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.

Suprizingly entertaining

Why should I buy this book? A valid question I had to ask myself when I was reading the description. Let's face it, if you like werewolfs, zombies, vampires etc. then the title alone was sufficient to suck you in. However, if you, like me, were looking for something in the science fiction genre and was surprised to find this so highly rated and furthermore having great reviews by most that read it then I will answer the other question: How can it be?
How can it be that a book that talks about vampires, guns and gore is so highly regarded? How can it be that a book that has a story out of every other book in this genre is so entertaining? How can people like such literature?
Let me tell you something. There is a lot worse out there and this book is actually an oasis among them. The reasons are clear to me and they boil down to this: A cult classic B-rated movie. For those that have seen The Blob or any of the Evil Dead movies this is the feeling you get out of this. Something so bad it is actually good. Let's look at the list.
Monsters out of handbook. Check. Endless beating of main character throughout the book (if you don't like him I would say this is a big plus). Check. Reminding us how awesome he is. Check. Anti-goverment remarks at every chapter (can't wait for a movie to play the drinking game). Check. Classic boy meets girl theme. Check. I can go on and on.
And yet we also see clear writing without straining the language and without taking the reader for a fool. Many different locations and a story that is not boring one bit from start to finish. Entertaining. Good jokes, some I have heard before but the context makes them better. Added bonus - great voice acting by Oliver Wyman.
This is not a masterpiece for sure but I sometimes want something entertaining that I can relax with. This series provides me that pleasure and therefore adds something to the world.

Did not meet my expectations, thankfully!

I originally purchased this book when I saw it "on the cheap" on one of Audbiles specials. I had the lowest of expectations just judging from the cover art and the name of the book but as I drive allot and the price was right I figured I would give it a try.
MUCH to my delight this was a fun, action packed and funny as hell book. I ended up well hooked on the series and have now read them all. Larry has a good imagination and a heck of a sick sense of humor, which I can relate to.
Bottom line............Loved it.

My second Monster Hunter book

This is my second Monster Hunter book and the first in this series. My first read ( or listen ) was Monster Hunter Memoirs Grunge and that was really cheesy, with a main character who was a real douche. This book seems to have a little of the same problem with it's main character , but not nearly to the same degree. This story was well thought out and has several likable monster hunters and monsters. There is non stop action and a variety of cool monsters. I think it became a bit unbelievable when the main characters keep miraculously surviving unsurvivable situations. Having said this I might give book number two a try also.

Killin’s my business and business is fine

This audiobook has monsters of impossible, mind-bending proportions. The main villain, the “Cursed One,” is not just a mwahaha villain – we also get inside his head through his memories in Owen’s ghost-guided dream/nightmares that recall C.O.’s journey from a “mean son-of-a-bitch” conquistador to one very megalomaniacal, unearthly, tentacled, flesh-wriggling being who is intent of stopping time itself. I think I’m in love with Owen Z. Pitt, who’s inherently epic, but it’s hard to let the listener know how epic Owen is through first-person narration without it sounding over-the-top or silly. Like when a master vampire tells Owen he has the strongest will of any mortal she’s ever met, or when one guys says to the other that he shouldn’t mess with Owen because he has “one hundred pounds of muscle” on him. Or worse yet, when Julie reads his file and we find out Owen’s a marksman/genius. This book is cliché in the best way possible. It's like 1 part monsterish gore, 1 part comedy, and 1 part all sorts of artillery. It's like Hot Fuzz.

Oliver Wyman is great. This is the first time I heard him read, and his style is perfect for Monster Hunter International. He has a rather macho tone with just a bit of immaturity, and again, the term “epic” comes to mind to describe his style. His reading of female voices didn’t make me burst out laughing, which is what usually happens when I listen to male narrators read girls’ voices. The only thing that jarred me was how seriously Oliver Wyman took those vocal direction. I usually comment on whether narrators do a good or bad job at distinguishing internal monologue with external speak when audiobooks are in first-person, like this one. The listener has no problem with distinguishing the two in Monster Hunter International, because Oliver Wyman reads the directions in a rather calm soft voice, while reading the actual words with the proper emphasis, instead of splitting the two.

