The SF Site Featured Review: Monster Hunter Nemesis (original) (raw)


Larry Correia Larry Correia is the *New York Times* bestselling author of the *Monster Hunterseries for Baen Books. He graduated with a degree in accounting from Utah State University and went to work for a Fortune 500 company as a financial analyst. Eventually, Larry ended up in the gun business, where he was a machinegun dealer, firearms instructor, and freelance writer for various gun magazines. Most recently he has worked in military contracting. Larry lives in the mountains of Utah with his wife and children. Larry Correia Website ISFDB Bibliography SF Site Review: Spellbound* SF Site Review: Hard Magic

Larry Correia Larry Correia is the New York Times bestselling author of the **Monster Hunter**series for Baen Books. He graduated with a degree in accounting from Utah State University and went to work for a Fortune 500 company as a financial analyst. Eventually, Larry ended up in the gun business, where he was a machinegun dealer, firearms instructor, and freelance writer for various gun magazines. Most recently he has worked in military contracting. Larry lives in the mountains of Utah with his wife and children. Larry Correia Website ISFDB Bibliography SF Site Review: Spellbound SF Site Review: Hard Magic

A review by Trent Walters

Imagine the unholy love child of Hellboy, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Stephen Sommers,Underworld, and sundry blockbuster movies. You might get a sense of the kind of book that Monster Hunter Nemesis represents -- thriller pacing, larger-than-life characters, outrageous/audacious speculation that skirts the edge of the believable. A barrel of monkeys, in other words.

I first stumbled on Larry Correia lecturing about writing stories on YouTube, but it was the Hugo controversy (unless he killed someone, don't tell me about it since I tend to be disappointed in all parties in controversies) that made me wonder what kind of writer he was. Was it hype? Political shenanigans? Or did the writer deserve to be on the ballot? After reading this, most folks should understand why he'd appear on a popular awards ballot. Correia's ear for storytelling is uncannily good. My inner critic kept predicting his downfall, but the writing consistently pulled through.

Frankenstein's monster, or Franks, has been fighting an other-dimensional being that some might call demons for several centuries, eventually signing up to fight for George Washington. His contract explicitly states that the U.S. cannot create a monster like Franks. No one wants to break this contract. So Stricken, who's been building new monsters in Franks's image illegally, is trying to undermine political trust in Franks so that he can unveil this new, better designed soldier to the President. Unbeknownst to Striken, these new warrior shells are filled by ancient warrior spirits from other dimensions -- demons -- which allows them to come into this plane. Not only is Stricken about to up his production, but he's also gotten the President to put a quarter billion bounty on Franks's head, bringing monster hunters out from all over the globe to track him down

Just over halfway into the book, there was one fight too many, but that's what Correia's reader will be gunning for: a highly trained monster who guns down other monsters and almost unapologetically amoral when accidental casualties pile up. He's just doing his job -- saving the world from monsters. Just don't stand in his way.

While Monster Hunter Nemesis is part of a series, it can be enjoyed alone. Yay! Warning: Reading it will likely make you want to read the others in the series, putting a dent in your pocket book. So boo.

Trent Walters teaches science; lives in Honduras; edited poetry atAbyss & Apex; blogs science, SF, education, and literature, etc. atAPB; co-instigated Mundane SF (with Geoff Ryman and Julian Todd) culminating in an issue for Interzone; studied SF writing with dozens of major writers and and editors in the field; and has published works inDaily Cabal,Electric Velocipede,Fantasy,Hadley Rille anthologies,LCRW, among others.