Monster Hunter Guardian

Monster Hunter International, Book 7

De: Larry Correia, Sarah A. Hoyt

Narrado por: Brynne Blake

New entry in the best-selling Monster Hunter International series by Dragon Award-winning authors Larry Correia and Sarah A. Hoyt

When Owen Pitt and the rest of the Monster Hunter International crew are called away to mount a month’s-long rescue mission in a monster-infested nightmare dimension, Julie Shackleford - Owen’s wife and descendant of MHI founder Bubba Shackleford - is left behind. Her task: hold down the fort and take care of her new baby son Ray. Julie’s devoted to the little guy, but the slow pace of office work and maternity leave are starting to get to her. But when a routine field call brings her face-to-face with an unspeakable evil calling itself Brother Death, she’ll get more excitement than she ever hoped for.

Julie is the Guardian of a powerful ancient artifact known as the Kamaresh Yar, and Brother Death wants it. In the wrong hands, it could destroy reality as we know it. Julie would die before giving it up.

Then Ray goes missing, taken by Brother Death. The price for his safe return: the Kamaresh Yar. If Julie doesn’t hand over the artifact it means death - or worse - for baby Ray. With no other choice left to her, Julie agrees to Brother Death’s demands. But when you’re dealing with an ancient evil, the devil is in the details.

To reclaim her son, Julie Shackleford will have to fight her way through necromantic death cults, child-stealing monsters, and worse. And she’ll have to do it all before Brother Death can unleash the Kamaresh Yar.

It’s one woman against an army of monsters. But Julie Shackleford is no ordinary woman - she’s one tough mother!

©2019 Larry Correia & Sarah A. Hoyt (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

Whaaa?

Good book, but the performer's pronunciations seem way off. And I dont think she really came off as I picture Julie. She was good as Mr. Trashbags, but Julie was too... wishy washy.

enjoyable John wick type adventure

was a little reluctant when I first started and it took me a while to get used to the narrator, but as the story progressed it got better and better. I enjoyed the adventure overall.

Unremarkable

Story wasn't bad, and there were some interesting ideas like the concept of an Evil Market, but the execution wasn't very enthralling. I understand that a mother is only going to obsess over her baby till she gets him back, but after the fourth or fifth reiteration of 'woe is me I want my baby' internal dialogue you start to get really tired of it. Would have done a lot better as a third-person perspective.

The reader also wasn't bad for most of the performance, but she hadn't done any research into previous performances so her pronunciation of a few names was off. Her evil voice wasn't very impressive and she struggled with the accents. Julie is supposed to be a Southern woman, but aside from one 'bless your heart' she sounded Midwestern generic.

The redeeming qualities of this story are its relative brevity, some pretty well done action scenes, and Mr. Trashbags. Seriously, everyone needs a pocket shaugguth. He's awesome. I hope we see more of him in the future.

This book is worth the credit. Just don't expect too much. It'll tide you over till Larry writes the next one.

Oh, and Larry, if you're reading this... how much longer before we see the spawn of Chad? I haven't been so interested in a potential character since Harry Dresden name-dropped Santa Claus.

Should have been a short story or a spin-off

If Larry Correia isn't writing anymore Monster Hunter International books, I'm probably going to give up the series. I don't care if other authors write within the world or write short stories using main characters, but the main series should only be written by the original author. This is completely a money grab with a story that is just interesting enough to keep reading.

I don't mind the narration so much because Bailey Carr has narrated stories in the universe before, but changing authors and the POV character 7 books into the series is just terrible.

Great entry in the series

Humor, suspense, horror, and a deeper delve into the world that Larry Correia has created. Loved the characters and the narrator, and now I'm sad because I'm going to have to wait for the next book.

Collaborative Awesome!

I'm used to being thrilled with all of Larry Correia's books, but was honestly skeptical of the collaboration as I hadn't read much from Sarah Hoyt. My reservations were needless as the book felt like what it should be, the world of MHI through Julie's view! Who knew wreaking wholesale destruction on evil and Motherhood went together so well!

Honestly the narrator is not my favorite, however it didn't detract from the story, and I'd still gladly hear more from her for more female perspectives in the MHI universe!

Not like the other stories in the series, not good

I'm baffled by all the good reviews. I love Larry Correia's books, really love the Monster Hunter series, rated those all great, but just because I really love the series and the author doesn't give him an automatic mulligan for what I feel is a story that does no justice to one of the main characters and definitely doesn't feel like it belongs in this series.

Here's what I didn't like and why I'm returning this book:
1) We've had a lot of books to get used to Julie Shakleford being a nice, fair, smart & totally bad ass lady so doing the opposite this late into the series doesn't work.
I get sometimes things hit home so hard that it throws your entire world off balance, but it doesn't change who you are at the core and I feel like she could have done so much better in this story.
2) Julie is on constant repeat throughout the entire book whining the same things over and over. I'm not a fan of repetition and despise extreme repetition.
3) Julie WHINES ALL THE WAY THROUGH!!! NO. I don't like it. It doesn't suit her. This series is supposed to be full of main characters that are brave, bad ass and NONE ARE WHINERS UNTIL NOW! I feel like this series was supposed to be like I tell my 4 kids at home "This is a whine free zone", and Larry totally completely bashed that rule all to hell!
4) While the narrator has a nice voice, can do other voices, is well spoken and easy to listen to, throughout this entire book she does Julie's voice is a whiny way that grated on my nerves so bad I had to stop listening several times, listen to something else then come back to this.
5) I have 4 kids, when I listen to an audiobook I want to escape from them, not listen to an entire story based on someone else's kid(s). That is not a pleasant escape for me.

You could have done so much better with the same content Mr. Correia. I'm disappointed.

Hated the voice actor

I really like Correia's work I have all three MHI series. The story line was pretty good but Julie seemed exceptionally whiny. For me the voice actor really ruined it. I'm actually going to return this book because of it. I barely made it through. Her accents were terrible! Juile is supposed to have a slight southern accent but all I was hearing was whiny LA girl. Honestly I hope you never use her again.

Love the MHI

Thanks for another great MHI story. They are always entertaining and feel like family. Can't wait for the next!

It's not bad... but it's not Correia or Wyman

1. Story. It's OK, but it's not Correia.
It's basically a one-liner, i.e. zero depth, almost no surprises: find bad guys, hit bad guys, get hit by bad guys, almost find the baby, lose the baby, whine for a while, rinse, repeat. And the "guardian" part of it is kinda botched: Julie doesn't learn how to use it - it uses her. So no character growth.

2. Performance. Very bland. Voice separation done carefully and correctly, but... women just can't do men voices, sorry, it's a physiological fact. So when Carr tries to do Management or the afro-vampire, she just goes half an octave down, with no depth.
Also, she mangles some words, including names. She pronounces "harbinger" without a "gee" in it, and says "darn" instead of Darne. Probably some others.

3. Politics. I am right-wing myself, and I have always appreciated the way Correia provides the general anti-establishment, anti-regulation atmosphere in his books, without resorting to actual slogans. Hoyt doesn't. She just inserts the political statements and bits of trivia right into the stream, which seems contrived and out of character for Julie.

4. So... is it all bad? Not at all. The book overall is nice. Yes, I wish the story had more depth. But it only has the one character. Yes, I wish it was Wyman who reads it (and I am going to register this as a formal complaint). But it does make a weird sense for a woman to read for a woman. Too bad she does a not very good job of it.
The most basic question: will I re-listen? meh. Will I return? No.