The Kaiju Preservation Society

This book starts with the same formula as his next, Starter Villain: snappy, funny dialog with a silly plot idea. And I mean 'silly' as a good thing. It totally works in Villain.

This book though relies on a very tired plot point to move forward and then falters. Just didn't work for me.

This book seems to be wish fulfillment aimed at millennials who took the pandemic very seriously. That's not me. Also, the references and quips were often quite grating. The world building was cool, though.

This book seems to be wish fulfillment aimed at millennials who took the pandemic very seriously. That's not me. Also, the references and quips were often quite grating. The world building was cool, though.

You know, just this thing to be consumed between real books... Having read it, I feel eager to tackle something better, richer, more sublime. The premise warrants the three stars. The characters are interchangeable and the plot's completely predicable. The fun is in seeing how he fleshes out the premise. Occasionally the dialogue is funny, though it has that quality that writers who were too influenced by Douglas Adams has. But does anyone read Scalzi for the quality of his prose? It feels a little beside the point.

This is written and set in late 2020. Much like Netflix' Glass Onion, it uses COVID in the backdrop, and then gets onto its main bit. This is about as much COVID as I want in a book.

Equally you get the feeling that Scalzi has a lot to say about US politics and is resisting only dropping a few things before getting back to his main hobby of dropping his favourite nerds in as backing mentions (or ship names in Old Man's War).

This was exactly the right amount of silly for me, I didn't quite get into Redshirts. It gets a bit close when they discuss how kaiju are tropes but then follows with a Peter-Hamilton-level exposition dump about how the pretend science works.

Who cares, there are kaiju, and also a bunch of characters who respect others' chosen pronouns. It's like a much snarkier Becky Chambers book.

If snarky, self-aware dialog and giant alien monsters in alternate dimensions are your thing, this is your book. It's got humor (of course), adventure, and bad guys you really want to punch in the face.

It's nice to have some moral clarity in a story, and also giant monsters who breath nuclear fire.

Scalzi described this book as a pop song rather than a symphony, and that's an apt description. It's a catchy, fun pop song that is stuck in my head and I find myself wanting to revisit. I haven't had this much fun since Agent to the Stars!