The Kaiju Preservation Society: Shortlisted for the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novel

Product Information

A delivery driver takes a rather surprising job in the new adventure from bestselling author John Scalzi, The Kaiju Preservation Society, and we’re exclusively revealing the UK cover above! Not only that but we’re giving you a sneak peek into the novel but revealing the first two chapters. You have no idea how difficult it was for me to not say, ‘Welcome to Jurassic Park!’ to all of you just now.” Setting aside that I could not get the chorus of The Kinks Village Green Society out of my head while I was reading it, this one is, maybe more than any other book I've read recently, exactly what it says on the label. It's a John Scalzi novel about kaiju and about a society that preserves them. There's a threat to the kaiju, because otherwise why would you need a preservation society, and stuff happens, because it's a Scalzi novel.

I whipped through it in one evening, and it's the kind of book I might read again sometime, just for the sheer enjoyment of it.I should preface this review by saying I’ve never read one of your books but have always meant to. This one sounded fun and I thought, “Hey, why not?” Godzilla-Dinosaurs in another dimension with people trying to save them much as if they are giant pandas but much, much bigger. Parts of the book worked well for me but I also discovered that I’m probably not the right reader for it. How did I know that? For one thing, I didn’t know what the word “kaiju” means and I’m not exactly a fan of Japanese monster movies unless MST3K is skewering it. That’s my bad.

Scalzi is far better than other SF authors in consistently making me laugh. He has an ear for the absurd in everyday conversation. Some of his tales are just a riff on a current cultural phrase or obsession (see Red Shirts as an example https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ). In others, like this one he probes a bit deeper into mankind and our dilemmas. It is classic Scalzi. His emphasis on the place of kindness in life reminded me a lot of Kurt Vonnegut’s fiction. His use of the devoted circle of friends seemed to recall Spider Robinson's group of allied weirdos in Callahan's Bar. That and the tendency among KPS staff to celebrate with alcohol and feasting (plus ukeleles and staff change-over rituals). His sense of humour is both ironic and pervasive. (And I “get" it, which I appreciate. That's not a given for me.) It's very much what I would call “internet influenced.” I haven't read his blog lately, but it was very much like I remember his blog being—interested in basic human rights, human justice, and being righteously angry about all the ways he sees society getting things wrong.

Chapter Two

Yeah, I do.” I attempted to lean forward in the beanbag and succeeded only in driving my ass further into its recesses. I rolled with it and just pointed to my tablet. “So, you’ve heard about this COVID-19 thing.” I mean,” I motioned to the very nice condo in the brand-new building. “It turned out okay for you.”