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Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Horror (2016)When Marine Private Oliver Chadwick Gardenier is killed in the Marine barrack bombing in Beirut, somebody who might be Saint Peter gives him a choice: Go to Heaven, which while nice might be a little boring, or return to Earth. The Boss has a mission for him and he's to look for a sign. He's a Marine: He'll choose the mission.
Unfortunately, the sign he's to look for is "57."ÌýWhich, given the food services contract in Bethesda Hospital, creates some difficulty. Eventually, it appears that God's will is for Chad to join a group called "Monster Hunters International"Ìýand protect people from things that go bump in the night. From there, things trend downhill.Ìý
Monster Hunter Memoirs is the (mostly) true story of the life and times of one of MHI's most effective—and flamboyant—hunters. Pro-tips for up and coming hunters range from how to dress appropriately for jogging (low-profile body armor and multiple weapons) to how to develop contacts among the Japanese yakuza, to why it's not a good idea to make billy goat jokes to trolls.Ìý
Grunge harkens back to the Golden Days of Monster Hunting when Reagan was in office, Ray and Susan Shackleford were top hunters and Seattle sushi was authentic.
Unfortunately, the sign he's to look for is "57."ÌýWhich, given the food services contract in Bethesda Hospital, creates some difficulty. Eventually, it appears that God's will is for Chad to join a group called "Monster Hunters International"Ìýand protect people from things that go bump in the night. From there, things trend downhill.Ìý
Monster Hunter Memoirs is the (mostly) true story of the life and times of one of MHI's most effective—and flamboyant—hunters. Pro-tips for up and coming hunters range from how to dress appropriately for jogging (low-profile body armor and multiple weapons) to how to develop contacts among the Japanese yakuza, to why it's not a good idea to make billy goat jokes to trolls.Ìý
Grunge harkens back to the Golden Days of Monster Hunting when Reagan was in office, Ray and Susan Shackleford were top hunters and Seattle sushi was authentic.
307 pages, Hardcover
First published August 2, 2016
134 people are currently reading
2,754 people want to read
About the author
Larry Correia
118Ìýbooks4,276ÌýfollowersLarry Correia (born 1977) is the New York Times bestselling author of the Monster Hunter International series, the Grimnoir Chronicles, and the thriller Dead Six.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 283 reviews
November 19, 2016
This is about a 3.5 but I'm rounding down because it ends on a stupid joke.
This is not a Larry Correia book. That's clear from the beginning when the explanation of how it all came about is given in two forwards -- one by Ringo, one by Correia -- so you know this going in. It's a premise that fits well with the MHI universe as the library at the compound is an important aspect of their work, so a book of memoirs from a hunter from the 80's is very plausible.
I've never read Ringo before. I have a book of his, but I just haven't gotten around to it. He's got a ton of fans so I know he's a decent writer, he just might not be for me ultimately.
Chad, the protagonist whose POV we're forced to wade through is a douchebag. Straight up. He admits he's a womanizer so I guess that's supposed to make it all seem okay, but it's like Ringo wants to make it as difficult as possible to get past by making the guy a pick-up artist of the worst variety. It's like you're reading the memoirs of Tucker Max: Monster Hunter. No thanks. My favorite parts were when Chad (the protag) was coughing up blood or one of his one-nighters was causing him physical pain.
Don't get me wrong, I can deal with a womanizer. It was the transparent, obnoxious way Ringo would insert the lizardy thought patterns of the main character. It took me out of the story and lost sympathy again and again. It was, frankly, amateurish and lame.
So that whole thread of the book is annoying unlike the MHI series where the women are sometimes the best characters and of whom the males are highly respectful (and often fearful).
Chad is also a Mary Sue. That's been said by other reviewers, but seriously this guy does everything incredibly well. He picks up languages in a matter of weeks, if not days. He can play music better than a professional. He's astonishing at swordplay. He's smarter than anyone in the whole book. Everyone wants to hire him for whatever thing he's doing at the moment. There is some explanation for it in his encounter with "Pete", but it's still wearing. The lead in MHI could be seen as a Mary Sue as well, but he has far more layers than this douche.
I also had no concept of who any of the other characters (that had not appeared in MHI books) were. Chad's team, apart from the Nelsons, were a blur. I didn't know them or anything about them. They were names on the page. Another thing that doesn't jibe with MHI.
Will I read the next one? Of course. It's pro fanfic and it's not altogether bad. It's just ... fanfic ... and fanfic is never as good as the source. I like the memoir aspect and I want to know what happens next.
Monster Hunter International itself is a series I highly recommend and the first book is often free. Go for that and read all of those installments before you decide on this.
This is not a Larry Correia book. That's clear from the beginning when the explanation of how it all came about is given in two forwards -- one by Ringo, one by Correia -- so you know this going in. It's a premise that fits well with the MHI universe as the library at the compound is an important aspect of their work, so a book of memoirs from a hunter from the 80's is very plausible.
I've never read Ringo before. I have a book of his, but I just haven't gotten around to it. He's got a ton of fans so I know he's a decent writer, he just might not be for me ultimately.
Chad, the protagonist whose POV we're forced to wade through is a douchebag. Straight up. He admits he's a womanizer so I guess that's supposed to make it all seem okay, but it's like Ringo wants to make it as difficult as possible to get past by making the guy a pick-up artist of the worst variety. It's like you're reading the memoirs of Tucker Max: Monster Hunter. No thanks. My favorite parts were when Chad (the protag) was coughing up blood or one of his one-nighters was causing him physical pain.
Don't get me wrong, I can deal with a womanizer. It was the transparent, obnoxious way Ringo would insert the lizardy thought patterns of the main character. It took me out of the story and lost sympathy again and again. It was, frankly, amateurish and lame.
So that whole thread of the book is annoying unlike the MHI series where the women are sometimes the best characters and of whom the males are highly respectful (and often fearful).
Chad is also a Mary Sue. That's been said by other reviewers, but seriously this guy does everything incredibly well. He picks up languages in a matter of weeks, if not days. He can play music better than a professional. He's astonishing at swordplay. He's smarter than anyone in the whole book. Everyone wants to hire him for whatever thing he's doing at the moment. There is some explanation for it in his encounter with "Pete", but it's still wearing. The lead in MHI could be seen as a Mary Sue as well, but he has far more layers than this douche.
I also had no concept of who any of the other characters (that had not appeared in MHI books) were. Chad's team, apart from the Nelsons, were a blur. I didn't know them or anything about them. They were names on the page. Another thing that doesn't jibe with MHI.
Will I read the next one? Of course. It's pro fanfic and it's not altogether bad. It's just ... fanfic ... and fanfic is never as good as the source. I like the memoir aspect and I want to know what happens next.
Monster Hunter International itself is a series I highly recommend and the first book is often free. Go for that and read all of those installments before you decide on this.
August 8, 2016
Review crossposted from .
First off, a little background. Larry Correia is one of my favorite authors, and I really like his Monster Hunter series. This is primarily because of:
1. Characters that I really enjoy, most especially Trip. I also really like Earl and Milo. Other characters are also enjoyable, and I don’t really dislike any of them.
2. Intricate, well thought-out plots.
3. They’re fun.
I haven’t before read a book by John Ringo. This book happened because John Ringo got inspired by the MHI series and decided to write his own take on the world, starring a character of his own invention. Then, after he’d written a couple books (it’s apparently meant to be a trilogy), Correia found out about it and they agreed, with their publisher, to publish these books. What you have to understand is that, by every measure worth counting, this book is fanfic. Yes, it’s written by a fairly prolific published author, endorsed and edited by the original author of the world, and published by the publisher of the original MHI stories, but it’s still fanfic.
And it reads very much like fanfic. Worse, it reads like beginner-level fanfic. Oh, the prose isn’t beginner level. Clearly this book comes from someone who’s got a lot of experience writing, which Ringo does. But his inexperience in writing in another author’s world is so obvious it’s cringe-worthy. See, one of the things that nearly every beginner fanfic author (usually a teen girl) does is create a self-insert/Mary Sue type character and then writes a story about that character interacting with the canon characters in the world of the story. And, since it’s a type of wish fulfillment character (and possibly also because young fanfic authors are frequently young authors in general and don’t have the experience or knowledge to write well-rounded characters), there are certain qualities that typify this type of character. Prime among those qualities are:
1. Very attractive (which Chad is)
2. Popular with the opposite sex. In female-written Mary Sues, this means multiple male characters fall for her; Grunge follows the male fantasy version of this by having Chad be able to easily get a large number of women to have no-strings sex with him and refusing them an actual relationship despite multiple women wanting one with him.
3. Being better at (blank) than a canon character known for doing (blank). When I first learned about Mary Sues, it was the Lord of the Rings fandom, so the examples were things like being a better archer than Legolas, having their wisdom lauded by Gandalf and Galadriel, that sort of thing. It also meant having desirable qualities few if any canon characters had, like not being corrupted/tempted by the One Ring. In Grunge, Chad is one of the best hunters MHI has ever had and has killed more demons than Franks. Canon characters such as Milo praise him for being amazing at monster hunting. And while most monster hunters got into it in a dramatic but believable way, Chad was literally sent by God, back from the dead. He is, literally, a Chosen One.
