teenage slasher) was another level of reckoning with the crimes that built what we call the united states.

i love a story within a story, and this was a story within a story WITHIN a story. really my only critique is that i wish we’d seen a little more of etsy, just to understand her, but in the end, i understand that her perspective serves first and foremost as the lens of our present looking back on this past tale. which, as it turns out, was never left in the past at all.

this is a very cool take on vampire mythology, combining classic elements with jones’s own bizarre additions. the result is folkloric and chilling. i’m really glad to see this book getting such favorable reviews, and hopefully more people get into SGJ’s backlist having started here.

I find it difficult to gather all of my thoughts on this book. Every time I think I know what I want to say, more occurs to me, or things re-arrange in my mind. This is clearly the best book I've read in a very long time. It is very seldom these days that a book is so good that when I have to stop reading, I keep thinking about it. I listened to the audio, which was brilliant, and several times found myself sitting in the car, not getting out, or going in to work, or home, wherever it was I parked.

It started slowly, and drew me in. This is even harder without spoilers... Over the course of the book I found myself coming to care about characters, only to come to loathe them, and then understand them. I found the arctic loneliness of Shelley's Frankenstein and elements of Stokers Dracula. I have a Weasel Plume T-shirt on the way. I own exactly two shirts based on someone else's novels. Both of them, as it turns out, were novels written by Stephen Graham Jones.

This book, though... historical, the voices so perfect, the name choices... the glimpses into a lost time, the strength, and weakness, of the human will. The depths of vengeance possible.

This is clearly the most unique modern vampire novel I've experienced. It is next-level storytelling. You will never forget this story. The voices, provided by Shane Ghostkeeper, Marin Ireland, and Owen Teale will be living in my head for a very long time. Thank you Good Stab, Three Persons, and so many others.

Highest possible recommendation.

After reading Jones' Indian lake trilogy, I was anxious to move with him to his next American historical horror book .where Part revenge story, part Interview with the Vampire, part elegiac history of the Piegan Blackfeet peoples. The story, and its characters, and its period-accurate prose, are compelling enough, but as the tale progresses, and its world becomes richer, the stakes higher, and the historical context clearer, it takes on a greater momentum. It helps if you know of the 19th century in the American west, especially the Marias Massacre of 1870. While the primary narrator is a white clergyman, the real protagonist is a Blackfeet known as Good Stab (just one of multiple names). Readers will root for him as well as be terrified of him. His character, his adventures, and his passionate embrace of both life and justice, make for compelling reading.

I enjoyed the Indigenous mythology and suspenseful aspects of this epic vampire tale. However, there were many gory scenes and dark horror that might be triggering for some. However, if you enjoy horror, a atypical historical account and a revenge tale you'll love this book.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a brilliant, unique book telling the story of the vampire Good Stab, mainly through his confessions recorded in a priest's diary later found by one of the priests descendants. I found the book hard to get into at first due to the old language used by Good Stab, but I am so glad I stuck with it because the language used is vital to the immersive, historical nature of the book. This book was not watered down or easy, and it should not have been since it recounts the brutal massacres of people and buffalo that occurred during Good Stab's younger years.

At first, I was unsure of why the story was being told through the priest and his many times great granddaughter, but the reveals regarding how all the character's lives intertwined surprised me and led to a conclusion I was not suspecting.

I was also surprised by the vampires in this story. Though I do not read many vampire books, I found this take on vampires to be unique. Without going into spoilers, I liked how the vampires' feeding ramifications led to discussions about identity.

Overall, I am glad I read this book. It took me a while to write this review because I really didn't know how to adequately sum up this book, but I know this story will stick with me.

DNF @ 31%
A friend of mine put it perfectly - this book is written like a giant run-on sentence. Even with multiple re-reads of different parts, I don't think I was really grasping what was going on. Way too verbose and overcomplicated.

Thank you @sagapress for the digital ARC of Stephen Graham Jones’s latest novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.

Told through diary entries, confessions, and the perspective of an ancestor searching for truth, this story is a slow burn but one that absolutely pays off. It took me a minute to settle into the rhythm, but once it clicked, I couldn’t put it down.

This is an Indigenous revenge tale with a supernatural vampire twist and it was everything I wanted and more. It’s eerie, layered, and haunting in the best way.

This is the second novel I’ve read by SGJ and I’m such a fan of his storytelling, it’s masterful.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter ended up being my favorite read of April!

In this story told in parallel timelines, a university researcher begins studying the newly unearthed diary of a man who just happens to have been her great-great-grandfather, a preacher in a Montana frontier town in the 1870s, who relates the horrifying and tragic narrative of a peculiar elderly Pikuni man who began visiting him following his church sermons and who has a disturbing tale of his own.

