Monster Hunter Vendetta

By: Larry Correia

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 21 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

Accountant turned professional monster hunter Owen Zastava Pitt managed to stop the nefarious Old Ones' invasion plans last year, but as a result made an enemy out of one of the most powerful beings in the universe. Now an evil death cult known as the Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition wants to capture Owen in order to gain the favor of the great Old Ones. The Condition is led by a fanatical necromancer known as the Shadow Man. The government wants to capture the Shadow Man and has assigned the enigmatic Agent Franks to be Owen's full-time bodyguard, which is a polite way of saying that Owen is monster bait.

With supernatural assassins targeting his family, a spy in their midst, and horrific beasties lurking around every corner, Owen and the staff of Monster Hunter International don't need to go hunting, because this time the monsters are hunting them. Fortunately, this bait is armed and very dangerous.

©2010 Larry Correia (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This lighthearted, testosterone-soaked sequel to 2009's Monster Hunter International will delight fans of action horror with elaborate weaponry, hand-to-hand combat, disgusting monsters, and an endless stream of blood and body parts." ( Publishers Weekly)

Great book

An excellent sequel. Except for an unrealistic southern accent excellent voice acting as well. Highly recommended.

Whispersync finally available

Any additional comments?

Finally! While books 1, 3, and 4 in the series have been available with Whispersync for some time, this title was strangely absent until early in December. Weighing in at 23 hours, the heftiest of any of the Correia novels so far, Whispersync was a must.

I tend to do a lot of research before starting a new series, and Correia's books were no different. Thanks to the many helpful Audible listener reviews, I knew that some listeners and readers had complained about the verbosity of Correia's early writing, and that's one of my pet peeves in reading or listening. I was in the middle of listening to the Hyperion books at the time, and the excessive attention to mundane details was growing highly annoying.

Because of that, I opted to start with the first Grimnoir book of Correia's, rather than the slightly-earlier-in-his-career Monster Hunter. It's still no slouch at 16 hours, but Correia (or perhaps his editor) was learning to tighten up the writing to achieve the right balance between detail and velocity. Because it was such an incredible listen, I decided to give the Monster Hunter series a try. But to soften the blow of a 21 hour book, I went with the Kindle Edition + Audible Whispersync combination. This was almost perfect, and I'll be hard-pressed to ever do another 15-hour or more Audible book unless I can Whispersync to the Kindle version. I listened to the excellent narration in the car, but moved forward at a faster pace when I was at home or lunch reading the ebook.

When I finished the first Monster Hunter, I was all set to buy the rest of the series, because I knew I would be going all the way to the end. But alas! The second book (and second book only) wasn't available with Whispersync! I cried; I wept. I considered going forward with just the Audible version; I considered going forward with just the Kindle version; I considered buying both at full price/credit and manually jumping back and forth. But at the end of the day, the lack of Whispersync just caused me to move on and enjoy a number of other excellent books (and some not-so-excellent) from my Audible library.

If it's not obvious by now, I'm a Whispersync junky. I'm almost always willing to pay a slight premium to have both text and audio versions available to jump back and forth. Not as much of a premium as they want, for instance, for the Star Wars books, but the $3-4 adder for Correia's books is just right.

So when I found that Vendetta with Whispersync was available in early December, I was elated and purchased both versions immediately.

If I was reviewing just the Audible version alone, I'd give it:

* 5 stars for story
* 5 stars for narration
* 3 stars overall

As you might expect, the points off would be for the slow pacing and verbosity. There are certainly areas where the attention to detail becomes overwhelming, especially for the audio version. I don't consider this nearly as much of an issue for a print or ebook version since I can read so rapidly. But when I'm bottlenecked by the narration, I become impatient.

With Whispersync, I'm much happier, and I'll add back in a star. I'm still going to dock it slightly for the verbosity, but I'm thankful that Correia has improved this aspect in later novels.

Story? Amazing as always, although I must confess that I felt slightly cheated by the conclusion.
Narration - Perfect. No complaints there.

Keeps getting better.

This book series is quickly becoming my guilty pleasure. After wondering if I should even continue with Book one, I stuck with it and become more and more enjoyable. I immediately downloaded this book and now the third as well.

It's cringingly corny at times, but the overall plot and the awesome bad guys makes up for it. In fact, I'm starting to feel the cheesy-ness adds to the whole charm.

If you are looking for a simple adventure to escape into, with comic books style action, the world of Monster Hunter International is a great place.

The voice performance is very consistent and very well done. It really adds to the quality of this title.

great listen

this was a great lesson I can't wait to get the next book and the next book and the next

a good, move along story

it was a nice move along story, it kept a good pace and action kept the attention looking forward.

Hogwarts should've called MHI. Guns > Wands

A fantasy book you could actually recommend to your friends without being laughed at. It doesnt take itself too seriously which makes it a lot of fun.

Just as good as the first book

This is another great edition to the series, the character building worked really well. I can't believe I didn't figure out who agent Franks was earlier lol. Overall I'm hooked and downloading book 3 asap.

Another great monster hunter book!

Excellent book! Could put it down! I'm a gun nut at heart and I wish that the author would get back to his roots a bit more on this (like he did in the first book) but it was still awesome! Looking forward to the next one!

so fun

couldn't stop reading it. if you want action violence and guns this is the book for you

Great series!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

yes, it is a fun, well-written sci-fi, that is frequently hilarious.

What about Oliver Wyman’s performance did you like?

He was a wonderful choice for the book. Clear voice and and nuances to characters.

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

I don't listen to any book in one sitting. My attention span isn't that long!

Any additional comments?

I would not recommend listening to this with children in ear-shot. There is not a lot of cursing, but enough that I wouldn't want families or neighbors to over hear.