4. Often having some kind of tragic childhood/past. Chad was raised by terrible, abusive parents and had a bully for an older brother.
5. Is pretty much perfect/outstanding in multiple ways. Chad excels at anything he tries. He’s great at anything athletic. He has an IQ that would make Einstein go “Wow� (and that’s how it’s put in the book). He was doing college-level work in kindergarten. He taught himself like four or five foreign languages fluently by the time he was nine.
Chad could not be more of a Mary Sue if he had purple-and-silver striped hair and golden eyes that sparkled with the light of a thousand stars.
(Some people try to defend this by pointing out that the note from Milo says Chad exaggerates and is an unreliable narrator. I call BS. Unreliable narrators are used for a purpose. Their unreliability makes the book more interesting. Grunge reads like Ringo wrote the whole story and then thought, “Oh, I went a little far. Should I edit to make him a more believable and likable character? Nah, I’ll just add a lampshading one-line disclaimer and put it into the mouth of a well-liked canon character to give it credibility. Done and done.�)
This book has other problems. I could talk for a very long time about them, but I’d rather not. Other reviewers have mentioned Chad’s Mary Sue-ness, so I thought I’d give a little more detail about what that means. But here are, in brief, some of the other things that I disliked about Grunge:
1. Very, very poor (possibly even blasphemous) Christian theology. I’d far rather read a book about an atheist character than about a so-called Christian who is a terrible example and where the author uses the character to preach his own deeply false theology.
2. Extremely sexist toward women. Every woman Chad runs across, he comments on her looks, often expressly commenting on her breast size. Once, he sees a woman who is at that moment running in terror from a zombie and dressed in very conservative clothing and thinks with certainty that she prefers to wear a tube top and short shorts. Just because. (And he ends up being right. And of course he totally taps that.) Chad revels in his womanizing ways and convinces himself (and the book tries to convince us) that it’s totes cool with God and he doesn’t need to even attempt to change or feel guilty about it. Other characters appear to view this behavior as a minor vice, like leaving the toilet seat up.
3. A huge, huge amount of info-dumping before any actual story happens. At 20% into the novel, he still hasn’t even joined MHI. It takes forever for anything involving monster hunting or MHI to actually happen in this book, and the action scenes aren’t as well-written as Correia’s are.
4. A not-that-subtle tone of derision toward anyone who’s not a military type. (“You don’t know why Beirut and the marines is historically relevant? Look it up, idiot, because I’m certainly not going to explain it to you even though it’s a critical part of the plot.�) Related, the book’s assumption that the Catholic church is the only true church (an assumption immediately made by Chad, a character who up until then had been an atheist and was raised atheist).
5. Extremely excessive detail about guns which is intensely boring to anyone who’s not a gun nut. (Correia fits that stuff in naturally in the story as it comes up and doesn’t dwell so much on it that it becomes distracting. Ringo stops any forward progress the plot might have been making in order to tell us about all the chicks Chad banged, the guns he bought, and the athletic pursuits he excelled at.)
6. All the hate Chad spewed at his family got really old and did not endear him to me. No matter how horrible they may or may not have been, a boy calling his mom a bitch is not going to make me sympathize with him.
7. Too much profanity. Some is fine. The amount that Correia uses in his books never bothers me. But this book has too much.
In short, this book had none of the things I like about Correia’s MHI series and a bunch of stuff I didn’t like.
Since I’m really trying to avoid doing all-negative reviews (I wouldn’t have even written an in-depth review had I not gotten a free copy from Audible in exchange for a review), here are some good points.
1. The baby-killer jokes were funny. (For a while. He overplayed that joke a little.)
2. The first meeting with Franks, where neither of them know each other but there’s this moment of connection where you can see they’re both “working for� the same higher power, was a nice reference to MHN.
I got the audiobook of this through Audible. I was really pleased that they got the same narrator as the MHI series, Oliver Wyman. He's very good and brings the right kind of swagger that matches the tone of both Grunge and the main MHI series. I hope (and expect) that they'll have him do the MHI anthology that's upcoming (expected next year, last I heard). Even though I didn't like this non-Correia Monster Hunter story, I am very excited about that anthology (especially since it's to include a story by Jim Butcher).
First off, a little background. Larry Correia is one of my favorite authors, and I really like his Monster Hunter series. This is primarily because of:
1. Characters that I really enjoy, most especially Trip. I also really like Earl and Milo. Other characters are also enjoyable, and I don’t really dislike any of them.
2. Intricate, well thought-out plots.
3. They’re fun.
I haven’t before read a book by John Ringo. This book happened because John Ringo got inspired by the MHI series and decided to write his own take on the world, starring a character of his own invention. Then, after he’d written a couple books (it’s apparently meant to be a trilogy), Correia found out about it and they agreed, with their publisher, to publish these books. What you have to understand is that, by every measure worth counting, this book is fanfic. Yes, it’s written by a fairly prolific published author, endorsed and edited by the original author of the world, and published by the publisher of the original MHI stories, but it’s still fanfic.
And it reads very much like fanfic. Worse, it reads like beginner-level fanfic. Oh, the prose isn’t beginner level. Clearly this book comes from someone who’s got a lot of experience writing, which Ringo does. But his inexperience in writing in another author’s world is so obvious it’s cringe-worthy. See, one of the things that nearly every beginner fanfic author (usually a teen girl) does is create a self-insert/Mary Sue type character and then writes a story about that character interacting with the canon characters in the world of the story. And, since it’s a type of wish fulfillment character (and possibly also because young fanfic authors are frequently young authors in general and don’t have the experience or knowledge to write well-rounded characters), there are certain qualities that typify this type of character. Prime among those qualities are:
1. Very attractive (which Chad is)
2. Popular with the opposite sex. In female-written Mary Sues, this means multiple male characters fall for her; Grunge follows the male fantasy version of this by having Chad be able to easily get a large number of women to have no-strings sex with him and refusing them an actual relationship despite multiple women wanting one with him.
3. Being better at (blank) than a canon character known for doing (blank). When I first learned about Mary Sues, it was the Lord of the Rings fandom, so the examples were things like being a better archer than Legolas, having their wisdom lauded by Gandalf and Galadriel, that sort of thing. It also meant having desirable qualities few if any canon characters had, like not being corrupted/tempted by the One Ring. In Grunge, Chad is one of the best hunters MHI has ever had and has killed more demons than Franks. Canon characters such as Milo praise him for being amazing at monster hunting. And while most monster hunters got into it in a dramatic but believable way, Chad was literally sent by God, back from the dead. He is, literally, a Chosen One.
4. Often having some kind of tragic childhood/past. Chad was raised by terrible, abusive parents and had a bully for an older brother.
5. Is pretty much perfect/outstanding in multiple ways. Chad excels at anything he tries. He’s great at anything athletic. He has an IQ that would make Einstein go “Wow� (and that’s how it’s put in the book). He was doing college-level work in kindergarten. He taught himself like four or five foreign languages fluently by the time he was nine.
Chad could not be more of a Mary Sue if he had purple-and-silver striped hair and golden eyes that sparkled with the light of a thousand stars.
(Some people try to defend this by pointing out that the note from Milo says Chad exaggerates and is an unreliable narrator. I call BS. Unreliable narrators are used for a purpose. Their unreliability makes the book more interesting. Grunge reads like Ringo wrote the whole story and then thought, “Oh, I went a little far. Should I edit to make him a more believable and likable character? Nah, I’ll just add a lampshading one-line disclaimer and put it into the mouth of a well-liked canon character to give it credibility. Done and done.�)
This book has other problems. I could talk for a very long time about them, but I’d rather not. Other reviewers have mentioned Chad’s Mary Sue-ness, so I thought I’d give a little more detail about what that means. But here are, in brief, some of the other things that I disliked about Grunge:
1. Very, very poor (possibly even blasphemous) Christian theology. I’d far rather read a book about an atheist character than about a so-called Christian who is a terrible example and where the author uses the character to preach his own deeply false theology.
2. Extremely sexist toward women. Every woman Chad runs across, he comments on her looks, often expressly commenting on her breast size. Once, he sees a woman who is at that moment running in terror from a zombie and dressed in very conservative clothing and thinks with certainty that she prefers to wear a tube top and short shorts. Just because. (And he ends up being right. And of course he totally taps that.) Chad revels in his womanizing ways and convinces himself (and the book tries to convince us) that it’s totes cool with God and he doesn’t need to even attempt to change or feel guilty about it. Other characters appear to view this behavior as a minor vice, like leaving the toilet seat up.
3. A huge, huge amount of info-dumping before any actual story happens. At 20% into the novel, he still hasn’t even joined MHI. It takes forever for anything involving monster hunting or MHI to actually happen in this book, and the action scenes aren’t as well-written as Correia’s are.
4. A not-that-subtle tone of derision toward anyone who’s not a military type. (“You don’t know why Beirut and the marines is historically relevant? Look it up, idiot, because I’m certainly not going to explain it to you even though it’s a critical part of the plot.�) Related, the book’s assumption that the Catholic church is the only true church (an assumption immediately made by Chad, a character who up until then had been an atheist and was raised atheist).
