Larry Correia has successfully built up the Monster Hunter brand to the point where other authors like John Ringo and Sarah Hoyt have now penned volumes of the series.\u00a0 I have not previously read any of these non-Correia additions to the MHI world but I wasn\u2019t worried about continuity problems when I picked up the Monster Hunter Files short story collection.\u00a0 After all, when you let other authors share in your fictional world you are assuming that their writing style will be different and that they will be interested in different aspects of that world or at least emphasize things differently.<\/p>\n
And this is definitely the case for the authors and stories in this collection.\u00a0 In some cases, authors with established characters are embedding these known quantities into the MHI world.\u00a0 When that happens the fans of that author will be the ones who can best judge if the character was faithfully transplanted into the MHI universe.\u00a0 But Larry\u2019s fans are the ones who will decide if the fit is successful.\u00a0 There are seventeen stories in the collection with writers as well-known as Jim Butcher, John Wright, John Ringo and Jonathan Maberry.\u00a0 And there are authors that are less well known.\u00a0 But the success of the stories also depends on whether the author\u2019s take on the material fits well with the MHI style.\u00a0 And finally, the individual reader will provide the most important component of what is a good or bad story, namely his individual tastes.<\/p>\n
And indeed, that is the case for me.\u00a0 Regardless of the skill of the author or even my taste for that author\u2019s work, the primary consideration is whether the story is entertaining.\u00a0 And that will be a continuum.\u00a0 Some stories are enjoyable on several levels and can be easily identified as the stand outs.\u00a0 Others may be okay and don\u2019t rate top billing.\u00a0 And some just plain don\u2019t work for me.\u00a0 Relevant to that is the interesting situation that the one Larry Correia story is not actually my favorite story in the collection.\u00a0 I have to assume it\u2019s not because the other stories are more genuinely MHI than his.\u00a0 That would be hard to argue.\u00a0 It\u2019s just because they happen to be better stories by my criteria.\u00a0 And this is the beauty of the multi-author anthology.\u00a0 You discover new authors whose work you find you like.\u00a0 My personal favorites:<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe Manticore Sanction\u201d by John C. Wright<\/p>\n
2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe Gift\u201d by Steve Diamond<\/p>\n
Plenty of the other stories are good and were enjoyed but these two were the best for my tastes.<\/p>\n
I would say the story collection is a success.\u00a0 In fact, I see no reason why additional volumes couldn\u2019t be published.\u00a0 One idea that I think would be interesting is a volume of stories entirely from the point of view of the monsters.\u00a0 This is actually sort of the case in the story \u201cHuffman Strikes Back\u201d by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Julie Frost.\u00a0 The stories in such a volume would have to be handled carefully to make it interesting but it would be a departure and provides totally different points of view on the familiar characters and situations from the conventional monster hunting narratives.\u00a0 After all there are a number of important monsters including some of the Shacklefords.\u00a0 Highlighting their points of view in the stories would be entertaining and could provide insights that can\u2019t be easily obtained from the conventional perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Larry Correia has successfully built up the Monster Hunter brand to the point where other authors like John Ringo and Sarah Hoyt have now penned<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,237,4,242],"tags":[10,1427,1428,1429,8,31,611],"class_list":["post-4919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-jim-butcher","tag-john-c-wright","tag-john-ringo","tag-jonathan-maberry","tag-larry-correia","tag-monster-hunter","tag-monster-hunter-international"],"yoast_head":"\n