Why didn't I like this?

Did anyone else absolutely love the Grimnoir Chronicles and absolutely hate Monster Hunter International? I did, and I'm still trying to figure out what the difference is. Part of it is probably the order in which I listened to them. After the brilliance of Grimnoir, I had high hopes for MHI and was severely let down. If I had listened in reverse order, maybe I would have found MHI to be just mediocre, and not such a thorough disappointment. I rated it 2 stars because I'm trying to overcome that bias, but how I felt after listening to it (and even during the later parts of the book) was a 1-star reaction.

In the Grimnoir books, Correia created a new set of supernatural rules, and it worked really well, intertwining with historical events and the politics of the day. In MHI, it's just your typical werewolves and vampires and basically a bunch of people try to shoot them and blow them up. I guess that didn't do it for me. The plot and character development of the Grimnoir books seemed so much more developed and interesting, while the Monster Hunter characters are superficial and stereotyped. I found myself neither believing them nor caring much one way or another what happened to them as the book progressed.

And the narrators definitely play a role. Bronson Pinchot really brought the Grimnoir series to life, not just with character voices, but with his tone and with pauses in just the right spots. Oliver Wyman kind of read MHI and didn't add much. Or maybe the writing was just that much worse and he had less to work with. I honestly don't know where one stops and the other begins.

Anyway, you have two popular series by the same author with very similar overall ratings. But in my opinion, they are nothing like each other, and I recommend digging a little deeper into the reviews to try to figure out if this is what you want.

cant finish it

extremely cheesy very predictable and over exaggerated. I couldn't stop rolling my eyes at the scenes and thinking yo myself that if this book can sale and make money than I should be an author to because I guarantee you I can be more creative than this story is. Narrator was ok so I'll give performance a par level 3 stars

Enjoyable series

11/2018 Editing my review--I'm now many books into the series and it has improved. I enjoy the team's dynamics and the world they live in is very creative. Just be careful not to get the knock-off fan-fic titles that can be easily mistaken for the originals since the have Larry Correia's name on them as well as the author's

Would you try another book from Larry Correia and/or Oliver Wyman?
I purchased the 2nd book in the series before listening to the first, based solely on Audible ratings. Not sure I would have purchased it if I waited until after listening to the first.

Would you recommend Monster Hunter International to your friends? Why or why not?
I would recommend it to those that have a great interest and knowledge of weaponry...for me the amount of the story spent on describing, in detail, the weapons made my brain tune out.

Any additional comments?
While listening to this title I frequently realized it had become background noise and I wasn't really listening. Sometimes I rewound. Sometimes I didn't rewind and I didn't feel like I missed anything. On the plus side, he characters were engaging and I was very interested in their stories and rooted for their survival.

Had some good moments

Right from the start I was put off. This accountant gets attacked by his boss, who is a werewolf. The accountant pulls out a gun he keeps strapped to his ankle. Later they explain why an accountant would have an ankle gun, but it was too little too late.

Every single military cliche you have ever heard is in this long long book. There were moments when I laughed and I liked the take on Elves and on Orcs. It was no where near as good as Jonathan Maberry or Dean Koontz. You want monster's try Koontz's Frankenstein series. You want tough guy and Zombies try Maberry's Patient Zero.

Oliver Wyman did ok, but I have never a big fan of his and I wondered if the story would have sounded better from Ray Porter or Wil Wheaton.

BANG! BANG! fizzle...

What disappointed you about Monster Hunter International?

The concept of MHI isn't new territory, that's fine. A group of mercenaries hunt monsters. It's been done but I can always go back to this sort of thing. The book starts out with a great scene in an office building with our main character being hunted by his Werewolf boss, and this scene is fantastic. It's followed up with another fantastic set piece on an abandoned freighter. From there the action scenes devolve into "then there was lots of gun fire. Then more gunfire. And afterward more gunfire and more gunfire and lots more bullets." They become tedious exercises without a hint of suspense.