5. Extremely excessive detail about guns which is intensely boring to anyone who’s not a gun nut. (Correia fits that stuff in naturally in the story as it comes up and doesn’t dwell so much on it that it becomes distracting. Ringo stops any forward progress the plot might have been making in order to tell us about all the chicks Chad banged, the guns he bought, and the athletic pursuits he excelled at.)
6. All the hate Chad spewed at his family got really old and did not endear him to me. No matter how horrible they may or may not have been, a boy calling his mom a bitch is not going to make me sympathize with him.
7. Too much profanity. Some is fine. The amount that Correia uses in his books never bothers me. But this book has too much.
In short, this book had none of the things I like about Correia’s MHI series and a bunch of stuff I didn’t like.
Since I’m really trying to avoid doing all-negative reviews (I wouldn’t have even written an in-depth review had I not gotten a free copy from Audible in exchange for a review), here are some good points.
1. The baby-killer jokes were funny. (For a while. He overplayed that joke a little.)
2. The first meeting with Franks, where neither of them know each other but there’s this moment of connection where you can see they’re both “working for� the same higher power, was a nice reference to MHN.
I got the audiobook of this through Audible. I was really pleased that they got the same narrator as the MHI series, Oliver Wyman. He's very good and brings the right kind of swagger that matches the tone of both Grunge and the main MHI series. I hope (and expect) that they'll have him do the MHI anthology that's upcoming (expected next year, last I heard). Even though I didn't like this non-Correia Monster Hunter story, I am very excited about that anthology (especially since it's to include a story by Jim Butcher).
February 9, 2017
Worst book I read this year with inane prose, no plot and A LOT of right-wing fantasy ... John Ringo, why can you only be exceptional with exactly one book? Definitely not Larry Correia's writing, despite everything about the 'collaboration'...
June 2, 2024
I've read all the Monster Hunter books and finally got around to starting the Memoirs series with "Grunge" by John Ringo. This book is a fun prequel to the main series, taking us back to the 1980s. It’s great to see some familiar characters and meet new ones who helped shape Monster Hunter International.
It’s noteworthy that while Larry Correia is the original author and mastermind behind the Monster Hunter International Universe, "Grunge" is penned by John Ringo. Essentially, it reads like professional fan fiction. Although I prefer Correia's work, sometimes you have to enjoy what you have.
"Grunge" has much of the action and monster-fighting you’d expect from a Monster Hunter book. The 1980s setting is a nice touch. The main character, Oliver Chadwick Gardenier, is a tough, gun-loving, monster-killing Marine who believes in God (like the Blues Brothers--he is on a mission from God). He’s not perfect (very far from it)—he’s a womanizer and sexist. He’s also amusing with his sarcastic humor and unrealistically skilled at almost everything he touches. However, realism isn’t the main focus here; it's all about the adventure and humor.
The story is told from Gardenier’s point of view and focuses more on him than the whole team, which is common for many origin stories. The book strikes a balance between serious situations and humor, making it popcorn brain candy. It falls somewhere between a novel and a short story collection, delivering plenty of action and monster-related chaos.
If you haven’t read the other Monster Hunter books, you might not enjoy this one as much. But for fans of the series, it’s a fun and mindless ride.
It’s noteworthy that while Larry Correia is the original author and mastermind behind the Monster Hunter International Universe, "Grunge" is penned by John Ringo. Essentially, it reads like professional fan fiction. Although I prefer Correia's work, sometimes you have to enjoy what you have.
"Grunge" has much of the action and monster-fighting you’d expect from a Monster Hunter book. The 1980s setting is a nice touch. The main character, Oliver Chadwick Gardenier, is a tough, gun-loving, monster-killing Marine who believes in God (like the Blues Brothers--he is on a mission from God). He’s not perfect (very far from it)—he’s a womanizer and sexist. He’s also amusing with his sarcastic humor and unrealistically skilled at almost everything he touches. However, realism isn’t the main focus here; it's all about the adventure and humor.
The story is told from Gardenier’s point of view and focuses more on him than the whole team, which is common for many origin stories. The book strikes a balance between serious situations and humor, making it popcorn brain candy. It falls somewhere between a novel and a short story collection, delivering plenty of action and monster-related chaos.
If you haven’t read the other Monster Hunter books, you might not enjoy this one as much. But for fans of the series, it’s a fun and mindless ride.
August 11, 2016
I liked the premise of this book. A look at a different hunter team, in a different area, during a different time. That sounds pretty cool.
Unfortunately, the execution was extremely disappointing. Other than Larry Correia’s name on the front of the book, it’s clear that almost all of it was written by John Ringo.
And while I’ve read Ringo’s books and they’re generally fun reads if you want some action and not to think too much, they aren’t up to the quality standards I expect from Monster Hunter International. Frankly, this is pretty bad even for Ringo’s work.
To start with, there’s not really any plot. It just follows the main character through his job as he fights some monsters. There’s no overarching thread that flows through the book, just a bunch of fights against various monsters.
And the fights aren’t particularly interesting because the main character is one of the worst Mary Sues I’ve ever read. He is, among other things, a genius with an IQ compared to Einstein’s, a musical prodigy, an inhuman gift with languages, incredibly skilled with a sword, guns, and various forms of martial arts, can get any woman he wants, rose through the ranks of the Marines faster than anyone else during peace time, and literally chosen by God as a monster hunter and returned to life after dying. Needless to say, there’s little sense of danger or that maybe the main character actually might not succeed at something he puts his mind to.
The book is also chock full of Ringo’s signature off-topic rants about things he likes (music, hot women, guns, literally everything Japanese) and things he doesn’t (academics, liberals, socialists, the government).
If you’re reading this because you’re a fan of John Ringo, you’ll like it fine, it’s about what you’d expect from him. If you’re reading it because you’re a fan of MHI, prepare to be disappointed.
Unfortunately, the execution was extremely disappointing. Other than Larry Correia’s name on the front of the book, it’s clear that almost all of it was written by John Ringo.
And while I’ve read Ringo’s books and they’re generally fun reads if you want some action and not to think too much, they aren’t up to the quality standards I expect from Monster Hunter International. Frankly, this is pretty bad even for Ringo’s work.
To start with, there’s not really any plot. It just follows the main character through his job as he fights some monsters. There’s no overarching thread that flows through the book, just a bunch of fights against various monsters.
And the fights aren’t particularly interesting because the main character is one of the worst Mary Sues I’ve ever read. He is, among other things, a genius with an IQ compared to Einstein’s, a musical prodigy, an inhuman gift with languages, incredibly skilled with a sword, guns, and various forms of martial arts, can get any woman he wants, rose through the ranks of the Marines faster than anyone else during peace time, and literally chosen by God as a monster hunter and returned to life after dying. Needless to say, there’s little sense of danger or that maybe the main character actually might not succeed at something he puts his mind to.
The book is also chock full of Ringo’s signature off-topic rants about things he likes (music, hot women, guns, literally everything Japanese) and things he doesn’t (academics, liberals, socialists, the government).
If you’re reading this because you’re a fan of John Ringo, you’ll like it fine, it’s about what you’d expect from him. If you’re reading it because you’re a fan of MHI, prepare to be disappointed.
November 3, 2017
Ok, the good first, then the rant, which most likely will be spoiler filled. You have been warned.
1) Larry Correia's MH world. Love it. Always have, always will.
2) That Larry Correia apparently took out all of the racy bits. Looks like, since the average book is 500+ pages and this only clocks in at a light 418, that he must have cut out almost 100 pages of smut. Thank you Mr. Correia, my eyes and brain thank you, because I can pass on the bleach-wash. (not that smut is necessarily a bad thing, IF that is what you are reading for. That is not what I look for in the MH world.)
And that's it.
On to my rant.
Wow. I'm kind of at a loss as to where to start with this whole mess of an MC.
First off, Gary Stu, in the WORST way. Like genius level intelligence, on a Quest from God, can kill anything, anytime, anywhere, regardless of injury or weaponry. Like, he made killing a CENTURIES OLD MASTER VAMPIRE look EASY. No effing way. And he is God's gift to women.
Second issue with the MC. OMG ALL HE THINKS ABOUT IS SEX!!!! Like he's a freaking 18 year old who just figured out what to do with his thingy!!!
I am SOOOO GLAD that those sex scenes were cut, but Mr. Correia, couldn't you have cut out the every other page mention of the MC's OBSESSION with the female half of the population?!? Not to mention his CONSTANT CONQUESTS!?!? This is supposed to be a memoir to help future monster hunters kill monsters, not about how to be a lounge lizard!! Like, if it included how to speak the monster languages he learned, THAT would make more sense! Like explain the different rituals and societal mores of the gnolls and trolls, etc. Don't tell me about how huge a woman's chest was!
Well, I guess if you did, the book would have only been about 200 pages. But still, this has your NAME on it!!!
And, I saved my BIGGEST rage moment for last.
