SF/F Review – The Kaiju Preservation Society
The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi
Synopsis: A grad student joins a secret govt organization that studies kaiju in an alternate-dimension Earth. Hijinks ensue.
Book Review: The synopsis basically covers it. This is exactly what you’d expect from a light action-comedy written by Scalzi. His humor is snarky, his wit is acerbic. Everyone expresses the sort of New York comradery that used to be called “bro culture” where light ribbing of each other is a sign of affection, and is taken in stride by all. The protagonist is an everyman doing his best to make it in life while not forgetting to have fun. The antagonist is casually despicable and easy to hate, so we really root for him to lose hard.
I was a bit disappointed, because Scalzi is capable of deep themes and character exploration. His story and prose are good, but there isn’t a meaty substance to chomp into. Then I read the afterward, where Scalzi straight-up says that he was originally working on something deeper and darker, but COVID hit, and he just Could Not Even. He needed to write something light and fun and refreshing, to get through the dark years.
In this, he definitely succeeded. It’s great reading for light adventure fun times. And I can’t hold it against him that what I wanted wasn’t the same thing he wrote. I’m the one who picked up the book, he didn’t force me to read it! I’m glad he wrote a thing that made his life better, and that many people enjoyed. Heck, I enjoyed it too. It just isn’t really what I seek out in novels, ya know? I can get light adventure fare anywhere and everywhere.
So nothing against the book. But personally, Not Recommended.
Book Club Review: It’s a fun book, and it makes for a fun book club. Attendance is always a little higher when a book is fast and accessible. And since there’s so much humor in it, it puts everyone in a mood to joke around and enjoy themselves. I know I say this often, but if you want a palette-cleanser between heavier books, this is a good one! For those purposes, Recommended. If you’re looking for deeper conversation, Not Recommended.
The Kaiju Preservation Society on Amazon (sponsor link)
(One Weird Woke Note: A note of weirdness that stuck out to me, which I can’t not mention. There’s a character that goes by them/them in the novel. But no one ever conveys that information to anyone else! (unless I missed it?) People just refer to them as “them” from the moment they’re introduced. I suppose it’s possible that in this alternate Earth that there’s some uniform that people wear to indicate they’re one of the They/Them genders, but I would expect that to be mentioned in the text (much like the gender-jewelry of Winter’s Orbit). As far as I can tell, either humans evolved differently on this Earth so that They/Themness is physically apparent, or They have some telepathic power to instantly convey gender pronoun-demands to everyone in the vicinity. It’s not a big deal, but normally in a Scalzi book if there was a character with spooky automatic telepathic powers that no one notices, this would be an awesome plot device at some point. Just leaving it there unremarked on is weird.)