The main character could easily be broken up into three or four characters. The secondary characters never get fully developed, mostly existing on the periphery of one dimensional archetypes. Our hero is too perfect; "HE'S A GENIUS! HE'S A PIT FIGHTER! HE'S AN ACCOUNTANT!" The requisite love interest is too obvious, her requisite douchey boyfriend is hated the main character as required by law. The government goons are total goons with nary a shred of basic humanity.

Has Monster Hunter International turned you off from other books in this genre?

I still enjoy books in this style, and perhaps MHI later books are significantly better, after all, this is Correia's first book. It's pretty bad because of that. But the MHI universe has a lot of followers, I can't imagine it's because the stories are universally bad.

Which scene was your favorite?

The action set piece Correia develops on an abandoned freighter is really great, it goes on for a long time and allows several characters to begin to develop; it's a shame those character's developments end there.

What character would you cut from Monster Hunter International?

I would seriously consider cutting every character from this book. Not because they are bad, but because there's too many with too few attributes. The main character is good at everything: guns, math, wrestling, fighting, weight lifting, people, etc. And this character could be broken up into three different characters: an accountant, a fighter, and a gun nut. Instead his abilities get in the way of other characters being able to do anything or contribute to parts of the narrative. The main character is part of a team but solves every problem himself.

Any additional comments?

Monster Hunter International showed some initial promise, but as the story developed, sometimes in a web-like fashion of family politics, it failed to create a real reason to really care about the vast majority of characters. The main character seemed to have intense anger issues; his demise was something I would have taken particular delight in (that doesn't bode well for your protagonist.) The gun porn was fine, even for a non-gun-nut like myself. But as the dozen or so action scenes go on they get less and less interesting. The near invincible vampires became a study in tedium as I read about the thousands of rounds of ammunition being shot at them with no progress made toward their demise. For professional monster hunters they certainly are ill-equipped to kill vampires.

I can see where this sort of thing interests people and, again, maybe the later books are better, Correia shows loads of promise here. His other novels, especially Son of Black Sword, show a matured and nuanced writer this early work barely hints at.

Clichés and character incongruity destroy plot

I can't hope to make a dent in the 'Overall Average Customer Rating' of this thing. It's currently at 4.2 with 2,229 ratings.

Really, the reason I'm writing this is for anyone who reads my reviews, checking to see if their tastes are compatible with mine, and if so, looking for suggestions.

I do this pretty often myself. I look for a fellow Audible listener who's scribed a lot of reviews, compare their take on books we've both read, and use that as a litmus test to check if I can trust their recommendations.

What I've found with Monster Hunter International is that fellow listeners who gave the book 5 starts tend to also esteem books like the novelization of Michael Bay's film 'Transformers'.

Meanwhile, listeners who gave this book 1 star tend to have some weighty, worthy suggestions in their 5 star echelon.

Hmm, interesting!

A good story, densely plotted, and a great reading by Oliver Wyman makes for an enthralling listen. So why only three stars? Well, partly because I think the book could have done with some stricter editing. It's a long, long journey with a number of diversions which, though entertaining, would have improved the pace of the book by their absence.
But the main reason for my docking two stars from my review is the barely hidden subtext. Anyone with any understanding of the last decade will spot the right-wing, redneck militia-leaning protagonists. For 'monsters' read 'terrorists' and for 'Monster Hunter International' read 'Anti Government vigilante militias' who operate on the basis that 'my gun is bigger than yours'. It was as if the author was channeling the spirits of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld as he wrote.
I realise that for many this aspect is probably an attractive and positive part of the story, but it left me feeling slightly uncomfortable while enjoying the mayhem. It is possible to write exciting monster hunting and supernatural mayhem books. I need only mention Jim Butcher and early Laurell K Hamilton as prime examples of politically neutral masters of the genre.

Having said all that, I'll still go for the second volume!

They Shoot Monsters, Don't They?