The ONLY time his using protection was mentioned, it was in the context of his buddy telling him that the elf chick in the trailer park, who was OBVIOUSLY a slut because she propositioned the MC and was wearing "revealing clothing", was probably a female the MC would require a HazMat suit in order to sleep with her!!!
What the ABSOLUTE WHAT?!?!
Here he is, sleeping with ANYthing that would be still for long enough, with NO mention of protection, but here he and his buddy are assuming because of how this chick looks and acts and that she lives in a trailer park, that SHE'S the diseased one?!??!!!
He says, over and over again that he doesn't want anything that looks like a lasting relationship, because he could die at any time for his job and he doesn't want to leave behind a widow and children, but he's ok with leaving behind a single mother?!?! Who he may have left behind with a disease to boot?!?! How many out of wedlock, with no support from his WEALTHY, INCONSIDERATE @SS children did he father?!? He's not checking up on the ladies he leaves to see if they may need child support later on. And many of the ladies are young and/or from areas that are poorer to begin with. I bet any one of them rather be a widow with a child and money coming in from the insurance than left high and dry with a baby on the way and not even a goodbye note after he was done using them!
I understand this was written as taking place in the 80s/90s, but COME ON NOW PEOPLE. This was written NOW. We don't have to make the MC a metro who cries when he sees a cute puppy on tv, but how about caring about other's feelings and maybe having to deal with the repercussions of his thoughtless actions?
Yes, the woman can take some action to prevent an unintentional child, but it's not fair to put it all on her AND it doesn't take into account prevention of disease.
So I was HIGHLY disturbed by this book. I have a BAAAAAD feeling that the next one goes into OH-HELL-NO territory, so I will download a sample. And if it goes where I think it does, no more money of mine will be sent to the duo of Correia and Ringo. I will read other books by them, Correia unreservedly, Ringo cautiously, but I think Correia is better writing on his own.
Recommended if you like a sexist pig to be your MC. If not, I recommend you skip this offshoot of Monster Hunter and just read those.
2, because it's the first one and Mr. Correia pulled the sex scenes, stars.
1) Larry Correia's MH world. Love it. Always have, always will.
2) That Larry Correia apparently took out all of the racy bits. Looks like, since the average book is 500+ pages and this only clocks in at a light 418, that he must have cut out almost 100 pages of smut. Thank you Mr. Correia, my eyes and brain thank you, because I can pass on the bleach-wash. (not that smut is necessarily a bad thing, IF that is what you are reading for. That is not what I look for in the MH world.)
And that's it.
On to my rant.
Wow. I'm kind of at a loss as to where to start with this whole mess of an MC.
First off, Gary Stu, in the WORST way. Like genius level intelligence, on a Quest from God, can kill anything, anytime, anywhere, regardless of injury or weaponry. Like, he made killing a CENTURIES OLD MASTER VAMPIRE look EASY. No effing way. And he is God's gift to women.
Second issue with the MC. OMG ALL HE THINKS ABOUT IS SEX!!!! Like he's a freaking 18 year old who just figured out what to do with his thingy!!!
I am SOOOO GLAD that those sex scenes were cut, but Mr. Correia, couldn't you have cut out the every other page mention of the MC's OBSESSION with the female half of the population?!? Not to mention his CONSTANT CONQUESTS!?!? This is supposed to be a memoir to help future monster hunters kill monsters, not about how to be a lounge lizard!! Like, if it included how to speak the monster languages he learned, THAT would make more sense! Like explain the different rituals and societal mores of the gnolls and trolls, etc. Don't tell me about how huge a woman's chest was!
Well, I guess if you did, the book would have only been about 200 pages. But still, this has your NAME on it!!!
And, I saved my BIGGEST rage moment for last.
The ONLY time his using protection was mentioned, it was in the context of his buddy telling him that the elf chick in the trailer park, who was OBVIOUSLY a slut because she propositioned the MC and was wearing "revealing clothing", was probably a female the MC would require a HazMat suit in order to sleep with her!!!
What the ABSOLUTE WHAT?!?!
Here he is, sleeping with ANYthing that would be still for long enough, with NO mention of protection, but here he and his buddy are assuming because of how this chick looks and acts and that she lives in a trailer park, that SHE'S the diseased one?!??!!!
He says, over and over again that he doesn't want anything that looks like a lasting relationship, because he could die at any time for his job and he doesn't want to leave behind a widow and children, but he's ok with leaving behind a single mother?!?! Who he may have left behind with a disease to boot?!?! How many out of wedlock, with no support from his WEALTHY, INCONSIDERATE @SS children did he father?!? He's not checking up on the ladies he leaves to see if they may need child support later on. And many of the ladies are young and/or from areas that are poorer to begin with. I bet any one of them rather be a widow with a child and money coming in from the insurance than left high and dry with a baby on the way and not even a goodbye note after he was done using them!
I understand this was written as taking place in the 80s/90s, but COME ON NOW PEOPLE. This was written NOW. We don't have to make the MC a metro who cries when he sees a cute puppy on tv, but how about caring about other's feelings and maybe having to deal with the repercussions of his thoughtless actions?
Yes, the woman can take some action to prevent an unintentional child, but it's not fair to put it all on her AND it doesn't take into account prevention of disease.
So I was HIGHLY disturbed by this book. I have a BAAAAAD feeling that the next one goes into OH-HELL-NO territory, so I will download a sample. And if it goes where I think it does, no more money of mine will be sent to the duo of Correia and Ringo. I will read other books by them, Correia unreservedly, Ringo cautiously, but I think Correia is better writing on his own.
Recommended if you like a sexist pig to be your MC. If not, I recommend you skip this offshoot of Monster Hunter and just read those.
2, because it's the first one and Mr. Correia pulled the sex scenes, stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 21, 2016
So bad. So very, very bad. Let's just say after this, I won't read another novel that John Ringo writes - even if it is Monster Hunter.
Think, if you will, of all the things you loved about Correia's MHI series - this book pretty much takes them all and turns them into annoying caricatures. Starting with the main character, who is essentially a giant schmuck. Who's a genius, and amazingly awesomely amazing at everything. Ladies love him, he's a master musician, a master swordsman, and of course, a master monster hunter.
He's so awesome, St. Peter sends him back to keep being his awesome self.
Now, let's talk narrative structure. Oh wait, we can't, because there wasn't one. It was a bunch of crappy short stories loosely strung together by the giant schmuck of a main character and Seattle.
Don't waste your time with this one. I'm a little surprised I bothered to finish it. I guess I just kept hoping it would get better.
It didn't.
Think, if you will, of all the things you loved about Correia's MHI series - this book pretty much takes them all and turns them into annoying caricatures. Starting with the main character, who is essentially a giant schmuck. Who's a genius, and amazingly awesomely amazing at everything. Ladies love him, he's a master musician, a master swordsman, and of course, a master monster hunter.
He's so awesome, St. Peter sends him back to keep being his awesome self.
Now, let's talk narrative structure. Oh wait, we can't, because there wasn't one. It was a bunch of crappy short stories loosely strung together by the giant schmuck of a main character and Seattle.
Don't waste your time with this one. I'm a little surprised I bothered to finish it. I guess I just kept hoping it would get better.
It didn't.
August 24, 2016
Being in Texas, and pretty far left on the political spectrum, I have a lot of Buddies, and at least one very good friend, that I disagree with politically - the way around this is that we find some common ground, usually guns, that we agree on, concentrate on that, and barring a few brush fires that are quickly extinguished, get along pretty well - because I only associate with interesting, intelligent people.
This sums up my enjoyment of Larry Correia books to a T - he tells me interesting stories and doesn't hammer me with his poliviews too much, and I keep listening, because I love guns and monsters, and so does he.
But there's always that one fucking dude who turns everything into a political discussion, no matter the circumstances. And no matter how cool his stories are, after a while you just stop coming around because you're tired of being shit on.
"Hi, Mr. Ringo! What're you doing hanging out with Larry? Oh, you guys are pals, now? ... yeah, I know, John, I'm a filthy commie who's going to ruin the world - yeah, ought to be shot... what's that Larry? Sorry, John's drowning you out... Look, I should go... hopefully I can catch you around these parts when you're back on your own, Larry."
And that pretty much sums up my experience with "Grunge".
It's not just that John Ringo hates everything about me - it's that Oliver Chadwick Gardenier is a shit character.
"Iron Hand" can fucking do anything - Run, shoot, move, swordfight, speaks something like 14 languages, speaks directly to the angels in heaven, and kicks it with sasquatch. All before giving a rousing speech in front of house subcommittees - Chad is OP, please nerf.
There's some lip-service in the beginning of the book given to him being an unreliable narrator, but come the fuck on - just write a better character guys. I know that either one of you can do it. I'VE SEEN IT.
Despite how I may feel about him, John Ringo can write a main character - with flaws. And no, womanizing doesn't count.
As most anybody can tell you, one of the great joys of reading a John Ringo novel is seeing just how willing he is to be a complete fucking weirdo - judged on a scale from Gust Front to Ghost. The famous "Oh John Ringo NO" article explains this very well. There'll be none of that here, I'm afraid - in the forward Larry Correia states that he edited most of the Ringo-tastic strangeness out, because "well, I’ll just say, my kids read these books, John."
