Review: Monster Punk Horizon, by HP Holo

When the description said monster hunting, I thought they meant monster hunting like Larry Correia.

They meant kaiju.

The story

Jaz and Pix are two monster hunters in an island of monster hunting. Portals drop new creatures from the sky every day.

Except when a new monster comes to town, it tears through the local ecosystem to see where it fits in the food chain. Unfortunately, it may be at the top. Once that happens, the hunters may be next on the menu.

Unfortunately for Jaz and Pix, their skill level is somewhere around level one.

This was a surprisingly fun book that was almost solid adventure from the first page. Especially when the monsters fall out of the sky almost immediately. It's extremely well-plotted, so much so that almost everything feeds into the plot.

I will give a warning that this is technically a slow start. I didn't feel that the book picked up for the first 16% of the novel (I had an eARC). But once it gets started, you won't want to put it down. And in that first 16%, you'll probably want to read it just for the entertaining data dumps and exposition.

Once the story kicks off, it's even more entertaining. I even enjoy the way that Holo does fight scenes.

The characters

Like must of the rest of the book, the characters are bare bones, but incredibly serviceable. They're quirky, with all of the personality they need for the book. I don't mean that as an insult. I respect the book too much for that. The characters' personalities and backgrounds are revealed insomuch as they forward the story.

Jaz is impulsive and more of a “smash first and ask questions maybe” and Pix is an analyst. Jaz plays well with kaiju, while Pix thinks ahead to “when does this friendly monster turn into a threat?” We get to see most of their personalities through their actions than getting full biographies of either. Their backgrounds are sketched out enough that we know they met in college, what their degrees are—because they're mentioned in the course of the plot.

While both leads are effective heroines, neither of them is annoying or obnoxious. This is a cute trick, because the opening almost makes Jaz seem to be a high fantasy Kardashian with a greatsword. (Seriously, Jaz is special. She literally forgot her friend's real name, since she deemed it too hard to pronounce back in college.)

We even have some fun with the side characters. One is an old cat (approximately three-feet tall) with rocket knives) and a kitten with a taser.

The world

The world is fleshed out as we go, and it's well sketched. The island of monsters (Which I believe is actually called Skull Island) has its own culture, which is filled with a lot flexible sanity. One has to be crazy enough to fight kaiju, and sane enough to deal with others on a regular basis. The world runs on hunting monsters and collecting the magic gems that they spawn—or “loot drop” if you want to use the in-world language.

The world gets a lot of mileage here. There are specialists in carving magic gems so the world can operate. One of our heroines has a gem carved into her great sword so she can swing it one-handed if need be. It’s a fun, creative way of executing magic, and I haven't seen it used to this extent before.

But as mentioned above, there's also a college system in this world. I honestly want to know more.

I also want to give points to the amount of thought given to both the monster design, as well as the thought given to "what will a new alpha do to the ecosystem." No, this isn't environmental politics, this plays as much with planetary ecology as Dune ever did. Holo goes into naming conventions for monsters, local habitats and habits, and even monster personalities. (I particularly enjoyed the one where the monster was so irritable, it attacked rocks because the rocks "must have looked like they'd been throwing it shade.") I suspect there's science in Holo’s background, since I don't remember the last time I saw someone discuss auto-brewery syndrome.

This also feeds into character, to some degree, since it's mentioned that there is no such thing as a pure human anymore; even our heroines have "dragon" in their family line. It's fun contemplating the D&D labels of a "half-fey, half-orc barbarian."

For all the fun parts of this world, there are still Otaku.

The politics

None. Literally, none. There aren't even politics of the world. There is barely interpersonal politics. It's so refreshing.

Then again, if you think politics must be in everything, then we can shoehorn them in. Everyone is armed in this world. Because when monsters fall out of the sky on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis, you carry weapons. You can read that as pro-second Amendment, or you can read that as a fantasy setting with kaiju.

Content warning

Language. There's a lot of Witcher level language and cursing.

Who is it for?

Anyone who enjoys monster hunter genre of the video games should enjoy this. The same goes if you're a fan of Larry Correia, kaiju fiction, and probably straight-up RPGS.

Why read it?

Anybody who wants a straight-up action-adventure fantasy story will enjoy this.