#the Kaiju preservation society

[alittlebitofwonk]

@bonesandthebees has me thinking about book recs, so I’m posting some of my favorites in case anyone wants something new to read!

FANTASY

Priory of the Orange Tree: This is a BRICK of a book. The hardcover would make a good weapon. But it’s also an incredibly good read. A well built fantasy world, dragons, sapphic romance, and it centers WOC characters. The prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, is also amazing.

Legends and Lattes: This is such a cozy little book! It’s fantasy, sent in a DND inspired world where a retired orc mercenary opens a coffee shop. Also, sapphic romance side plot. It’s very cute.

A Thousand Steps Into Night: A Japanese folklore inspired novel where the protagonist must make bargains with spirits to avoid becoming a demon. I learned a lot about Japanese legends and folklore in this one, and the protagonist, Miuko, is just so earnest and lovable.

SCI-FI

Project Hail Mary: Andy Weir does it again. A fantastic novel featuring a struggle across the galaxy to save earth as we know it, the most endearing alien EVER, really cool futuristic science, and a reminder that humanity also instills in us all a sense of good.

The Kaiju Preservation Society: This book is so much fuuuun. It’s just a blast. Inter dimensional travel, giant monsters, conservation, and a protagonist that had me cackling with laughter the whole time.

MYSTERY/THRILLER

The Final Girl Support Group: When the survivors of several horror-movie esque massacres are all targeted by a new killer, how will they survive? A really awesome story about a bunch of badass middle aged women who kinda hate each other teaming up to identify their would-be killer… before it’s too late.

Gone Girl: Nick Dunne didn’t kill his wife. He has no idea where she is, or what happened, and he swears he didn’t hurt her… but no one really believes him. Meanwhile, the truth is far more interesting, and a testament to the phrase “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” This is THE female rage story.

[tinynavajoreads]

I was tagged by @e-b-reads to choose 5 favourite books and let me just say I have far too many to limit to only 5. So, I'm adding a new rule just for myself! 5 favourite books in science fiction. Have at ye!

Okie dokie, have fun choosing which is your favorite/you've read of these! Enjoy! And I honestly might do another later with another genre!

Tagging @aridotdash @just0nemorepage and @bookklempt if you haven't done this already. As always with this, no pressure and if you were tagged and want to participate, then please do so! Cause these are fun!

[froward-bat]

Reading John Scalzi's "The Kaiju Preservation Society" for my book club, and bumped up hard against this reference:

I think it's tricky enough in general trying to incorporate genre pop culture references into your genre work where those fantastical elements are real, but man. "Godzilla" is reacting to a very big and specific event in Japanese history, there's something weirdly diminishing and flattening about rewriting its creation into your fiction as "there was an actual Godzilla and Japan heard about it and made 'Godzilla' but they got it wrong" - also, in light of what "Godzilla" is actually about, kinda weird to make the US military the heroes of your "real" version with Japan barely involved as passive observers.

(I'm not done, so maybe this gets addressed or elaborated on later, but the overall impression I get from the book so far has me leaning more towards "he just didn't think too hard about it").

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 53 – The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

This is the last novel I read exclusively and entirely because it was nominated for a Hugo, and is also the first thing of Scalzi’s I’ve ever touched. Not that I haven’t been, like, peripherally aware of him for a while, but until now I’ve never really felt compelled by any of the pitches I’ve heard for his stuff. Having now read this – yeah, I stand by that. It’s not a bad book, but it’s just very much brainless dumb popcorn fun. Also he’s got a few writing quirks I kind of despise.

The story is about exactly what it says on the tin – a former grad student who dropped out to join a startup and then got fired and ended up doing food delivery during COVID runs into an old acquaintance and is offered a mysterious but high paying job ‘lifting things’. The job turns out to be with the eponymous Kaiju Preservation Society – an NGO with bases on an alternate earth, studying the nuclear-powered leviathans that are somehow its natural apex predators and protecting them from poachers. From there the plot plays out as you’d expect – crash course training and being introduced to the world, making friends, near-misses studying the Kaiju, an asshole billionaire whose revealed to be the villain, breaking the rules and disobeying orders with those friends to save a Kaiju from the billionaire before she goes nuclear and wipes out half of Newfoundland, and so on. Like I said, brainless popcorn. The pacing would actually work very well adapted to a movie, I think – certainly the whole thing would do better with some visuals.

This is a very simple novel, clearly designed to be a comfort read rather than something you wrestle with. Everyone is exactly who they appear to be when they’re introduced, there’s no moral complexity or clever mysteries, the plot plays out beat for beat as you would expect it to. Cozy fantasy for people who like giant monsters and action scenes, I guess?