So what you end up with is the very worst of John Ringo, without even any of the freak show train-wreck slimeball qualities that make his usual novels a fun drinking game at least.
(Protip: For a great time and some serious liver damage, read "Ghost" and take a shot every time Ringo writes something that makes you grimace and shake your head. Two shots if it makes you want to vomit. Stop playing when you actually do throw up a little in your mouth - you're in too deep.)
As for Grunge, there's no real, over-arching plot - it reads more as a series of short stories, so don't go looking for any real sense of resolution at the end of the book - it just kind of peters out.
This leads me to believe this may be the first book in a series - if so, no thanks. Pass.
Next MHI book I read will be by Larry Correia and only Larry Correia.
This sums up my enjoyment of Larry Correia books to a T - he tells me interesting stories and doesn't hammer me with his poliviews too much, and I keep listening, because I love guns and monsters, and so does he.
But there's always that one fucking dude who turns everything into a political discussion, no matter the circumstances. And no matter how cool his stories are, after a while you just stop coming around because you're tired of being shit on.
"Hi, Mr. Ringo! What're you doing hanging out with Larry? Oh, you guys are pals, now? ... yeah, I know, John, I'm a filthy commie who's going to ruin the world - yeah, ought to be shot... what's that Larry? Sorry, John's drowning you out... Look, I should go... hopefully I can catch you around these parts when you're back on your own, Larry."
And that pretty much sums up my experience with "Grunge".
It's not just that John Ringo hates everything about me - it's that Oliver Chadwick Gardenier is a shit character.
"Iron Hand" can fucking do anything - Run, shoot, move, swordfight, speaks something like 14 languages, speaks directly to the angels in heaven, and kicks it with sasquatch. All before giving a rousing speech in front of house subcommittees - Chad is OP, please nerf.
There's some lip-service in the beginning of the book given to him being an unreliable narrator, but come the fuck on - just write a better character guys. I know that either one of you can do it. I'VE SEEN IT.
Despite how I may feel about him, John Ringo can write a main character - with flaws. And no, womanizing doesn't count.
As most anybody can tell you, one of the great joys of reading a John Ringo novel is seeing just how willing he is to be a complete fucking weirdo - judged on a scale from Gust Front to Ghost. The famous "Oh John Ringo NO" article explains this very well. There'll be none of that here, I'm afraid - in the forward Larry Correia states that he edited most of the Ringo-tastic strangeness out, because "well, I’ll just say, my kids read these books, John."
So what you end up with is the very worst of John Ringo, without even any of the freak show train-wreck slimeball qualities that make his usual novels a fun drinking game at least.
(Protip: For a great time and some serious liver damage, read "Ghost" and take a shot every time Ringo writes something that makes you grimace and shake your head. Two shots if it makes you want to vomit. Stop playing when you actually do throw up a little in your mouth - you're in too deep.)
As for Grunge, there's no real, over-arching plot - it reads more as a series of short stories, so don't go looking for any real sense of resolution at the end of the book - it just kind of peters out.
This leads me to believe this may be the first book in a series - if so, no thanks. Pass.
Next MHI book I read will be by Larry Correia and only Larry Correia.
December 13, 2018
4 Stars
Set in the Monster Hunter world created by Larry Corriea, John Ringo creates a fun entry into the broader Monster Hunter universe. Oliver Chadwick Gardenier (Chad) is a former Marine with a messed up childhood, a lot of physical/intellectual gifts, and a literal mission from God: killing monsters.
The title calls these memoirs, which is a pretty accurate way to describe the book. Written in the form of a sort of diary from a hunter, it’s basically a bit of background and then a set of adventures. Despite the different narrative structure, the stories flowed and felt like they formed part of a broader, connected storyline. That kept the pace moving along, and even during more exposition heavy parts, the story never dragged. The writing was smooth and accomplished as well.
This book was pure popcorn fun, delivering plenty of action and monster related mayhem. Chad, our protagonist, is a bit of a mess, with his long list of abilities and equally long list of character defects. There were a few sections where I was tempted to roll my eyes, such as a certain sequence involving a musical competition, but the book was just too much fun for me to get too caught up on the few places where Chad’s amazing awesomess became a little much. Bonus points also for using the setting of the greater Seattle area, it was a great touch and added a cool atmosphere.
This book was a quick, fun read, although I’d recommend that people read the Monster Hunter series by Larry Correia first to maximum their enjoyment.
Set in the Monster Hunter world created by Larry Corriea, John Ringo creates a fun entry into the broader Monster Hunter universe. Oliver Chadwick Gardenier (Chad) is a former Marine with a messed up childhood, a lot of physical/intellectual gifts, and a literal mission from God: killing monsters.
The title calls these memoirs, which is a pretty accurate way to describe the book. Written in the form of a sort of diary from a hunter, it’s basically a bit of background and then a set of adventures. Despite the different narrative structure, the stories flowed and felt like they formed part of a broader, connected storyline. That kept the pace moving along, and even during more exposition heavy parts, the story never dragged. The writing was smooth and accomplished as well.
This book was pure popcorn fun, delivering plenty of action and monster related mayhem. Chad, our protagonist, is a bit of a mess, with his long list of abilities and equally long list of character defects. There were a few sections where I was tempted to roll my eyes, such as a certain sequence involving a musical competition, but the book was just too much fun for me to get too caught up on the few places where Chad’s amazing awesomess became a little much. Bonus points also for using the setting of the greater Seattle area, it was a great touch and added a cool atmosphere.
This book was a quick, fun read, although I’d recommend that people read the Monster Hunter series by Larry Correia first to maximum their enjoyment.
December 17, 2023
I'm not sure why Correia let this other author play in his playground. This book was nothing but glorified fan-fic. Sure, it was better written than fan-fic, but it read like the wet dream of a conservative guy from the midwest who loves Japanese culture and thinks he's smart.
The whole character of Chad was wish fulfillment for Ringo. The character is smart and got all A's until he decided to get C's. Sounds like someone is trying to justify the lack of stellar academic performance in childhood. "I was really brilliant, I just chose to get C's".
The character is sexist, racist, and horribly repulsive, at the same time all of the other characters love him and he can do no wrong.
Sure, Corriea's books had some of the same problems, but they were offset by a lot of other stuff enough to make them readable. The tripe that Ringo calls a book has no redeeming qualities and I won't be reading another book by him again.
The whole character of Chad was wish fulfillment for Ringo. The character is smart and got all A's until he decided to get C's. Sounds like someone is trying to justify the lack of stellar academic performance in childhood. "I was really brilliant, I just chose to get C's".
The character is sexist, racist, and horribly repulsive, at the same time all of the other characters love him and he can do no wrong.
Sure, Corriea's books had some of the same problems, but they were offset by a lot of other stuff enough to make them readable. The tripe that Ringo calls a book has no redeeming qualities and I won't be reading another book by him again.
September 29, 2016
I didn't mind the profanity, the gun porn, or the violence and gore. I just couldn't get past the protagonist being such a Marty Stu (Mary Sue's spear counterpart) that he (literally) god-modes through everything, on top of being a walking political cliche. It's like having a hero designed by committee, but the committee is made up only of 9-year-olds and the people who hang out on /r/the_donald.
August 25, 2017
So...I've had a bunch of books on my currently reading shelf for...well for a long time. I suppose I should review a few since that's why they're still there. They're waiting for me to review them.
Here we have another from Larry Correia who's books are in most cases reliably action packed. While they may not be Austen or Dickens (but then would you really want to read only Austen or Dickens?) this brain candy is almost always a good mix of serious situations and humor. These books (set in the Monster Hunter International world) seem always to draw me in and hold my interest throughout.
Here our hero begins his story at/in a very serious point in history...the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing incident where 241 U.S. Service people were killed. The protagonist here is a lonely survivor who is dead for a time and during that time he's given a mission from "on high". The sign he's told to watch for however at first seems a bit nebulous. He's told to watch for the number 57.
As we follow Oliver Chadwick Gardenier through these adventures we'll get burned, shot at, splattered with gore and other less definable materials and we'll mix some laughter with some actual pathos.
This is a good book as all the books set in this "world" have been so far.
Recommended.
Here we have another from Larry Correia who's books are in most cases reliably action packed. While they may not be Austen or Dickens (but then would you really want to read only Austen or Dickens?) this brain candy is almost always a good mix of serious situations and humor. These books (set in the Monster Hunter International world) seem always to draw me in and hold my interest throughout.
Here our hero begins his story at/in a very serious point in history...the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing incident where 241 U.S. Service people were killed. The protagonist here is a lonely survivor who is dead for a time and during that time he's given a mission from "on high". The sign he's told to watch for however at first seems a bit nebulous. He's told to watch for the number 57.
As we follow Oliver Chadwick Gardenier through these adventures we'll get burned, shot at, splattered with gore and other less definable materials and we'll mix some laughter with some actual pathos.
This is a good book as all the books set in this "world" have been so far.
Recommended.
