Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints is available now!

Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints by me and John Ringo is out now.

I just saw John this weekend at LibertyCon. The booksellers there got a few cases early, and we sold all of them.

This is the last book in the Memoirs trilogy and it’s my favorite of the three. I hope you guys enjoy it!

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((Note from Jack: if you haven’t read it yet, avoid the comments here. People are dropping spoilers…))

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44 thoughts on “Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints is available now!”

    1. No way this is the last one. I finished last night, so SPOILERS:

      The sequels with Chad’s daughter are going to be awesome.

      Also – I’m totally that uncle, but I hadn’t thought of giving coal for Christmas – definitely happening this year.

        1. You don’t have to wait for the latter… he’s the main character in Steve Diamond’s story “The Gift”, part of the Monster Hunter Files anthology.

        1. I think Holly is too old. Chad’s daughter, assuming she was born after Chad’s death, Christmas 92, would have been born in 1993, making her 25. I thought I read somewhere that Holly was in her 30s. Though we’d now have to guess what year the series is actually set.

  1. My pre-ordered copy just arrived this morning! Happy dance! Time to see what stories Chad is telling about himself now!

  2. Dang it! This and Spy Master by Brad Thor drop today! I can only listen to one book at a time! Aaaarrgh!

  3. If the series must end, then this book totally nailed the landing. Perfect tens across the board!

  4. My Amazon pre-order just arrived today! Couldn’t figure out why the SSD I ordered was in a book box… %-) NUTS! [sigh] Oh well, who needs sleep? It’s going to be a long day (waiting to read it) & long night (reading it) ahead, but it’ll be worth it in the end! 😀

    P.S. – Thank you for the dedication to creator of The Luggage and archivist of all the denizens of the Discworld: Pterry is my favorite author and has been since 1st reading _Colour of Magic_ some 35 years ago, or thereabouts! [You’re nipping at his heels now tho’, and may surpass him eventually, given he’s pushing daisies & well, you’re NOT! 😉 ]

  5. Went to buy the Kindle version of this and noticed that monster Hunter international Kindle edition was free. I picked it up to since I still read paper books when I bought that.

  6. I just wish you could get John to rewrite the bit in Prague with all the Young Frankenstein jokes to where it was a third person bit instead of from Chad’s POV (since “Saints” said via Milo and Earl that no memoirs were found from that tragic mission), for a future anthology. That bit was too funny to be left a long-lost fragment of a never-told tale.

  7. I had already read the E-ARC, but since you and John were both there I bought the hard copy so you could both sign it. Great book, and I loved Earl’s afterward, but I’m confused; I thought Baen trilogies were at least four books. (And I really wanted another).
    BTW – great seeing you there – you looked like you were having a really good time.

  8. To the lord of Hate, and his sidekick, Ringo,

    Gentlemen, while I really enjoyed Saint’s, I am angry with the two of you. The very first words I said after finishing the book was, and I quote, ” That is NOT fair.” Now I have to wait to find out about Chad’s daughter. Now I have to think about all the book to see if there are any hints. She better be in the next book.

    Good Job, and Best Regards,
    Bob J.

  9. I had the E-Arc, but also pre-ordered the Audible, so I am now listening to Oliver Wyman talking like Earl Harbinger telling the story of the Christmas Party. No spoilers, but if you’ve been reading this series you already know that that meant a LOT of silver plaques.

  10. What was the girlfriend? Who is his daughter? And how could the next book have her in it? She wouldn’t be old enough yet, so how could earl think she was awesome yet?

    1. We don’t know much about the girlfriend except that –

      1.) She’s hard to kill
      2.) She’s long-lived
      3.) She’s gorgeous
      4.) She earned her PUFF-exemption back in 1945.

      Pure speculation, but I’m guessing that she’s a Kitsune. They’re the Japanese version of female fox spirits that take the form of beautiful women. The Japanese version can be benevolent or malevolent (the Chinese version is similar, but the Korean Kumiho is pretty much *always* bad news), but is mischievous – kind of like Chad at times. While her ethnicity is never mentioned, Chad’s interest in all things Japanese, and his taste in interior decorating (Earl mentions that his place in New York was done up Japanese-style) are the kinds of things that might attract the attention of a woman with Japanese background. Kitsune start with a single tail, and are forced to stay on Earth until they grow nine tails (how exactly they do that varies; in some stories, it’s pretty gruesome). So being active in 1945 and still looking gorgeous fifty years later at the ill-fated Christmas Party wouldn’t be a problem for a Kitsune.

      If she’s a kitsune, then it’s likely that she was part of one of the Nissei communities in the US before World War 2. She probably volunteered after Pearl Harbor, and likely earned her PUFF exemption working behind enemy lines during World War 2. Kitsune tend to prefer working through misdirection and trickery instead of direct confrontations.

