Who Can Write A Monster Hunter International Imitation Better: Larry Correia or AI?

With Larry Correia announcing he would be launching a Kickstarter for his new Ark Press venture, a Baen Books insider reached out to Fandom Pulse to vent how similar the series seemed to their hit with him, Monster Hunter International. With Correia taking his own successful work and doing a spin on it for Ark Press, one has to wonder with AI writing becoming as good as it is, who can do MHI better: AI, or Larry Correia himself?

Artificial Intelligence has become increasingly good at writing with giant leaps up in the technological prowess over the last year, especially with the help of Claude Sonnet and Claude Opus 4.0 delivering prose levels many never thought possible.

Vox Day has been experimenting with AI to no small degree, making full albums out of music on Suno and testing the capabilities on short stories ranging from styles of Neil Gaiman, to John Scalzi, and even Larry Correia, pioneering the future in AI art.

Meanwhile, in traditional publishing, it appears as if Baen Books is in massive trouble as Correia sees the proverbial writing on the wall and has taken moves to diversify out of his long-time publisher and now announced he’s going to be kickstarting a series, American Paladin, that sounds very similar to Monster Hunter International, his long-time gun urban fantasy series that’s been a hit with Baen over the years.

Ark Press, his new publisher which is owned by mega-billionaire Peter Thiel, seemed to want an MHI-style story out of Correia to launch the press, and they’ve advertised its similarities as well.

Since Correia is taking his hit series and giving a new take on it, the question is, can AI build a better modern iteration of MHI than Larry Correia himself can given its new found prowess?

Vox Day has already been working on this with a serialized novel called Monster Control Inc. In this, he’s trained AI to write in Larry Correia’s style to provide a signature version that reads enough like Correia that if you didn’t know it was written by AI, you might think it’s Correia’s novels.

His latest segment posted on the Sigma Game Substack even has Native American themes like Correia is promising out of his new series:

Before Diane Preston could respond, her husband entered the kitchen. Gregory Preston was tall, fit for his age (which I guessed to be mid-fifties), with silver hair and the confident bearing of someone well-accustomed to being the most important individual in any room.

"You're the Indian specialists?" he asked, extending a hand first to Redfeather, then to me. His grip was firm, borderline aggressive. "Greg Preston. Sorry about the wait. Quarterly projections wait for no man, not even ghosts." He chuckled at his own joke.

I’m not going to lie. I despised him on sight.

"Mr. Preston," Redfeather said respectfully. "Your wife was just describing the apparition she saw."

"Right, the 'ghost.'" Greg made air quotes. "Look, I'm skeptical about all this, but my wife is genuinely frightened, and admittedly, there have been some strange incidents that I can't easily explain away."

"That's why we're here," Redfeather replied. "If you don't mind, we'd like to do a walkthrough of the property, take some readings, and ask a few more questions."

"Of course." Greg waved a hand magnanimously. "Mi casa es su casa. Just don't damage anything."

The style is incredibly similar to the way Correia writes with quick descriptions and snappy dialogue while the narration is tough and snarky. Greg Preston here has that arrogant authority figure style that feels like a Correia MHI client or protagonist. If one had read the prior fourteen installments, one would note that the whole structure of the novel feels like it could fit in with MHI easily.

After reading Monster Control Inc., a discerning reader must conclude that it’s as good as several of Correia’s MHI novels, perhaps not his best in the series, and certainly not as good as John Ringo’s installments, but it does beat many of his collaborators in the universe in quality, definitely the iteration Correia sent to Sarah Hoyt to write.

AI is an interesting tool because it acts very similar to Baen Books as a publisher in collaboration. An author can input an outline and story idea, hand it off to the AI just like a “co-written” collaborator and edit the text afterward to give it the feel the desire. With AI already able to do Monster Hunter International, Larry Correia has quite the work cut out for him to see if he can do American Paladin as well as Monster Control Inc.

Who do you think would win in a Monster Hunter International imitation better? AI or Larry Correia?

John Robinson is a Space Force Astronaut who crash-lands on a planet of the elves. He has to save a beautiful elven princess from peril, all while trying to survive this strange world. Read FREE on Royal Road.

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