June 7, 2016
Want politically correct characters peacefully coexisting with human-eating monsters? Then you've boarded the wrong train, because this book ain't going nowhere you wanna be. The lead character, Chad, is an unapologetic, womanizing, gun-loving, monster-killing, God-loving Marine, and he's wonderful. Sure, he's pretty much good at everything he decides to do, and he's so over-the-top that it's part of his charm. Even super-hunters have rough assignments, though, so don't expect Chad and MHI to blast their way through every problem with no trouble. It's not all explosions and gunfire, because not all monsters are, well, Monsters. And sometimes solutions require negotiation and finesse.
Grunge is set in the 1980s, before the first MHI book, so you won't catch more than a few glimpses of familiar characters. I don't think you'll miss them. Grunge is entertaining and satisfying. With the exception of New Orleans. Can't wait to find out about New Orleans.
Based on the eARC.
Grunge is set in the 1980s, before the first MHI book, so you won't catch more than a few glimpses of familiar characters. I don't think you'll miss them. Grunge is entertaining and satisfying. With the exception of New Orleans. Can't wait to find out about New Orleans.
Based on the eARC.
Shelved as 'hubby-to-read'
August 2, 2016While Larry Correia managed to lose me as a fan once his Hugo BS started, hubby doesn't care and I have a soft spot for hubby.
So.
I have to wonder what hubby will think of this one...he said the last MHI should have been captioned "Back for More Cash."
So.
I have to wonder what hubby will think of this one...he said the last MHI should have been captioned "Back for More Cash."
August 14, 2016
Thought I was getting a Larry Correia book, and was dismayed to find that it was pretty much a John Ringo book in Larry's universe. The smart takes on history, Easter-egg linguistic references, and multicultural, relatable characters have been replaced by an unlikable womanizing sexist cardboard cut-out of a protagonist whose take on religion is about as deep as the thought he gives to anything else. For a character who is allegedly as much of a genius as your average Marty Stu stand-in, he just tells you that he's really smart, he doesn't actually do anything that's particularly insightful. Disappointing.
August 4, 2016
I love the MHI series and have been waiting impatiently for more. My original thought about the concept of the new series was "genius", and it could be so. However, I just couldn't love the story. I just never clicked with Chad the way I did with Pitt and the rest. The dark humor was less prevalent. The frequent forays into religion were distracting. But..it was better than no Monster Hunters at all.
October 23, 2024
Monster hunting back in the 1980's.
Not bad, but you can tell it isn't actually written in the 80's, even though they give it a good try.
On the other hand, there is a lot of blood and thunder, which is why people read these things, so that's really a minor quibble.
Not bad, but you can tell it isn't actually written in the 80's, even though they give it a good try.
On the other hand, there is a lot of blood and thunder, which is why people read these things, so that's really a minor quibble.
August 31, 2016
Fanfic. Fanfic written by another professional author.
I've paid for and enjoyed some Ringo before but this isn't good. Reading between the lines, I think Correia bit his lip and took the paycheck when he was presented with this book as a fait accompli; the quality in no way is worthy of the Correia name (he just acted as editor, not co-author, keeping Ringo within the lines of the world Correia built).
The protagonist is an unlikeable Marty Stu; there's some hand-waving in the beginning about him being an unreliable narrator but books that effectively use that device reveal at least glimpses of the truth instead of just stating it outright and never referencing it again. In this case it feels like after-the-fact damage control by an editor.
I'll pass on the next installment.
I've paid for and enjoyed some Ringo before but this isn't good. Reading between the lines, I think Correia bit his lip and took the paycheck when he was presented with this book as a fait accompli; the quality in no way is worthy of the Correia name (he just acted as editor, not co-author, keeping Ringo within the lines of the world Correia built).
The protagonist is an unlikeable Marty Stu; there's some hand-waving in the beginning about him being an unreliable narrator but books that effectively use that device reveal at least glimpses of the truth instead of just stating it outright and never referencing it again. In this case it feels like after-the-fact damage control by an editor.
I'll pass on the next installment.
June 23, 2017
Ok, after happily finishing MHN I was thrilled that there was immediately another book set in the same world to read. Then I started it... Who is John Ringo and why is he destroying Correia's world like this?
It is a Mary Sue crossed with someone so far right that they fell off the map. He is "awesome and amazing", bleh. One of the things I loved about Owen is his self-depreciating humor and all the various character's reactions to the insane battles they faced. This character is Neo on steroids, but with tons more hatred.
Wish I hadn't already bought the next book in this series. From now on if it doesn't have just LC's name on the cover I am passing it by. Complete waste of time and money.
It is a Mary Sue crossed with someone so far right that they fell off the map. He is "awesome and amazing", bleh. One of the things I loved about Owen is his self-depreciating humor and all the various character's reactions to the insane battles they faced. This character is Neo on steroids, but with tons more hatred.
Wish I hadn't already bought the next book in this series. From now on if it doesn't have just LC's name on the cover I am passing it by. Complete waste of time and money.
August 28, 2016
Lacked any real storyline, Using a memoir as a story device = plodding through mundane memories of an asshole. I love this series, but didn't like this addition. On the bright side, I started with book one again.
August 21, 2020
Generally speaking, I am not really into short stories. Even with series that I love already based on the novels... I almost always just skip the short story collections and such. Something about the format doesn't work well with me.
Now this book is somewhere between a novel and a short story collection. Still the same universe as Monster Hunter International, though a different city, a different team and a whole new protagonist, namely Oliver Chadwick Gardenier, previously a Marine, now monster hunter.
I would absolutely not recommend to read this before MHI and by that time I think you already know what sort of a thing to expect. It's fun, it's fast, it talks about the different, more important cases during the early career of Chad, what he did before hunting, how he got into it, how he was doing at first.
Let me tell you, he is good at everything. Chad is a.... chad, really. But there is something hilariously fun about the way they just absolutely demolish things that come to mess with the humans in their area. It's perfect to just relax, have a fun time and let it go.
Not everyone will like it. We know that much. But man, if you like this kind of stuff, you will most likely have an absolute blast with it.
Now this book is somewhere between a novel and a short story collection. Still the same universe as Monster Hunter International, though a different city, a different team and a whole new protagonist, namely Oliver Chadwick Gardenier, previously a Marine, now monster hunter.
I would absolutely not recommend to read this before MHI and by that time I think you already know what sort of a thing to expect. It's fun, it's fast, it talks about the different, more important cases during the early career of Chad, what he did before hunting, how he got into it, how he was doing at first.
Let me tell you, he is good at everything. Chad is a.... chad, really. But there is something hilariously fun about the way they just absolutely demolish things that come to mess with the humans in their area. It's perfect to just relax, have a fun time and let it go.
Not everyone will like it. We know that much. But man, if you like this kind of stuff, you will most likely have an absolute blast with it.
October 23, 2017
I ended up reading the first two books of this spin-off "prequel" series backward, but enjoyed it a great deal just the same. These are the memoirs of a man who makes his living killing monsters. It turns out he's a genius and has developed some anti-authoritarian tendencies due to having grown up with parents whose behavior rubbed him the wrong way from early in his life. I guess if you feel your parents are not on your side when you do well, that would be irritating.
While Chad has some opinions I don't agree with, I did find him likeable and sympathetic as he went about driving his mother crazy, killing monsters, and sleeping with women. His sarcasm and dry sense of humor are also very funny. The phrase "Tastes like chicken" will never be the same again. Ringo did an excellent job with his take on the series. I do recommend that you start with the original series as there are facts that are explained there that are not revealed here, particularly about supporting characters who have their own books (looking at your Earl and Franks).
While Chad has some opinions I don't agree with, I did find him likeable and sympathetic as he went about driving his mother crazy, killing monsters, and sleeping with women. His sarcasm and dry sense of humor are also very funny. The phrase "Tastes like chicken" will never be the same again. Ringo did an excellent job with his take on the series. I do recommend that you start with the original series as there are facts that are explained there that are not revealed here, particularly about supporting characters who have their own books (looking at your Earl and Franks).
October 9, 2016
Larry Correa come back
I was very disappointed in this book. If you are expecting anything like the Hunter books of the past you will be very sorry for buying this one. Larry Correa series of MHI and the G Chronicals are my favorite series. Please Larry get back to writing these on your on. In this book the first 17 chapters were nothing but short stories. There was little character development and no time was taken to construct any type of on going plot. Characters died and you could care less about them. I truly had to make myself finish. Maybe if it had been a stand alone book I may have forgiven some of its faults. It would have been easy because this had very little to do with the original books except a stolen concept. In the intro the author mentioned he wrote two of these books. I will not be reading the second. Larry please go back to writing in this series. You were the master.
I was very disappointed in this book. If you are expecting anything like the Hunter books of the past you will be very sorry for buying this one. Larry Correa series of MHI and the G Chronicals are my favorite series. Please Larry get back to writing these on your on. In this book the first 17 chapters were nothing but short stories. There was little character development and no time was taken to construct any type of on going plot. Characters died and you could care less about them. I truly had to make myself finish. Maybe if it had been a stand alone book I may have forgiven some of its faults. It would have been easy because this had very little to do with the original books except a stolen concept. In the intro the author mentioned he wrote two of these books. I will not be reading the second. Larry please go back to writing in this series. You were the master.