      Regarding the daughter – presumably she’ll turn up in a short story at some point, and we’ll get acquainted with her. As for her age, remember that the Christmas Party was in 1995. It’s possible that Chad left her home when he went to the party. Or it’s possible that his girlfriend was pregnant at the time (but not showing) and gave birth several months later. We don’t know how much time has passed in-setting between Larry’s first MH novel and Siege (it might be operating under “comic book time”). But it’s likely that she’s in her late teens (and quite possibly in her early twenties) by the end of Siege.

  11. I have a criticism to offer.
    Yes, a CRITICISM!

    Dear Mr. Ringo and Mr. Correia:
    Thank you for the truly excellent stories. Despite how enjoyable they are, however, you are consistently leaving ‘money on the table.’
    A very significant number of your monsters are potentially quite terrifying. You almost never capture that – either in this series or in the MHI series in general.
    An example of the single book which does an effective job exploring this aspect: Monster Hunter Alpha. I’m probably an outlier here, but I think it’s the all around best of the series. The rest of the books either touch on this aspect only lightly or not at all.

    I’m throwing the glove down. If you ever do an MHI collaboration again, I’d like to see the full horror, anguish and grief these monsters could cause properly drawn out in a story.

    1. Sorry, but no. I’m not a horror writer (I can be when I feel like it, and I prove that with two of the shorts in Target Rich Environment, and also some in Alpha) but the MHI series is primarily an action and urban fantasy series. They’ve got the exact same creatures, but what separates urban fantasy from horror is how the protagonists perceive them and react to them. If I’m writing horror I want bleak, afraid, and hopeless. I write from the perspective of MHI, so that don’t fly, so if I flipped to “full horror, anguish, and grief” then that would in fact ruin the series, and piss off ten thousand other fans.

      So thanks for the advice, but since I’ve done this all day, every day, for ten years, I’ve thought just a teensy bit about it. 😀

      1. WAIT, Wait, wait – don’t take it in a bad way. It’s not meant in that vein at all.
        I didn’t suggest going FULL horror and ONLY horror.
        But your writing in MH: Alpha was POWERFUL. Amping up the fear factor adds TONS to the impact of a story.
        Example: the entire portion of MH: Siege in that nightmare dimension, including the reveal of the chief bad guy, is a step in that direction, and story presentations like that are exactly the kinds of things I’d love to see more of.
        In MH:Alpha, you demonstrated that you have this ‘weapon’ in your literary arsenal and that you wield it well. The next time you’re writing a story and you’re not quite sure what direction you want to go, this is a tool/skill you might want to employ on occasion.
        🙂

  12. Got the book finished it in a day, couldn’t put it down. And as for the ending exactly how I would have expected Chad to go out, a true warrior to the end.

  13. Just out of curiosity, will there be any more Memoirs books? I mean there’s a bit of time between the formal end of Saints and the epilogue by Earl? I’m hoping so, and for books about his daughter and what exactly his wife was. Please don’t let the suspense kill me! Also, I must have missed the Kickstarter for the RPG, but it sounds very cool, I look forward to that also.

  14. I’m surprised there’s been so little conjecture about Chad’s girlfriend! Because it’s Chad, she’d have to be a stunner and super smart to keep his attention. Or use supernatural powers to do so. We saw that with “Singer”, but I don’t think you’d go to that well again. So, my money is on a Kitsune. Maybe the same one that fought alongside Franks in MH Files?

  15. I seem to remember this woman, a woman that Earl knew when he was getting his PUFF exemption. Wasn’t she a Siren or something? Oh wait, she actually got married, didn’t she? Couldn’t have been Chad, then. I’ll have to reread Alpha.

    1. IIRC, she was a Veela. That was during the Vietnam War, though. Chad’s girlfriend got her exemption around 1945.

      Also, Earl notes that his service in Vietnam wasn’t the first time that he had to earn a PUFF exemption.

  16. Great read.

    But I walked away with a question:

    Since Milo seems to be a part of most of the MH books, will he ever get his back story told?

  17. Heh. You magnificent bastards. We can’t have web-crack in the form of Baen CD’s anymore, but no worries. Keep writing them, and I’ll be gladly handing over my money until your fingers fall off from manic typing. Addiction is hell, I tell you!

    Chad has a daughter. I spent a few minutes speculating, but screw that. I’ll wait to find out and look forward to it the entire time.

    Keep up the excellent work, gentlemen.

  18. Well done gentlemen

    The teaming up of Larry and John is quite marvelous. How has the Monster Hunter series not been brought to the movies or Netflix?
    Even though I knew it was coming that Chad was part of the Christmas party I was sitting on the edge of my seat savoring every word, he died as he lived a hero. It is good to know his lineage continued on it the literary universe….

  19. I really loved this trilogy. I can’t wait for Monster Hunter Guardian. I definitely want to know more about Chad’s girlfriend and his daughter. Keep up the good work!

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