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Title: The Monster Hunter Files
Series: Monster Hunter #7
Author: Larry Correia, et al
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 336
Format: Digital Edition
| Synopsis: |
A collection of short stories about various monster hunts and hunters, some good, some bad, all interesting. Correia starts the parade but then each story is by a different author and none are overlapping or interconnected. A nice montage to fill your Monster Hunter craving.
| My Thoughts: |
I enjoyed this collection immensely. In fact, I stayed up until almost midnight monday night reading it. I kept on telling myself, ok, THIS is the last story for the night. And before you know it, bam, midnight!
There were only 2 stories I actively disliked. One was a Jane Yellowrock/Faith Hunter story. It reminded me why I don’t read 99% of Urban Fantasy. Bad attitude assholes with chips on their shoulders so large that they have their own gravitational pull. If I had my druthers, Yellowrock would get run over by her own motorcycle while having her shotgun shoved up certain orifaces. That’s how she makes me feel after just a short story. Imagine a book, a whole series? No thank you. The second story was about some vietnam vet who rescues a commune of hippies from a vegetable demon. First, it portrays Vietnam vets as nothing but mentally disturbed violence seekers. You know how many Vets from that time settled down afterwards and just got on with life? Yeah, you don’t hear about all of them, they don’t make the news. Second, the hippies turn out to be semi-intelligent and OK people. Yeah, I’ll believe that in a heartbeat. Hippies are just soft Commies. In fact, if you put a Hardline Communist and a Hippie in a sealed room and gave me a Sig P938 and ONE bullet and told me to choose, I know exactly what I’d do. I’d line them up, Hippy first. At least if the Hardliner survives I’ll know he’ll go for my jugular. /End ranting and raving/
Here’s 2 of my favorites. One about a girl and her hippy dad (hahaha) who move into the Enchanted Forest trailor park because the girl tried to kill her science teacher because he was a werewolf. Not even her father believes her. Of course, moving in where the Queen of the Elves lives doesn’t help things. But when the girl helps take out an invading clan of garden gnomes, it’s all good! My second favorite was about Janitor One who hooks up with talking mice because his janitor2 coworker opens up a portal to hell to summon a demon because the janitor2 is jealous of how Janitor One actually does his job. I think part of the appeal was how Janitor One would literally try to fight anyone who looked down at him, even Owen Pitt 🙂 That takes some serious balls.
The rest of the stories varied between pretty good to hohum. Some were funny, some were sad. One of the ho-hum ones dealt with the douchebag hunter from the Monster Hunter Memoirs series. But overall it was nice to get another MHI story. It’s about the only Urban Fantasy series I look forward to reading or can even stomach in most cases.
★★★★☆
Never heard of this series… I see one name I recognize, namely Butcher, and I wonder whether it’s any similar to his Dresden Files?
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The Butcher collection in this story is solidly MHI and not very Dresden, in my opinion, but I’ve only read the first Dresden book.
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Thanks! First Dresden was one of the weakest books in the series, IMO, but I guess you’re talking more about the setting than the writing 😉
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You know you have the right kind of followers when they can answer each other’s questions like this!
I feel like I have “arrived” 😀
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meant to say story in this collection in my post above, not the reverse. Gotta quit typing blog stuff while people are asking me work-related questions.
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I know PDC answered this, but…
Not similar at all. While Dresden whines and gets his butt kicked on every possible occasion, Owen Pitt [the main character in MHI] pretty much kicks ass and takes names, with some huge ass guns. MHI is pure awesomesauce to Dresden’s millennial whinefest…
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I kind of like Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series (it’s one of the few urban fantasies where the protagonist routinely goes to church), but I really like her Blood of the Earth trilogy, about a nature witch who has escaped from a cult. But the story in this anthology wasn’t enjoyable at all.
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Yeah, but you also like LOTS of other UF series as well. So your opinion doesn’t count 😉
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My opinion can too count. Listen to it: 1, 2, 3, 6, um…kinda gets fuzzy after that. Maybe I need to read some Jim Butcher or Patricia Briggs to get back on track 😉
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Hahahahahaa!
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Sounds fun…Is this the kind of series you have to read the previous books? Or is it just book just a collection of unrelated stores?
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I’d recommend at least one other book before reading this collection. You don’t have to, but I think they’d make a lot more sense after reading one of the novels.
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Once again, PDC beats me to the punch!
It’s not necessary, but you’ll understand a lot more if you do. Plus, there are some spoilers for events in the previous 6 books, so I’d recommend reading the first 3 anyway…
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I also didn’t like the Jane Yellowrock story. I picked up the first of her novels during a sale, and now I’m not eager to read it.
I loved the Vietnam vet story, though. I thought it showed the vets in a good light, because they could have just sniped all the hippies and called off the mission, but they actually went in to save as many as they could.
You must be right about the Monster Hunter Memoirs story being ho-hum, I have no recollection of it at all, and I’ve really enjoyed the Memoirs series. I’ve got to go back to the book and see if I accidentally skipped that story!
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The Memoirs one was right near the end and was as much “research” as anything else. It was pretty boring actually…
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Oh, I remember it now, the gnolls in Britain.
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Yeah, not very interesting at all…
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And if there’s one thing Ringo should never be, it’s boring!
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Very true! As much I don’t care for Chad from the Memoirs, those books have NOT been boring 🙂
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Can you explain this anthology to a total noob like me? At first, I thought this was a collection of stories taking place in the MHI world, written by all these different authors. But there was also a Jane Yellowrock story? Was it like a crossover story, or what’s going on? Thanks!
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Quickly now, before PDC beats me yet again! 😉
Anyway, you are correct both ways. It is an anthology taking place in the MHI universe. But Correia has allowed other fictional characters, mainly UF hunters and guys like the Supernatural boys, to also exist. So Faith Hunter writes a Jane Yellowrock short story that intersects with the MHI side of things.
Co-existing yet apart, if that makes sense.
So the Jane Yellowrock story is a crossover. I don’t think any of the others are, well, except John Ringo’s Monster Hunter Memoirs story…
Hope that helps
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Thanks, that helps a lot! Interesting concept too, my interest has just gone up, in the hopes that more UF characters I know might make an appearance in the MHI world.
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In the first book, I believe that a bunch are mentioned, just to get people’s interest. But overall Correia seems to have very little interest in crossing over with other UF characters.
I for one am thankful for that. I can’t stand most UF, so to be able to find one that is ongoing and keeps my interest, is a goldmine I don’t want to see polluted 😉
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hahahahahaha oh my goodness, you had me laughing my head off at the hippie/commie rant 😂😂😂 And I thought I was hardline on commies 😂😂 (though I’d say a lot of the time hippies are just pretending to be soft commies, cos a lot of them are the anarcho type) Anyhoo, aside over, I really do want to check this out, cos I enjoy short stories, but it’s hard to find collections that are mostly good.
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Yeah, as others have noted, I’m not sure exactly how well this stands alone without the other MHI books backing it up. It would be interesting to see what someone who has never read any MHI thinks of it.
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Butcher is the only author I recognize on that cover, but man do these stories all sound… super imaginative hahah Glad to hear you enjoyed this collection in the end though.
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Yeah, it was a lot of fun overall and that is what I look for in the MHI books.
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[…] The Monster Hunter Files 4 Stars. Except for just a couple of stories, loved this collection. […]
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