Monster Hunter Files
It is long past time you expanded your reading, dear reader! If you have not yet perused THE MONSTER HUNTER FILES, an anthology set in the Monsterverse of Larry Correia, International Lord of Awesome, you are in for a treat.
You can buy it here: https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-Files-Hunters-International-ebook/dp/B0751KQFL4
If you look closely at the Czech edition of this anthology, the sharp eye might see that a story written by yours truly, ‘The Manticore Sanction‘ appears on the cover:
Here are the opening lines:
When Her Majesty’s government decreed that he must murder his fiancée before New Years, Madhouse Harry thought it only reasonable.
Sir Henry ‘Madhouse’ Adrian Scrope, 24th Lord Scrope of Wormsley Hall, had served the Crown loyally for thirty years in hidden wars against unearthly horrors. MI-13 was Manticore, Metahuman, Abnormal, or Nonterrestrial Invasive Cryptozoological Organism Research and Extermination, and it did not officially exist. In Serbia, he had lost his right arm in the teeth of a creature that also did not officially exist: an invulnerable lioness the size of a lorry, not to mention his Enfield revolver his grandfather had carried in the Boer War. He still missed that piece.
Scrope knew the risks.
Those craving a free sample of the wares before buying, try here:
https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781481482752/9781481482752_toc.htm
Here is Larry Correia’s list of the authors and their contributions:
“Thistle” by Larry Correia (Owen and his team take on a new kind of monster in Arizona)
“Small Problems” by Jim Butcher (MHI’s new janitor has to deal with some small problems)
“Darkness Under The Mountain” by Mike Kupari (Cooper takes a freelance job in Afghanistan)
“A Knight Of The Enchanted Forest” by Jessica Day George (Trailer park elves versus gnomes TURF WAR!)
“The Manticore Sanction” by John C. Wright (Cold War era British espionage with monsters)
“The Dead Yard” by Maurice Broaddus (Trip goes to Jamaica on some family business)
“The Bride” by Brad R. Torgersen (Franks wasn’t the only thing Benjamin Franklin cut deals with)
“She Bitch, Killer of Kits” (a Skinwalker Crossover Tale) by Faith Hunter (Jane Yellowrock teams up with MHI)
“Mr. Natural” by Jody Lynn Nye (an STFU mission in the 70s has to deal with plant monsters and hippies!)
“Sons Of The Father” by Quincy J. Allen (Two young brothers discover monsters are real, and kill a mess of them)
“The Troll Factory” by Alex Shvartsman (Heather gets some help from MHI for an STFU mission into Russia)
“Keep Kaiju Weird” by Kim May (a Kitsune may have already earned her PUFF exemption, but she’s not going to let some monster squish Portland)
“The Gift” by Steve Diamond (Two of the Vatican’s Hunters from the Blessed Order of Saint Hubert the Protector on a mission in Mexico)
“The Case of the Ghastly Specter” by John Ringo (while studying at Oxford, Chad takes a case)
“Huffman Strikes Back” by Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Julie Frost (Owen’s vacation gets interrupted for some monster revenge)
“Hunter Born” by Sarah A. Hoyt (remember how I mentioned Julie didn’t get to go to her prom because of monster problems? Here you go)
“Hitler’s Dog” by Jonathan Maberry (It is WW2 and Agent Franks really hates Nazis)
I am pleased as punch with this story, and glad to make the sale to such as great guy as Larry.
I wanted to use the monsters Larry had not already covered in his books, and there were not that many left just lying around. I also wanted to treat them as they truly should be, as scary as they were in the old days before appearing in Abbott and Costello comedies.
My little story has a lot crammed in the short length: Shooting, fighting, maiming, revenge, mummies, evil bees! No shrieking eels, but there was an crocodile god from the Nile in the Thames.
Vanderdecken, whom I say counts as a monster in an elliptical way, does not make an appearance, but the Flying Dutchman does, albeit it is not named.
Queen Aquareine and Princess Clia of from The Sea Fairies by L. Frank Baum is mentioned by name, so if my story is officially canon in the Monsterverse, then so are the eerie fairy nations surrounding Oz.
Since the Cthulhu Mythos is also explicitly involved in the Monsterverse, by the transitive property, this means Glinda the Good could meet and face Nyarlathotep at some point.
I also offered my proposal for who the Creature of the Black Lagoon really is, and why he never seems to be killed by mortal men between films.
The Catholic Geek reviewed my story:
— This one was dark. Very British. Also very Universal monster movie… the black and white version, not the new crap with Tom Cruise. This one was … surprisingly powerful. It left a mark. 6/5.
Another review remarks that MANTICORE “is seriously skilled acronym-making, though I don’t know whether Correia or Wright gets the credit.”
Thank you, I get the credit.
She finds the hero is unlikable, and says no one, human or otherwise, to like and root for in this whole piece.
Hmm. I was hoping readers would at least have some pity for the Mummy.
Yet Another reviewer also describes my tale as dark and depressing.
Some readers might be a little surprised by these reactions, but others might agree. Read it for yourself and decide.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
