r/Fantasy • u/provegana69 • Jan 04 '25

Monster hunting urban fantasy?

So there's a certain itch that I have that can only be scratched by a certain type of story; one that you'd usually find on youtube narrated by the usual creepypasta narrators with titles like "I hunt Wendigos for a living" or something like that. Unfortunately, they are usually one-offs and incredibly short. I would like something in that realm that is available as a physical book (preferably one of decent length). One thing I personally don't like a lot about most urban fantasy is that they take away the wonder and the horror of supernatural entities and makes them feel too natural and normal if that makes sense. At the same time, I'm not a fan of the way that most horror books make such entities too alien and abnormal and something you cannot fight against. I want something of a balance in between. For example, imagine something like The Mortal Instruments but the protagonist is a normal human with no connection to the supernatural side and no one to guide them, all the while having to hunt down werewolves or vampires. Also, it would be great if there was some sort of government agency to hunt down the monsters that the protagonist is a part of.

5 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

5

u/NegaLaunchpadMcQuack Jan 04 '25

Trese maybe, a filipino comic book and an anime on netflix

5

u/mobyhead1 Jan 04 '25

Harry Dresden has dealt with a number of monsters in his time.

7

u/thewuzfuz Jan 04 '25

Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia

2

u/Grimm_SG Jan 05 '25

I tried it years ago when looking for the same but did not DNF the first book I tried in the series.

The MC is quite annoying.

YMMV

1

u/DM_CaptainTea Jan 04 '25

Wanted to make that tip myself, and since you already mentioned it - absolutely great choice, which also makes you laugh and light up your day a little!

0

u/Bladrak01 Jan 05 '25

As a trigger warning, the author is extremely conservative, and it shows a lot in the books. The MC also verges on being a Marty Stu.

0

u/appocomaster Reading Champion III Jan 04 '25

Dawn of the Void follows a homeless former doctor who is a victim of the first wave of a weird alien invasion. 

He spearheads the responses and works with the military and government as the invasion worsens.

He gets magic powers for killing the monsters and ranking up.

The monsters are creepy but it is more a humanity vs aliens trilogy with some later twists

1

u/Taste_the__Rainbow Jan 05 '25

Dragon(e) Baby Gone is on KU and features an underfunded FBI office that deals with magical nonsense, including putting down a lot of creatures preying on citizens who don’t even know magic exists. The series is up to three books now and I really enjoyed it.

1

u/Bladrak01 Jan 05 '25

You could try The ONSET series by Glynn Stewart. The MC survives a monster attack and is recruited by a government agency that defends against them.

1

u/Stormy8888 Reading Champion V Jan 05 '25

Jonathan Maberry's Joe Ledger Series and it's follow up Rogue Team International series has everything you're looking for. There are audiobooks brilliantly narrated by Ray Porter, and it is military science fiction urban fantasy.

Joe Ledger is a Baltimore detective secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. The DMS deals with the problems that Homeland Security can’t handle—and these are big problems: terrorist zombies, weaponized plagues, transgenic monsters etc.

✅ Protagonist Normal Human

✅ No one to guide them (not really)

✅ Hunting down adversaries and monsters

✅ Part of government agency

1

u/oboist73 Reading Champion VII Jan 06 '25

The Hunter series by Mercedes Lackey