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Being the Bad Guy for a Good Cause
Larry Correia is best known for hard-edged urban fantasy. His Monster Hunter and Hard Magic series involve lots of firearms and fantastic creatures.
“Gun Runner,” by Larry Correia and John Brown is hard science fiction, set in a distant future that has interstellar travel. Yet Correia stays true to form. It is hard-edged and involves lots of firearms and fantastic creatures.
Captain Nicholas Holloway owns Multipurpose Supply VehicleTar Heel, an interstellar cargo ship. He is a gun runner. He and his crew are not in it just for the money. They provide banned weapons to societies who need them to fight animals on their home planets or to battle crazies with better political connections to Earth Bloc bureaucrats.
Jason Rook is a member of Holloway’s crew. He piloted an exosuit mech in the Gloss rebellion against the Collectivists. Then the Collectivists enslaved him through illegal brain control – which Earth Bloc did nothing to stop. Holloway rescued as Rook just as the rebellion was collapsing. Rook has been with Holloway ever since.
Now Rook and Holloway are on a new mission: steal a Citadel, the latest, greatest top-of-the-line mech available. They are going to deliver it to Swindle, a world with a corrosive atmosphere and apex predators that make Tyrannosaurus Rexes look wimpy. Swindle’s citizens need military-grade hardware to survive, but those weapons are under an Earth Bloc ban. They claim Swindle’s ruler is a tyrant.
Even a broken clock is right occasionally, and it turns out this time the Earth Bloc is right. Swindle’s ruler is Idi Amin-level crazy and cruel. What do you do when you discover you are not on the side of the angels this time?
You fix it.
Jason Rook plans to do just that. Despite the odds, and even when his allies are as much of a hindrance as his enemies. Even if it means he has to confront his fear of becoming mentally enslaved again.
Correia and Brown have put together an action-packed adventure filled with giant robots, bandits, and murderers. They have thrown in dinosaurs (or rather extraterrestrial equivalents) as a bonus. There are good guys and bad guys, and enough ambiguity to make it unclear at first which are which. Add a touch of libertarian politics to fight overweening bureaucracy and you have the story.
“Gun Runner” is space opera at its best. Fun and fast-paced, it is an entertaining read.
“Gun Runner,” by Larry Correia and John Brown , Baen Books, 2021, 384 pages, $25.00 (Hardcover), $9.99 (Ebook)
This review was written by Mark Lardas who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.
Published in Literature
Sounds like a fun read. Need to add it to my ever growing stack of books to read.
Bought. Downloaded. Ready to go on the Kindle. Thank you, Seawriter.
It’s on my list, thanks to Larry’s plugs over at Monster Hunter Nation. Thanks for promoting it here.
OK, I’m adding it to my list. Thanks for the review, Seawriter.
It was good, not particularly great. Doesn’t hold up to The Forgotten Warrior or MHI.
It’s a fun time with some interesting background worldbuilding that could be the basis for a great universe. That said, it isn’t breaking any new ground or executing so well that it breaks any molds.
If you like standard sci-fi actiony stories with a fair bit a humor done reasonably well then this is perfect for you.
Bought it!
Ya see, that’s not a negative review. 😁
Yer back. How’s Jack?
I’d call it a lukewarm review, suffering from my high expectations. It doesn’t rise above the usual sci-fi stuff when I had been hoping for more given that it’s Larry Correia.
I enjoyed it and will read any sequels, but I’m not marking the days until the next one like Forgotten Warrior. If it had been from a no name author I’d say it was pretty good and would think of it as a promising start.
I’m reading it now and enjoying it – not Peak Larry, but it keeps me reading.
Still writing the fourth book. At 92,455 words on that at the moment. Not really back. Just taking a break.
Umm . . . 92,000 words. When are you done?
Some point over 100,000. Sweet spot of 100-130,000 words. Series is like this so far:
They’re novels, not cool non-fiction books with pictures. 😁
Except it’s not just Correia. It was a collaboration – one in which both of the authors did the writing. Correia talks about it here: Using a Goofy Review to Give a Peek Behind the Curtain of How Collaborations Work – an interesting look at how the process worked.
Yeah, but most novels are 100K or so, unless we are talking Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, or maybe Ken Follett. Dumas doesn’t really count since all of his books were newspaper serializations.
Right. Actually, I am treating these as if they were serializations, too. That’s why I am managing to write so quickly.
Well, my favorite MHI books are the ones he wrote with John Ringo. I expect the awesomeness to maintain during collabs. Plus Larry was raving about how great it went.
That may be a one-off. Those collaborations were almost fanfic by Ringo. He got so excited about the Monster Hunter universe he wrote the three books without consulting Correia. Then he decided they might be worth publishing. Only then did he contact Correia and essentially say, “Hey, Larry, buddy. Look at these and tell me if I can play in your sandbox for real.” Ringo may have worked it out of his system.
Not to say there won’t be occasional guest appearances by one of the two in the other’s universes, but I don’t know if you will see another three book collaboration.
I’ve only read the first book in that series. I thought it was ok. Considering the fact that that genre isn’t one I usually read or enjoy, me thinking the book was ok is probably pretty high praise for Correia’s writing.
The first book is the worst in the series for sure. Honestly, I only “like” the books where Owen is the main character. I’ll rank every non-Owen book over the main Owen books, because the non-Owen books are great.
Funny thing is that I kinda like Owen as a character. It’s probably because I’m not big on the whole “chosen one” trope…it feels too pre-destination and mary-sue-ish to me.
Honestly, I think John Ringo is probably my favorite writer on a book to book basis (eh, probably tied with Jim Butcher), certainly my favorite first-book-of-a-series-writer of all time. If he could just finish out series instead of writing himself into corners (or out of motivation) and moving on…..
The beauty of Ringo writing a full and complete series in the MHI world (which is an absolutely top tier world) can’t really be overstated.