The Kaiju Preservation Society

Genre

Science Fiction & Speculative Fiction

Publisher

Tor Books (Macmillan)

Publication year

2022

ISBN

9780765389121

Laid off during the early pandemic, a New Yorker takes a vague job with an 'animal rights organization' that turns out to guard an alternate Earth where giant Godzilla-like monsters live. John Scalzi's fast, comic adventure follows the crew protecting the kaiju, and thwarting those who would...

Fired from a food-delivery start-up in the grim spring of 2020, Jamie Gray grabs a mysterious gig with an outfit that turns out to protect, on a parallel Earth, an ecosystem of enormous, nuclear-powered monsters straight out of a Godzilla film. John Scalzi cheerfully calls The Kaiju Preservation Society a 'pop song' of a novel - light, catchy, made to lift a bad mood - and it delivers exactly that: brisk chapters, wisecracking banter, real (if playful) science about how a hundred-metre beast might work, and a caper against the inevitable billionaires scheming to weaponize the wildlife. It is not trying to be profound, and its refusal of grandeur is a large part of its charm; this is competence-driven comfort SF, expertly paced and consistently funny. Scalzi's dialogue crackles and his plotting never sags. For readers who want a joyful, undemanding, wholly entertaining science-fiction adventure - a palate cleanser between heavier books - it is close to perfect, and its Locus Award confirms the craft beneath the fun.