Larry Correia is one of my favorite writers currently. He has two distinct and interesting series going on at the same time and manages to not only tell new and interesting stories within each series, but also fleshes out the characters and mythology of each series at the same time. With his latest book in the Monster Hunter series, Monster Hunter Legion, Correia expands the Monster Hunter universe by showing us several additional hunters from across the world as well as expand the role of the government overseers with another agency. What’s amazing is that Correia does this without confusing the reader or losing track of the plot and the characters. Let’s see what happened.
When an International Monster Hunter organization has a convention, what better place to have it than at Las Vegas. With teams from around the world gathering, it’s the perfect place to mingle, learn some new and exciting ways to kill monsters and slip over to the gun convention down the street. But when the leader of Special Task Force Unicorn, Stricken, offers $10 million to whoever kills a monster out in the Nevada desert, the bad times are just starting. The monster is easily killed by the rival German team, but something gets brought back to the hotel. And before you know it, the hotel is cut off from the outside world and some old WW II experiments are no longer as dead and buried as people believed they were.
Our main POV character is back to Owen, after a detour to Earl for Monster Hunter Alpha, and Owen is the core of the book. He’s such a great character that it makes the series so much better. Owen knows what he’s good at (guns, killing, accounting) and what he’s bad at (public relations) and the fact that Correia gives Owen things that he’s bad at makes the character that much stronger. Earl and Monster Control Bureau agent Franks are great secondary characters. I’d love to see Correia develop Julie a little more since she seems a little too perfect.
But at the heart, this book is, like the other in the series, about guns and monsters. The plot for this book isn’t quite as good as the previous novels in the series, but it’s still good enough to move things along. The characters are what truly drive the series and the plot is mainly there to get the characters from one monster to another with some wonderful personal growth within the series. Recommended.