In the first two books of the Monster Hunter series, Larry Correia basically wrote gun porn with monsters. There were characters, but they loved their guns and it shone through. In the third book, Monster Hunter Alpha, Correia decided to shake things up a little bit. Moving from Owen Pitt to Earl Harbinger and introducing a ton of new characters (many of whom are killed during the monster melee) was an interesting way to change things and it did work, but only part of the time.So, let’s see what’s up with Earl.

Earl Harbinger has been a bit of a mystery for most of the series. We found out that he is a werewolf under special exemption from the PUFF act. He was in many, many military adventures (some with Owens’ dad) which earned him that exemption. This book is partly a memoir of Earl. Over the course of the book, he goes into his backstory. Earl talks about how he was bitten and how he learned to control himself, which is something that is very rare for werewolves. We learn about his arch enemy (Nikolai) who was dedicated to Stalin and the USSR. And we learn that Earl is the Alpha werewolf. Which means he is in charge of all werewolves and makes it his mission to take out anyone who doesn’t follow his two rules (don’t mess with humans and don’t piss Earl off).

The other part of the story involves a new super bad guy who is using some old relic to become the Alpha werewolf. This story ties into Earl’s war days and also brings in a new female werewolf who is able to control herself as well as(if not better than) Earl even though she is a new werewolf. We also learn about another Monster Hunter group (started by an MHI castoff) and some other MCB members (who like Earl and MHI less than Franks and Myers. This part of the story is mediocre and only somewhat interesting. Outside of Earl, we barely see any of our usual gang of suspects. And the main monster is barely seen. We get the Three Stooges monster hunters and the MCB idiots way too much and they just aren’t interesting enough. Overall, it’s a decent book, but I’d rather have seen more MHI and less MCB. Mildly Recommended.