#BookReview ‘The Kaiju Preservation Society’ by John Scalzi

About the book…

‘The Kaiju Preservation Society’ by John Scalzi is a thrilling, fast-paced adventure set on an alternate Earth – perfect for fans of Adrian Tchaikovsky and Michel Crichton’s Jurassic Park.

They’re big, they’re bad and they’re about to become extinct . . .

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.

Hugest of thanks to Stephen and Jamie-Lee of Black Crow PR for inviting me on the tour and for my gifted copy of ‘Kaiju…‘ from Tor UK which is out *now* from all good bookshops!

This book should come with a warning-once you pick it up you won’t want to stop reading until the very end, and then you will kick yourself for ploughing through it so quickly.

Talk about a breath of fresh air, the story of Jamie Gray, who starts the pandemic sacked, dejected, robbed of his greatest idea and now delivering takeaway food for the company he used to work in.

Even more insulting, he was once planning to write a thesis on science fiction literature and the phrases he has to use when delivering food have been stolen by  the company from one of sci-fi’s greatest, Neal Stephenson.

They are being plundered with no sense of proprietary or understanding whatsoever which pains Jamie’s deeply nerdy soul.

Not just worried about how he will make it through a time when jobs are rarer than hens teeth, he has 2 flatmates whose livelihoods are placed on hold, one of whom is contemplating returning to a parental home that does not recognise who he fundamentally is as a person. He, Laertes, is fantastic, his solution to everything pretty much boils down to firebombing the enemy and honestly I can get behind that !

One of Jamie’s regulars strikes up a conversation which covers quite a few deliveries and comes down to him, Tom, offering Jamie a job taking care of very large animals in their native habitat. With nothing left to lose, and seizing the potential to take the strain of flatmates Brent and Laertes’ financial worries as well, Jamie has about 100 injections, and takes off to join the KPS.

Arriving in Greenland, he is then transported with 3 other new recruits to an alternate Greenland in an Earth adjacent to our own, but in the same universe. Once this shock has worn away a little, it rears again in the form of a moving mountain, a kaiju named Betsy.

These ‘large animals’ are kaiju, the first recorded one in our Earth being Godzilla, attracted by the nuclear bombs being tested back in the 1950’s.

The KPS was subsequently set up after Godzilla’s death to track and maintain the kaiju , to study them, learn about them, and keep them from tearing holes through into our Earth. At the same time, it exists to stop certain interested parties- Jamie’s ex-boss Rob Shitmonkey Sanders comes to mind…-from exploiting the kaiju. Or weaponizing them. Or doing something equally hideous given that humans have successfully eradicated pretty much most of our predators, this is not exactly hard to imagine. Humans messing in things they really shouldn’t has never been a lesson we have been good at learning -COVID 19 anyone?!-so this is a very real concern.

So what part will Jamie play in all this, after all he is just there to fill a gap in the team created by a COVID infected team member?

Jamie is our eyes and ears into this world, he is a font of witty and sarcastic asides that litter the pages and he is a timely reminder that at the very, very worst of times, opportunities can still present themselves to show that as a race, humankind is not altogether hopeless. His concern for his friends wellbeing in a climate where everyone was frightened about pretty much everything, was heart-warming to me.

His sense of adventure leads him to this situation where he is faced with an unthinkable reality, peril and adventure the likes of which you feel has been left back in the tales of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Fresh, moving and intensely enjoyable, this was honestly a drink of cool fresh water on a hot day, it is a book which not only recommends other readers, but also made me want to chase down John Scalzi’s backlist. Who doesn’t want to read about creatures having a fight as a steampunk aircraft travels inexorably into the path of the fighting mountains? Especially when one of them is called Kevin?

Brilliant, enjoyable and told with a deftness of touch, I enjoyed it immensely, thank you so much for the opportunity to get down with the kaiju!

About the author…

John Scalzi, having declared his absolute boredom with biographies, disappeared in a puff of glitter and lilac scent.

(If you want to contact John, using the mail function here is a really bad way to do it. Go to his site and use the contact information you find there.)

Links-http://whatever.scalzi.com/

Twitter @scalzi @BlackCrow_PR @UKTor