The tone is very jokey, in a very 2010s nerd culture kind of way? This is a book written about people who name the bases on the world full of 12-story kaiju after classic Godzilla movies, and for people who would do the same. Just about every sympathetic major character is a massive nerd of some variety, and this is very clearly a reason you’re supposed to relate to and like them. And the lampshading – the book knows its worldbuilding makes no sense, and it takes pains to point this out to you as you read it so you can laugh at it, again and again. Hell, it lampshades how much its lampshading, complete with a definition of the term that feels like it was read right off of TV Tropes. Others may find this endearing, for me it just grated intensely.

Lastly - so this isn’t a book about COVID, but it’s very clearly a pandemic novel. The non-Kaiju World parts will probably be a fascinating cultural artifact for undergrads a couple decades down the line. It’s got the housing crisis, the gig economy, ZIRP corporate phantasmagoria, COVID lockdowns, and all that’s before all the cultural references. Anyway, it wins a decent amount of goodwill from me by remembering the existence of all the people for whom ‘lockdown’ wasn’t really a thin because ‘essential worker’ was a shockingly broad category. Still, it’s all just backdrop that stuck out too me, not really the book’s actual subject.

Anyway yeah, I’m probably being a bit harsh – this was nominated for a Hugo? Really? - but the book’s fine. Inoffensive. Would make a great Disney movie.

[videogames-i-wish-were-real]

Videogames I wish were real #86

An open world survival game set in a desolate world where the only food and resources left grow on colossal kaiju beasts (imagine Godzilla with a forest on its back. Also, I know what you must be thinking: wait, if it's a desolate world what do kaijus eat? Well, they get their energy from the sun and sometimes if they get a craving they eat other kaijus). After a kaiju dies, the resources they were sustaining quickly degrade, so the best bet is to harvest resources from live kaijus. The best way to do this is to climb the kaijus, since their skin is thick enough not to notice a thing. No two climbs will ever present the same challenges, since there are many types of kaijus, and you never know what might happen: it could start raining, or some of the creatures living on the kaiju might see you as easy prey and attack you, or the kaiju could decide to run, sit, sleep, or even fight or fuck another kaiju. Once you manage to climb on top of the kaiju, you'll need to gather resources: wood, fruit, plants, flowers, mushrooms... instead of forests, some kaijus might have rocky formations full of metals and minerals on their backs, or other types of biomes. The only animals that are still alive on this world also live on the kaijus, so if you feel like hunting, you can also take out your bow and arrow or your handheld weapon and get some fresh meat or hides. Once you're done gathering resources, you can take out your glider and fly off to safety... although, in a world populated by kaijus that love to fight each other, safety is always relative.

Similar media that actually exists: The Wandering Village (a game suggested by @thebazilly), The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (the book that partially inspired this post)

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: THE KAIJU PRESERVATION SOCIETY by John Scalzi.

I picked this up when he and Martha Wells were talking about WITCH KING at one of my local bookstores last summer partially because I felt bad shoving a stack of things for her to sign at her with nothing for him, sitting right next to her, after he'd been so delightful to listen to too, but! It is finally time! I need something funny and ridiculous and light, and I have it on good authority that this'll work.

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: many worlds, alternate timelines edition

I've previously written a rec post on the portal fantasy genre, so let's now take a look at a very similar trope: that of parallel universes and alternate timelines!

Unlike portal fantasies, these books are usually scifi, relying on the theory of the multiverse, however there are exceptions (a common one being that of a 'sliding scale', where worlds move from scifi to fantasy the further you go).

Also, surprisingly many of these books have queer themes and characters!

Previous book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, portal fantasies, robots and artificial intelligences, post- and transhumanism

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with an * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

Sci-fi in the multiverse

Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares

Hayes Figueiredo is a struggling film-maker who wants to finish his documentary, who's life gets turned upside down when he meets the handsome physicist Yusuf Hassan enters his life, claiming an alternate version of him is a great inventor who's sent a mysterious device to their universe. As Hayes gets drawn deeper into the conspiracy - and his feelings for Yusuf intensify - he has to decide just how far he's prepared to go to win the life and the love he wants. Featuring a very gay and very morally dubious lead, this is a creative and strange read.

The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds series) by Micaiah Johnson

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying. As such she has a very special job in traveling to these worlds, hoping to keep her position long enough to gain citizenship in the walled off Wiley City, away from the wastes where she grew up. But her job is dangerous, especially when she gets on the tracks of a secret that threatens the entire multiverse. Really cool worldbuilding and characters, also featuring a sapphic lead!

