Monster Hunter International

By: Larry Correia

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 24 hrs

Publisher's summary

Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a 14th story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer.

It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Officially secret, some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. On the other side are the people who kill monsters for a living. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit.

It's actually a pretty sweet gig, except for one little problem. An ancient entity known as the Cursed One has returned to settle a centuries-old vendetta. Should the Cursed One succeed, it means the end of the world, and MHI is the only thing standing in his way.

With the clock ticking towards Armageddon, Owen finds himself trapped between legions of undead minions, belligerent federal agents, a cryptic ghost who has taken up residence inside his head, and the cursed family of the woman he loves. Business is good.... Welcome to Monster Hunter International.

©2009 Larry Correia (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Amazing story, Fantastic Narration

LOVED this book!!!!! Held me from word one!!!! Awesome storytelling, cannot wait to hear the other books in the series!!!

Overall entertaining and enjoyable.

A bit predictable but probably worth your time nonetheless. I've enjoyed his later books more.

Great reread.

I've listened to the series over and over in the past few years. It's just down right great fun.

Great pacing, story, & narration

Worth the listen. The story constantly moves forward. The characters are likable. The narrator does a great job. All in all, an absolutely great audiobook!

Wow, who would have thought...

I've always been a fan of Baen books and their hardcore science fiction offerings however I was not sure how they'd do in an audio format. If you're in the same boat, rest easy for Monster Hunter International was perhaps the most entertaining audio book I've ever listened to.

The story involves, we'll you guessed it, lots of monster killing. Nothing we haven't seen on any Sci Fy movie of the week. But that's just the setting, for what makes this book stand out is the clumsy but lovable hero we experience this adventure through. Owen Zastava Pitt is your average humble accountant and part time championship shooter who one day happens to kill a wear wolf with his bear hands... yadda yadda.... saves the world... yadda yadda...

You know the saying "you can't make this stuff up?" We'll, Larry Correia can. And rather than rolling your eyes, you find your self listening just a little longer to find out what happens next.

The action scenes are superb and plentiful. The monsters themselves are ripped straight from pop culture with nothing surprising or new (these vampires don't sparkle which is a plus.) What's nice is the fact that most modern monster lore is included. From mythology to fantasy and Bram Stoker to HP Lovecraft, this book has it all. It's rednecks vs vampires and orcs vs the old ones.

This book is a B movie plot with an A list cast who gets it just right to be solidly entertaining.

And the narration is some of the best I've ever heard. This is my first audible book read by Oliver Wymen, but it won't be my last. When it comes to dialect, the guy's got range. I found my self listening to an oafish weight lifter, a trailer park red neck, and a German aristrocat having a conversation. I had to double check the book information thinking it had multiple readers.

No wonder this book was a 2012 Audies finalist.

If you loooove guns

I wasn't really excited about this book. Sure it has "monsters," but the important word in the title is "hunter." I found myself stopping in the middle of the climax to watch TV, or do dishes. I would increase speed as minutes would go buy talking about guns and what type. There is a level of gun worship I just couldn't be apart of. They even take "religious" artifacts and turn them into bullets. Overall, if you are a big brute that loves guns, this book is for you. It is clear I am not the target audience.

just not my style

too much in depth gun talk and anti governed sentiment. I thought it would be more Dresden and less Atlas Shrugged

And now for something completely different.

What made the experience of listening to Monster Hunter International the most enjoyable?

The narrator made this book come to life. Its an amazing story, and one of my favorite Audibles so far!

What other book might you compare Monster Hunter International to and why?

Sort of a supernatural James Bond, minus the sexism.

What does Oliver Wyman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He animated the various voices and contributed special effects that seemed to blend excellently with this material!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I wanted to but it was just to long! Not that I am complaining, I bought the whole series!

Any additional comments?

I found the audible version so relaxing compared to trying to read it, Dont get me wrong, its a fantastic read but sometimes i want my hands and eyes free to do other things, drawing, painting, etc.

Paranormal A-team and the not so normal trainee

Not so normal guy becomes a monster hunter. Lots of action and dramatic reading later and we are setup for an x-files meets A-team episodic series. The book was good for what it was, lots of action, lots of suspense related to that action and it had an interesting take on monsters and fantasy. I would think if WB were to really make their monster universe work they may want to go a direction like this instead of the direction they went in the Tom Cruse Mummy movie.

The good guy characters were all fine, no one really stood out as super cool but I did worry for a few of them in the fights. Do I want to hang out with them for another 20 hours? Meh not really. The bad guys were kind of interesting, learning about the main bad guy was cool, I would have liked more on the head vampire, I think (maybe that would be a good short story), and the bad guys at the very end and the French guy are intriguing because I can't wrap my head around their mindset.

The story was your typical super hero, end of the world, chosen one, narrative. Sometimes the main character dipped into Gary Stu territory, but they did provide him something of a background to cover his skills, and he did have and accept help, and he did get his butt kicked at least once (actually he got beat up more than Wolverine, but once where he wasn't saving the day while getting beat up).

The reader for some reason reminded me of the guy that read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It is a different guy reading it and I am not sure why that kept bugging me, maybe it was how the characters were written, both were overly confident know it alls who jumped right into unusual situations. I don't know why, it was fine though, the reader spoke clearly and varied his tone as appropriate. Things got a little dramatic to laughable (to me) sometimes, but that is how the book was written I think.

In the end, I liked the book but I don't have a great desire to go out and get more books in this series. If they show up in the daily deal or I can otherwise pick them up cheap I would probably grab them but otherwise I will move on.

Great book series, Start here and get hooked

Would you consider the audio edition of Monster Hunter International to be better than the print version?

I did not read the print version.

What other book might you compare Monster Hunter International to and why?

I would say this is similar to Scott Sigler's "Hunter Hunterson" series of stories.

What about Oliver Wyman’s performance did you like?

His pacing a tone were solid and steady, relaying just the right amount of emotion where needed for punctuation.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The very first fight of the book set the tone and did some quick character development right up front.