Bubba the Monster Hunter

Somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, a three-hundred-pound good ol' boy loads silver into a shotgun, cracks a beer, and goes to work on whatever crawled up out of the swamp this week. That's Bubba: a redneck with a heart of gold and bullets to match, patron saint of every Waffle House parking lot where something with too many teeth is about to have a very bad night. Bubba's adventures come served up in seasons, the way you'd order hash browns — Scattered, Smothered, & Chunked; Grits, Guns, & Glory — short stories and novellas by John G. Hartness that read fast, hit hard, and never take themselves too seriously. Around him has grown a whole shared holler of monster hunters from Hartness's Falstaff stable: Mark Wojcik in the Martins' Spells, Salt, & Steel; Eric R. Asher's Mason Dixon; J. D. Blackrose's Monster Hunter Mom and the werewolf Caitlin Kelley; the Templars keeping their own uneasy watch. Vampires, backwoods witches, and things with no proper name all wander through, and Bubba's even been known to team up with the grimmer Quincy Harker when the job calls for it. Expect splatter, filth, one-liners, and a surprising streak of tenderness under all the gunsmoke — horror played for a belly laugh, then a lump in the throat. Newcomers start at Season One, Scattered, Smothered, & Chunked, and follow the seasons in order. No homework required. Just don't wear your good boots.