John Scalzi: The Kaiju Preservation Society (EBook, 2022, Tom Doherty Associates)
eBook, 336 pages
English language
Published March 14, 2022 by Tom Doherty Associates.
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 lowwage 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 …
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 lowwage 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.
Just like in "Starter Villain", there are plenty of fun ideas in this book. It's light and a quick read. Had a French version of the book.
The story is fun and creative. It's too bad the characters are so poorly written. By the end of the book I had trouble focusing on anything else.
The characters are all the same. Whether it's a science fiction loving delivery guy, a brilliant scientist, a billionaire tech bro or an experienced military officer, they all have identical mannerisms and speech. If you take any dialogue out of context there's no way to guess who said it.. Everyone is calm and snarky in the face of death, and more interested in getting a quick jab against the scene's designated punching bag than in what's best for themselves in the long term.
As Scalzi says in his afterword, this is a three-minute pop song of a novel, not a complex symphony. However, even the lightest of pop songs needs effort to make it work, and this does work on its own terms. It's a fun book that rattles along at a good pace, throwing enough big ideas into the mix to keep you reading and not asking too many questions about whether it all makes sense. Spends a lot of time setting up for not much plot, and relies a lot on coincidences to give the ending a personal stake for the protagonist, but does what it says on the tin and people who like this sort of thing will like this.