May 22, 2018
Had it been possible to give this book a negative star, I would have done so. This was, undoubtedly, the worst piece of writing that I encountered in 2018. Forget about it being basically a redneck wet dream thinly veiled by apparent efforts to tell a story. Even the writing was utterly awful! Characters were not even two-dimensional. Plot was non-existent. The entire book seemingly originated from a singular desire: to scratch the equally obnoxious, but more sophisticated lib-dem lobby as badly as possible.
If you are a redneck, or a Trump-supporter, intent on killing everything or everybody deemed un-American or anti-Christian, this is THE book for you.
If you are a member of aforementioned lib-dem lobby intent on showcasing the worst aspects of redneck writing, this is THE book for you.
If you want to read a clean, fast and sharp story of monster-hunting, this is NOT the book for you.
'Nuff said.
If you are a redneck, or a Trump-supporter, intent on killing everything or everybody deemed un-American or anti-Christian, this is THE book for you.
If you are a member of aforementioned lib-dem lobby intent on showcasing the worst aspects of redneck writing, this is THE book for you.
If you want to read a clean, fast and sharp story of monster-hunting, this is NOT the book for you.
'Nuff said.
September 27, 2016
I'm a big fan of the Monster Hunter series, but this one rubs me the wrong way. I get really tired of heroes that have superhuman abilities. The first part of the book is basically Chad bragging about how incredibly intelligent and good with languages he is. The latter half of the book gets back to the feel of the rest of the Monster Hunter series, but my advice is to buy this one used. I have a feeling there'll be plenty to choose from.
July 1, 2019
TLDR: Enjoyed the book, hate the main character.
I love the MHI universe. BUT. I can't explain the high ratings for this prequel trilogy. The perfect narration and interesting events could barely save it from the annoying main character. I don't plan to continue with the other two books in the trilogy. The language is excessive, think 10 year old that just learned curse words. The main character is an overly perfect Marty Stu that doesn't mind telling you how perfect he is at every single thing. The worst thing about the book is the main character's interactions with women.
If I'd read this back when I was maybe 12 I probably would've been thinking "huh, huh, banging girls". I watched too much bevis and butthead. I find it tragic that a 56 year old man still thinks it's a cool way for his man character to be. Much of the dialog between the main character and women could've been lifted straight from a porno. I read that this is after Correia stepped in and toned it way down. Yikes.
I think the Milo intro was Correia distancing himself from this series. I seriously think if this hadn't been John Ringo Correia would've crushed the project, but how can you tell a well known prolific writer "your MHI sucks" without him getting butt hurt and causing problems? Politically I agree with Ringo on most things, but his fanfic is weak.
Update: I really had no intention of continuing this series, but I got away from home without any good books on my phone so I decided to start this one. Feels weird to recommend a second book when you can't recommend the first. I guess I'd say if you can hold your nose getting past the main character's stink you'll probably enjoy these books too. I would definitely listen to the main series first though, because Ringo drops too many hints about the series secrets.
I love the MHI universe. BUT. I can't explain the high ratings for this prequel trilogy. The perfect narration and interesting events could barely save it from the annoying main character. I don't plan to continue with the other two books in the trilogy. The language is excessive, think 10 year old that just learned curse words. The main character is an overly perfect Marty Stu that doesn't mind telling you how perfect he is at every single thing. The worst thing about the book is the main character's interactions with women.
If I'd read this back when I was maybe 12 I probably would've been thinking "huh, huh, banging girls". I watched too much bevis and butthead. I find it tragic that a 56 year old man still thinks it's a cool way for his man character to be. Much of the dialog between the main character and women could've been lifted straight from a porno. I read that this is after Correia stepped in and toned it way down. Yikes.
I think the Milo intro was Correia distancing himself from this series. I seriously think if this hadn't been John Ringo Correia would've crushed the project, but how can you tell a well known prolific writer "your MHI sucks" without him getting butt hurt and causing problems? Politically I agree with Ringo on most things, but his fanfic is weak.
Update: I really had no intention of continuing this series, but I got away from home without any good books on my phone so I decided to start this one. Feels weird to recommend a second book when you can't recommend the first. I guess I'd say if you can hold your nose getting past the main character's stink you'll probably enjoy these books too. I would definitely listen to the main series first though, because Ringo drops too many hints about the series secrets.
September 7, 2016
I’ve been a huge fan of Larry Correia’s since I first read Monster Hunter International (MHI). Since then I have read all of his books and bought most of them on day one. I even had the pleasure of meeting him at least twice and he didn’t disappoint. When I heard he was starting to expand the MHI universe to allow other authors in I got pretty excited at the prospect. At DragonCon last year I heard author John Ringo talk about the book and it seemed pretty great with a cool setting (Seattle). Ringo also seemed super passionate about the project (which you can read in the book’s forward) which made me even more excited about the story.
I won’t say I disliked the book, entirely, I can’t say I liked it very much either. Out of every other MHI book I’ve read, this is definitely my least favorite. There’s plenty of the stuff I like: guns, action, MHI, supernatural monsters, etc. but the biggest issue is that I can’t say I really got onboard with the main character or his story. John Ringo is a fantastic author but he has a tendency to mostly write about characters who are the “best of the best� in the most exaggerated of ways. Take that writing style and turn the volume up to 11 and you have an idea of where we’re going.
Without giving away too much of the plot I will say the main character, Chad, is practically a Mary Sue in every regard. I never felt the character was in true danger, he’s the best at everything he even gives a passing decision to try, he’s an amazing swordsman, he learns any language with ease, he’s the guy all women want to sleep with, and he’s also the guy all men want to be (in the story). The character who immediately jumped into my mind when reading this book was Buckaroo Banzai, and not in a good way (I love that movie btw). Of course, there are story beats for why the character is the way he is (in every respect) but that doesn’t change what I’m reading. One of the things that makes books like MHI great is the characters that we follow and meet on top of the interactions they have with others. That is nowhere to be seen in this book, in my opinion. There were times where I actually said out loud something akin to, “Really, John?�
The story isn’t anything to get excited over, other than the initial premise: these are the memoirs of a hunter from MHI’s past. That’s a great concept and something that could easily fuel the series in side stories going back to anytime in the fictional world’s history. However, because of the reasons I described above, I found the story to be rather one note. I suppose there are some things that flesh the world out a bit in terms of how some of the government interactions work in the MHI world and what threats the north east of America face but other than that I found it pretty one note. Maybe you could justify some of it by saying that Chad is an unreliable narrator but there’s no evidence of that yet. There are two more books planned in Ringo’s MHI trilogy so it is possible that gets thrown in but I seriously doubt it.
The action is fine (at best), but again there is no agency because I never felt Chad was in danger. When reading Correia’s MHI books it is totally possible that characters you like will die or something terrible will happen to change the landscape of the fictional world. To be fair, this is a story set in the past (80s to be specific) but I can’t say I ever felt any likeable character was in danger (to be fair I can’t say there are many likeable characters that I haven’t already met in previous MHI books). If you simply need to read a monster hunting story where the author is a gun lover then that’s a boon as that is here more so than even in Larry’s books.
So can I recommend this book? Yes, but only if you’re a hardcore MHI fan and even then you may come out the same I did, or worse. This is without a doubt my least favorite book in the MHI series by leaps and bounds. I will be getting the next book in the series but there won’t be the excitement I had going into this one. If anything I can say that it will be an obligatory purchase for me to support the franchise. I really hope the upcoming MHI anthology (featuring authors like Jim Butcher and Jonathan Maberry) has better content but I don’t really doubt that it will. John Ringo is a tremendous author but I wish he would have just scaled back some of the ideas he had for this book as his excitement to write in the MHI universe may have gotten the best of him.
Mary Sue, Monster Hunter Extraordinaire indeed.
I won’t say I disliked the book, entirely, I can’t say I liked it very much either. Out of every other MHI book I’ve read, this is definitely my least favorite. There’s plenty of the stuff I like: guns, action, MHI, supernatural monsters, etc. but the biggest issue is that I can’t say I really got onboard with the main character or his story. John Ringo is a fantastic author but he has a tendency to mostly write about characters who are the “best of the best� in the most exaggerated of ways. Take that writing style and turn the volume up to 11 and you have an idea of where we’re going.
Without giving away too much of the plot I will say the main character, Chad, is practically a Mary Sue in every regard. I never felt the character was in true danger, he’s the best at everything he even gives a passing decision to try, he’s an amazing swordsman, he learns any language with ease, he’s the guy all women want to sleep with, and he’s also the guy all men want to be (in the story). The character who immediately jumped into my mind when reading this book was Buckaroo Banzai, and not in a good way (I love that movie btw). Of course, there are story beats for why the character is the way he is (in every respect) but that doesn’t change what I’m reading. One of the things that makes books like MHI great is the characters that we follow and meet on top of the interactions they have with others. That is nowhere to be seen in this book, in my opinion. There were times where I actually said out loud something akin to, “Really, John?�
The story isn’t anything to get excited over, other than the initial premise: these are the memoirs of a hunter from MHI’s past. That’s a great concept and something that could easily fuel the series in side stories going back to anytime in the fictional world’s history. However, because of the reasons I described above, I found the story to be rather one note. I suppose there are some things that flesh the world out a bit in terms of how some of the government interactions work in the MHI world and what threats the north east of America face but other than that I found it pretty one note. Maybe you could justify some of it by saying that Chad is an unreliable narrator but there’s no evidence of that yet. There are two more books planned in Ringo’s MHI trilogy so it is possible that gets thrown in but I seriously doubt it.
