The Kaiju Preservation Society (John Scalzi)
26 July 2023
Jamie’s dream was to hit the big time at a New York tech start-up. Jamie’s reality was a humiliating lay-off, then a low-wage job as a takeaway delivery driver. During a pandemic too. Things look beyond grim, until a chance delivery to an old acquaintance. Tom has an urgent vacancy on his team: the pay is great and Jamie has debts – it’s a no-brainer choice. Yet, once again, reality fails to match expectations. Only this time it could be fatal.
It seems Tom’s ‘animal rights organization’ is way more than it appears. The animals aren’t even on Earth – or not our Earth, anyway. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures roam a tropical, human-free world. And although Kaiju are their universe’s largest and most dangerous animal, they need support to survive.
Tom’s ‘Kaiju Preservation Society’ wants to help. However, others want to profit. Unless they’re stopped, the walls between our worlds could fall – and the consequences would be devastating.
Average Rating:
Ross Hetherington (31 January 2024 22:20)
The most unsublime descriptions of creatures as large as mountains I've ever read, plus quips. That's pretty much it.
Sinclair Manson (4 August 2023 19:57)
This reads like an author letting himself relax and blasting out a cheesy adventure movie of a novel. It romps along mostly hitting the beats you'd expect.
Paul Campbell (27 July 2023 10:18)
It's got a beat and you can dance to it. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Pick your boilerplate cliche description. No, really: don't waste an original thought on it; after all, the writer didn't. Totally squanders the promise he showed in his debut novel "Old Man's War". Bland workmanship writing style designed for speed-readers.
The kind of novel you admittedly enjoy whilst reading and yet INSTANTLY forget soon afterwards. Fine for a popcorn movie, but reading is a time consuming activity and frankly I demand more. 'Nuf said.
Graham MacDonald (27 July 2023 09:22)
The author (in the acknowledgements) admits that this book was written in a short amount of time during COVID to clear his mind and reset after trying (and failing) for a year to write a more substantial work. And that about sums it up to be honest. Fun and pappy with one-liners strewn throughout it with gay abandon; it's flaws are many but it's a short, silly, story that keeps you engaged and doesn't bear too much analysis.
The original Godzilla was as much a brutal analysis of the aftermath of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as it was a monster movie but he's hardly the first to extend the idea into pure entertainment and I'm sure he won't be the last.