Histories

A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Short Story Collection (Quincy Harker Collection)

By: John G. Hartness

Narrated by: James Anderson Foster

An attack in the dark. The loss of a love. Waking up hung over in a ditch.

These are the things that make a hero, especially if that hero is Quincy Harker, immortal wizard, snarky bastard, and general badass.

Histories collects two short stories and one short novella giving a peek behind the curtain at the man, the myth, the legend that is Quincy Harker, as well as the origin story of one of his most popular cohorts, Jo Henry.

Hammer Time—Jo Henry takes up her father's mantle reluctantly, but in a moment of most dire necessity. A moment of necessity and claws. LOTS of claws.

Jazz City Blues—Harker wakes up like so many of us have—facedown in a New Orleans gutter with a hangover the size of Lake Ponchartrain. Then zombies happen.

Anna's Song—The story of Harker's first love, and the tragedy that took him from her. Anna's Song is a love story, a cautionary tale, and a story about killing lots of Nazis.

©2018 John G. Hartness (P)2022 Tantor

The background stories worth the listen

After the lackluster, rather bland storyline of the latest in the series I was concerned that the short stories dealing with background histories of some of the characters would be a letdown but these were straight up vintage Quincy Harker.

Pretty good

The character is funny, the overall stories are rather original and different. There are some cheezy parts, but overall, pretty good. Just became a fan.

Great narration

I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator’s voice. The writing was great as well. The storyline is easy to follow along. I was picturing everything in my mind. On to the next in the series!

Wonderfully written, fun to get some background on our favorite Demon Hunter

I love this series. Hartness does a wonderful job of making these characters come to life. Quincy Harker is one of the most believable superheroes I’ve ever read…while still being an urban fantasy novel. This set of stories did something I’ve wanted for a long time: tell the story of his love affair with Anna. Harker is haunted by his first love, Anna. It drives the majority of his decisions. Getting to see what brought him there is was fascinating and satisfying. One of the other things I appreciate about Hartness’s writing in general is that his heroes demonstrate how to be an ally through their actions and opinions. I have to get back to work. The book is great, performance wonderful as always, if you like the Dresden files or Eric Carter, then you’ll like Quincy harker. But if you don’t know if you’ll like Quincy harker then you should start with book 1 instead.

Great for newcomers and Harker fans

The Publisher’s summary is spot on: two shorts and a novella giving a sampler of quintessential Quincy MFing Harker, part vampire, all mouth. These three stories all predate book 1, but the last is set decades earlier.

1 - Jazz City Blues (1 hr) complete stand alone fun with hangovers, beignets and zombies in New Orleans
2 - Hammer Time (1 hr) origin story for Jo Henry, her introduction to Harker, and werewolves
3 - Anna’s Song (2 hrs) Love, loss and Nazis in 1939.
This one is more serious in tone and features the holocaust prominently.
It’s slightly out of context if you’re not familiar with Harker’s current-day love, Becks,
but I still think you can enjoy this without having listened to any of the books.

From here, if you liked the shorts, look for the 39hr omnibus titled Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Omnibus and featuring Years One, Two, and Three (or “books” 1-4, 5-8, and 9-12). Yes, it’s confusing to see a 1-4 “book” collection that is shorter than the 1-3 “book” collection. That’s because the series started out by bundling 3 hour “books” together into a collection of four books, each featuring a year in the life of Quincy Harker.

The listening order that avoids double purchases is:
-this prequel
-Books 1-3, Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter omnibus (39 hrs, 17 min) (“books”/novellas 1-12)
-Salvation, completing the initial series arc (12 hrs, 43min)(“books”/novellas 13-16)
-Carl Perkins Cadillac (book 17 and start of the full length books)
-Inflection Point (book 18) (I consider the next three as a trilogy arc)
-Conspiracy Theory (book 19)
-Comes a Reckoning (book 20)

Not bad!

The last book was little more than a political piece, I told myself I wouldn't buy another book by John Hartness because of it but I decided to give it another chance. I'm not going to say it's one of the best Harker books he's written because it's not but it was ten times better than the last!

Titillating tales

Enough to want to read more. Good narration. Very good teasers. Will continue to follow Mr Harknrss

That wasn’t fun

I struggled with this one and nearly stopped before the end. I did push through and finished, but I didn’t enjoy it. Racism and the gory deaths of nazis and the loss of loved ones just doesn’t make for an enjoyable story.