This was a great surprise! It's a really great action / adventure fantasy novel which doesn't pretend to be anything other than it is. Just sit back and listen to the great narration by Oliver Wyman as the adventure washes over you. I know a lot of people out there have issues with Larry Correia's gun lovin' attitudes and obvious political opinions but if you can get over that then you'll really enjoy this book (and the rest in the series). It's fun, it goes bang, it has monsters and then the monsters go bang!

Made me want to eat my ears

The creepiest thing about this book was the protagonist.

This will probably spoil the book for anyone reading this and about to listen to it, but I imagined the narrator delivering all of his lines like he's looking at an imaginary camera, head tilted slightly forward with one eyebrow raised and saying the word 'Duh-uh-uh!' Over and over again for twenty hours of my life that I'll never get to spend with my family.

If you're from Texas, you'll love it.

I think this simply wasn't for me

Having listened to this I think I simply don't like the protagonist. I'm sure the whole macho shoot first think eventually thing will appeal to some but didn't for me. I found myself constantly hoping that something would manage to kill pitt for good which sadly didn't happen.

The unhealthy obsession with guns, barely hidden political views and telegraphing of events to come throughout the book left me disappointed. This was topped off by one of the most inexplicable romance angles I have ever listened to and terrible attempts to build emotion with characters before something dreadful happened to them.

However it's all fine because guns are cool, especially if you are shooting guns and even more so if you are shooting them at something that doesn't require a moral justification on if its right or wrong. I will be sticking with Harry Dresden where good story, character development and well written action blend together into an interesting and gripping read. It's a shame this book lacks any of those.

Fantastic, the hunt is on!

This is a face paced story, although you need to get over the fact that you will know your guns by the end. The Hero Owen Z Pitt is both funny, humble, arrogant and fantastically violent. The rest of the gang is just brilliant and the banter will keep you giggling, The story has enough complexity to keep your interest and the characters are sufficiently rounded for you to care what happens to them. Urban fantasy at its best!

Decent

A fairly simple book, but entertaining nontheless. Ideal for those listening to a book while doing something slightly distracting.

Utter Junk

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Returning it for another book.

What could Larry Correia have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Nothing.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Oliver Wyman?

Can't think of anyone that actually could have made this enjoyable.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Monster Hunter International?

Rip it up and start again.

Any additional comments?

After a string of excellent books i decided to try something a little different. I wanted something fun and entertaining with action from the off. Unfortunately it turned out to be a very bad decision.

I managed to fight my way through the best part of 5 hours before giving up. The writing in general was awful, I could forgive some of this if the story was half decent or it had some likable characters but the whole thing read like a NRA lovin' red necks wet dream.

The main character 'Owen' was like some superhero from the get go which left very little room for development and the supporting characters were horribly stereotypical. The dialogue was worse than a B-movie action film. Speaking of which i suppose it could be likened to a super cheesy horror movie where you spend more time laughing or cringing at just how bad it is. Sadly unlike said movies it goes on for a lot longer than 90 minutes. Leading on to the pacing which is very very slow, we're subjected to chapter after chapter of the MHI training routine, but really what is the point? The lead character is already a world shooting champion, state wrestling champion and holds several black belts in various martial arts, not to mention his prowess as a bare knuckle boxer etc etc. Then the author obviously been a huge gun enthusiast treats us to every specification and bullet type imaginable of said guns.
I'm not going to waste any more time on this review. To sum it up i would say the author basically indulged to play out his own fantasy.

I cannot understand why this got decent reviews. Avoid!

Second time of listening

Enjoyed it just as much as the first time if not more.

Like the characters and style of writing.

Loved it!

Loved this book escapism at its best.. story moved with pace.. and what a narrator!! Fantastic! .. he had each voice and accents perfect , you could clearly distinguish the many characters..his narrative of chapter 22 was so good I felt I was there in that dark damp swamp in the heat of the battle. .. it didn't get the full 5 stars only because the authors obvious love of guns did get a bit tiresome but that's the only minus point... at over 20 hours it in no way felt like it! Highly recommend!

Full of action

Really enjoyable story, lots of action and of course loads of guns! Very good narration and I eventually even became used to the American accent. Well worthwhile