This book was ... not what I was expecting. It's possible I did not read the blurb thoroughly and did not know what I was getting into. The premise at face value was intriguing, particularly as it's rooted at least in part in a very true, shameful event in U.S. history. It is certainly well-written, and the narrative is descriptive and engaging. I was unprepared, though, for quite the level of overall weirdness in store, and the frequency and nature of the violence, so for me it was just OK.

Vampires and Native American lore. What an interesting combo. Stephen Graham Jones has a way with words and writes the most detailed and graphic scenes that unnerve. This is a cross between historical fiction and Western horror. The story along with the descriptive gory scenes will stay with you long after you've finished.

Stephen Graham Jones does it again. Weird West horror is tricky to get right, but Jones is more than up to the task as he paints a vivid world.

A masterful horror novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter still haunts my thoughts long after setting it down. Told from three different perspectives and times, Graham Jones weaves a story of historical violence and paranormal terror through the diary of a 1912 Lutheran pastor and his documented conversations with Good Stab, a Blackfeet. The story itself is horrific in every sense—it’s full of gore and physical violence, but also of the horrors of colonial terrorism and the massacre of Blackfeet peoples by settlers in the American West. As Good Stab’s detailed story of revenge unfolds, the audience is left wondering about the nature of horror and who bear responsibility for the past.

I don't consider myself a horror reader. It's not a genre that I find myself drifting to, but I do like to dabble once in a while especially if there is any hint of historical horror or gothic horror. This is my third book by Stephen Graham Jones and so far I've been sucked in to every book that I read. In my opinion Jones draws me in with the humanity of the characters in his books and slowly creeps in the horror when I'm already invested and feel cornered.

"The Buffalo Hunter Hunter" is a great amalgamation of Blackfeet culture, history, horror, and revenge. The events slowly unfold into the Marias Massacre, a real event in which 173 members of the Blackfeet nation (men, women, and children) were slaughtered by a U.S. Calvary in what's now called Montana in 1870.

Told in alternating narratives- a Blackfeet named Good Stab and a Lutheran priest named Arthur Beaucarne, Jones invites his readers to witness a "confession" without resorting to binary judgement. Is there really a difference between these two characters? One who kills for survival and another who helps "saves people's souls"?

This is not an easy read. There are some barriers that a patient reader has to overcome such as the language. I wouldn't call this a plot driven book but rather a character driven and slow burning horror. There is plenty of blood and violence that soaks these pages. If you are new to Jones' writing, I don't recommend picking this one up as your introduction. I think "The Only Good Indians" would be a better fit for you.

This chilling, multi-layered, complex historical horror novel is my top horror pick of 2025 so far. I won't forget Good Stab for a long time. I don't read horror, but I will read anything by Stephen Graham Jones and luckily for me I got a long backlist to read.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Simon and Schuster/Gallery for the advanced reader's copy of the book.

I really wanted to like this one especially after seeing all the great reviews. Deciding to delve in on a long rainy weekend, the atmosphere was right but my wimpy mind could not accept what I was reading as enjoyable. The writing style is very different and difficult to follow. But the biggest issue for me was all the gore and graphic violence, bloodletting and vicious killing. I’m sure there are true horror fans who could read and actually enjoy the story but I am not one of those. Now I’m left feeling disappointed and quite nauseous. My thanks to Saga Press for providing a review copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to the publisher for an eARC to read and review. I did end up listening to the audio after the book was published.

Tropes/Themes: Generational Trauma, Revenge, Western, Historical, Vampires, Academia

This was a wild read and honestly the audio was TOP TIER, but all of Stephen Graham Jones audio books are phenomenal so I expect nothing less at this point. This is my 6th book by him in the last two years.. one could say that I like his books.

This story was unexpected and different. The story is following "Three Person's" and "Good Stab", but is being told through the journal of their conversations that "Three Person's great great great (not sure how great) grandfather that she is trying to use to get tenure at the college she works at.

I loved everything about how this story was told. It was very intense and the plot twist with the relationship between Three Persons and Good Stab was wild, and like Good Stab was playing the long game. I don't think I have ever read a vampire book like this one. The concept of turning into the animal or type of person that you eat is unique and honestly a really cool take on vampires.

Also I hurt for Good Stab. He was so torn between getting revenge while staying true to himself was heart wrenching.

Also the end, like wtf, did not see that coming in a million years. Also, super creepy but I loved it.

Honestly, Stephen Graham Jones, did it again. It is different from the other 5 books I have read by him but I loved it.

I'm not sure how this could have been a better read. The dual (or actually triple) timeline and vampires were done so well. Jones is amazingly talented at bringing readers into the story and weaving a tale where no details are wasted. This may be one of my favorite of his works now.