{"id":1021,"date":"2010-10-14T14:33:11","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T18:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=1021"},"modified":"2010-10-14T14:33:11","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T18:33:11","slug":"monster-hunters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/monster-hunters\/","title":{"rendered":"MONSTER HUNTERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m one of those people who could probably complete his entire Christmas gift buying in a single well-stocked bookstore, and with That Time of Year coming up, expect to see more book reviews in this space. A gun person who likes science fiction \u2013 or, heck, anyone who likes science fiction \u2013 will enjoy \u201cMonster Hunter International<\/a>\u201d and its new sequel, \u201cMonster Hunter Vendetta.<\/a>\u201d The protagonist is young Owen Zastava Pitt.\u00a0 Like many of us, Owen once had a werewolf for a boss. Unfortunately, his was the kind that got all furry. He tried to kill Owen; Owen killed him in self-defense; and, in an alternate world where bogeymen exist but the Government keeps it quiet, Owen is thus recruited into Monster Hunter International.<\/p>\n

The author, Larry Correia, is One of Us. He\u2019s a firearms industry professional, a former prime mover at the wonderfully named Fuzzy Bunny gun shop. He\u2019s an avid three-gun action shooting competitor, and the hero he created wields cool guns like custom STI .45s and a Saiga 12-gauge shotgun with a full auto selector switch and mounting a grenade launcher for good measure. Known for his sense of humor both in the industry and on the \u2018net \u2013 MHI was first glimpsed at TheHighRoad.org, a very cool Internet gun forum \u2013 \u00a0Correia brings all these elements of his life to his fiction.<\/p>\n

In \u201cVendetta,\u201d for example, the Hunters encounter a giant green troll \u2026 which turns out to make its living as an Internet spammer.\u00a0 Attempting escape, the troll head-butts a Hunter. \u201cHa ha! You got pwned, bitches,\u201d it screeches as it hops away. \u201cWitness my perfection, Newbs!\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, I admit it, I laughed out loud.<\/p>\n

The plotting is excellent, and Correia makes you care about the characters. I\u2019m not a frequent sci-fi reader, but I read both books without putting them down except for work. Word is that the latest Correia volume has made it to the New York Times bestseller list.\u00a0 Now, whatever you may think of the NYT, Correia and Stephen Hunter are the only Gun People since Robert Ruark half a century ago to make it big in mainstream bookstore fare. One reason is, quite simply, that their stuff is good.<\/p>\n

But it would also be nice for all of us to buy these books to keep Our Own Kind in the public eye and on the bestseller list\u2026and, yes, self-defense is obviously a value much celebrated in Correia\u2019s works, as in Hunter\u2019s.\u00a0 I bought the first one from Amazon and the second a week ago in Borders.\u00a0 So, whaddaya waitin\u2019 for? Go out and buy some \u2026 for yourselves, and for stocking stuffers.<\/p>\n

And of course, feel free to make other gift book suggestions here in the Comments section.<\/p>\n

\"Monster<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m one of those people who could probably complete his entire Christmas gift buying in a single well-stocked bookstore, and with That Time of Year coming up, expect to see more book reviews in this space. A gun person who likes science fiction \u2013 or, heck, anyone who likes science fiction \u2013 will enjoy \u201cMonster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reviews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}