The action is fine (at best), but again there is no agency because I never felt Chad was in danger. When reading Correia’s MHI books it is totally possible that characters you like will die or something terrible will happen to change the landscape of the fictional world. To be fair, this is a story set in the past (80s to be specific) but I can’t say I ever felt any likeable character was in danger (to be fair I can’t say there are many likeable characters that I haven’t already met in previous MHI books). If you simply need to read a monster hunting story where the author is a gun lover then that’s a boon as that is here more so than even in Larry’s books.
So can I recommend this book? Yes, but only if you’re a hardcore MHI fan and even then you may come out the same I did, or worse. This is without a doubt my least favorite book in the MHI series by leaps and bounds. I will be getting the next book in the series but there won’t be the excitement I had going into this one. If anything I can say that it will be an obligatory purchase for me to support the franchise. I really hope the upcoming MHI anthology (featuring authors like Jim Butcher and Jonathan Maberry) has better content but I don’t really doubt that it will. John Ringo is a tremendous author but I wish he would have just scaled back some of the ideas he had for this book as his excitement to write in the MHI universe may have gotten the best of him.
Mary Sue, Monster Hunter Extraordinaire indeed.
March 7, 2017
As Correia says in the intro to the second Memoirs book, Ringo is a heck of a storyteller. Just remind yourself that the term unreliable narrator actually appears in the text and you'll find it easier to swallow Chad's excessive awesomeness. This reads more like a collection of tightly related short stories than a cohesive novel but it does have a narrative and so on. This is definitely written from the same part of Ringo's mind that produced the Ghost/Paladin of Shadows series, so bear that in mind. On the other had, Correia edited it with the thought that his kids read these books (not sure how I feel about that but they aren't MY kids so, none of my business), which does cut down the ick factor of Ghost by at least two thirds.
It's the 1980's (which is mostly an excuse to have Chad meet Regan as far as I can tell, well, that and explain why Owen never runs into this super awesome Hunter). Chad, aka Iron Hand, aka super awesome dude who is totally not an author avatar or any kind of wish fulfillment, dies in the Beruit barracks bombing but gets sent back to earth with a mission from God. Said mission of course involves kicking lots of monster ass. And scoring lots of honeys because Ringo. Fortunately, that's mostly glossed over at about the level of the typical Bond movie because Correia.
If you're the sort of person who loved the other Monster Hunter books, you'll probably enjoy this. If you are the sort who can't stand Ringo, you might want to give it a pass, because it's definitely Ringo.
It's the 1980's (which is mostly an excuse to have Chad meet Regan as far as I can tell, well, that and explain why Owen never runs into this super awesome Hunter). Chad, aka Iron Hand, aka super awesome dude who is totally not an author avatar or any kind of wish fulfillment, dies in the Beruit barracks bombing but gets sent back to earth with a mission from God. Said mission of course involves kicking lots of monster ass. And scoring lots of honeys because Ringo. Fortunately, that's mostly glossed over at about the level of the typical Bond movie because Correia.
If you're the sort of person who loved the other Monster Hunter books, you'll probably enjoy this. If you are the sort who can't stand Ringo, you might want to give it a pass, because it's definitely Ringo.
May 20, 2024
I do not like Chad, he is one of the worst characters. I usually don't continue reading a book if the main character is unlikable, but I already bought all these books expecting the same quality as the other Monster Hunter books, so here we are. Hate reading...my favorite thing...
So, Chad, our main character is not likable, he is arrogant, he is a jerk to the women he sleeps with and in general is a Mary Sue. He makes up all these excuses for why his sleeping around and generally treating women like objects is allowed by God. That is such garbage and it definitely ruined the book for me because it pops up through the whole entire book. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if people sleep around, that isn't my business. Where I have a problem is when only one of the parties involved knows that it's a one-off thing. In this case, Chad sleeps around and then callously leaves the woman without saying goodbye and goes on his merry way to the next unsuspecting woman. That is what I have a problem with.
In addition to that, there is way too much info dumping about guns, how political meetings work, the Yakuza, etc. There is very little actual plot that goes on in this whole book. It's basically a book of short stories and none of them are particularly interesting or good. Just Chad, proving that he is blessed by God and is awesome at everything and super super smart. It was also annoying how he brought up hating his family every time he could. I would say that he probably needs therapy or to get over it. Yes, some people have awful childhoods, but at a certain point just suck it up and get over it. You do not need to bring it up to complete strangers every chance you get, it's really petty.
1.5 out of 5 stars. I do not recommend this book to people who enjoy the Monster Hunter world, this is not a good addition to it and if I was Correia, I would ban Ringo from ever writing anything in my world again.
So, Chad, our main character is not likable, he is arrogant, he is a jerk to the women he sleeps with and in general is a Mary Sue. He makes up all these excuses for why his sleeping around and generally treating women like objects is allowed by God. That is such garbage and it definitely ruined the book for me because it pops up through the whole entire book. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if people sleep around, that isn't my business. Where I have a problem is when only one of the parties involved knows that it's a one-off thing. In this case, Chad sleeps around and then callously leaves the woman without saying goodbye and goes on his merry way to the next unsuspecting woman. That is what I have a problem with.
In addition to that, there is way too much info dumping about guns, how political meetings work, the Yakuza, etc. There is very little actual plot that goes on in this whole book. It's basically a book of short stories and none of them are particularly interesting or good. Just Chad, proving that he is blessed by God and is awesome at everything and super super smart. It was also annoying how he brought up hating his family every time he could. I would say that he probably needs therapy or to get over it. Yes, some people have awful childhoods, but at a certain point just suck it up and get over it. You do not need to bring it up to complete strangers every chance you get, it's really petty.
1.5 out of 5 stars. I do not recommend this book to people who enjoy the Monster Hunter world, this is not a good addition to it and if I was Correia, I would ban Ringo from ever writing anything in my world again.
September 25, 2016
The author of the original Monster Hunter books is pretty clearly a strong supporter of the second amendment, and not a big fan of what his side would call "political correctness", and what my side would call "not being a fucking asshole." That said, his stories are rollicking good times, and he lets his politics and opinions guide what he thinks makes believable characters and situations, while using those opinions to also try to see the other guy's side as well. He's the kind of guy that I could probably sit down to argue with over a steak, and we both come out of it feeling like we had a good solid debate.
John Ringo is not that author. He is the author of THIS book, and also a lot of other preachy bullshit. It took about four pages of guys shooting giant spiders with no context to get to the part where the main character is Mary Sue-ing his way through being good at sports, good at languages, having genius level IQ, and calling his mom a "hippy bitch" because he hates how she used to drag him to Vietnam war protests.
Coincidentally, it took about for pages for me to pitch this book into a lake.
I am, in general, totally okay with characters believing different things than I do. That's fine. They're people, and the stories happening to them are THEIR stories, not mine. But I've read several of Ringo's books, and while they always approach being interesting in terms of plot of big ideas, they always, ALWAYS feel like the main character is sort of a proxy for right wing assholes being smugly correct all the time. Not in a way that it's what the character believes, but in a way that it's what John Ringo believes, and he's gonna make damn sure that you get the point by ramming it down your throat.
I've read a lot of trashy pulp sci-fi and fantasy stories and enjoyed them. Hell, I read the original Monster Hunter series and enjoyed it. But this? This is just garbage. Skip it, unless you really are the kind of person that wants to jerk off to a good strong Christian man putting everyone in their place.
John Ringo is not that author. He is the author of THIS book, and also a lot of other preachy bullshit. It took about four pages of guys shooting giant spiders with no context to get to the part where the main character is Mary Sue-ing his way through being good at sports, good at languages, having genius level IQ, and calling his mom a "hippy bitch" because he hates how she used to drag him to Vietnam war protests.
Coincidentally, it took about for pages for me to pitch this book into a lake.
I am, in general, totally okay with characters believing different things than I do. That's fine. They're people, and the stories happening to them are THEIR stories, not mine. But I've read several of Ringo's books, and while they always approach being interesting in terms of plot of big ideas, they always, ALWAYS feel like the main character is sort of a proxy for right wing assholes being smugly correct all the time. Not in a way that it's what the character believes, but in a way that it's what John Ringo believes, and he's gonna make damn sure that you get the point by ramming it down your throat.
I've read a lot of trashy pulp sci-fi and fantasy stories and enjoyed them. Hell, I read the original Monster Hunter series and enjoyed it. But this? This is just garbage. Skip it, unless you really are the kind of person that wants to jerk off to a good strong Christian man putting everyone in their place.
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