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

More of a space opera than a typical multiverse story, Ascension follows Alana Quick, an expert Sky Surgeon who stows away on a spaceship in hopes of landing herself a job. But the ship and its crew are in deeper waters than she expected, facing threats emerging from a whole other universe, all of them searching for the same person: Alana's spiritually enlightened sister. Undeniably a bit of an odd read, Ascension is also very creative and features polyamorous lesbian relationship.

Finna (LitenVerse series) by Nino Cipri

Novella. Working as a minimum wage employee at a big box furniture store already sucks, but it gets exponentially worse for Ava when a customer gets sucked into a wormhole and she gets sent to retrieve her from the mazes of the multiverse. To make matters worse? She has to work with her ex. A fun, quick and creative read as well as a scathing critique of capitalism, also featuring a major nonbinary character in Ava's ex and colleague.

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

In an example of extremely differing timelines, The Kajiu Preservation Society features an alternate Earth that's home to giant kajius who feed on radiation. During the height of the pandemic, Jamie is suddenly in the need of a new job. Rescue comes in the form of an old acquaintance who works for a secretive animal rights organisation and invites Jamie along. This one is lighthearted and a bit gimmicky, but also a fun and quick read.

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

In yet another example of very different timelines, The Doors of Eden is something of an experiment in speculative biology, featuring versions of Earth in which various different species were the one to rise to sentience, from dinosaurs to neanderthals. Now, something is threatening the existence of all timelines, dragging multiple different people into the struggle, among those a pair of cryptid hunting girlfriends and a transgender scientist.

The Long Earth (The Long Earth series) by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter

When a device consisting simply of some wiring, a three-way switch and a potato makes it possible for anyone who wants to travel the multiverse, humanity is changed forever. But despite their great similarities, these worlds also have great differences from our Earth - such as a strange lack of humans. Joshua, one of few people able to cross the multiverse without the help of the potato-device, sets out to explore these seemingly endless worlds.

Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax trilogy) by Robert J. Sawyer

On a parallel Earth, neanderthals have developed a radically different society from ours. Ponter, one of these neanderthals and a physicist, gets accidentally transported to a research facility in our world, where he's faced with the great cultural differences between human and neanderthal society. Meanwhile, back in his home world, his housemate Adikor is charged with his murder.

Meet Me in Another Life by Catriona Silvey*

Thora and Santi are strangers, brought together by a coincidence and torn apart just as abruptly when tragedy strikes. But this is neither the first nor the last time they meet - again and again they encounter each other, as friends, lovers, enemies, family, every time recognizing in each other a familiarity no one else carries. But with every new life, a mysterious danger grows ever closer, forcing them to find out the truth of their connection. Calling this a multiverse story isn't entirely correct, but it also isn't entirely incorrect, and saying more would be an immediate spoiler. It's a puzzle-box of a story that goes some entirely unexpected places in a very wild ride, featuring a bisexual co-lead.

Magic in the multiverse

The Invisible Library (The Invisible Library series) by Genevieve Cogman

Irene works as a spy for the mysterious Library, which collects fiction from different realities. She's sent to an alternate London rife with magic and chaos to retrieve a dangerous book, but by the time she arrives it has already been stolen. Alongside her assistant Kai, she races to find the book before it's too late.

Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore*

Young Adult. Jane is invited by an old acquaintance to an extravagant gala in an island mansion, stranding her among the rich and glamorous. But being surrounded by rich people is the least of Jane's problems: the mansion is housing secrets, some of them tied to Jane's own family. The mansion offers her five choices, all of them leading her down different paths and different answers. Jane, Unlimited is a choose-your-own adventure story of sorts, featuring five different endings in five different genres, each more off the wall bonkers than the next. It also features a bisexual main character!

A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic trilogy) by V.E. Schwab

Kell is an antari - one of the only people able to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black. Kell's London is a place of magic, where he works as an ambassador traveling between the worlds. He's also a smuggler, secretly and illegally bringing objects between the worlds. His hobby brings him into hot water when an exchange goes wrong, and lands him face to face with the cut-purse Delilah, who's prepared to do just about anything to step from her Grey London to one of magic and adventure.

Fucked up parent-child relationships in the multiverse

The Possibilities by Yael Goldstein-Love

Ever since her son Jack nearly died at birth eight months ago, Hannah has had the niggling feeling that something is wrong. When Jack is mysteriously snatched away, Hannah's fears are proven true; now she must employ a strange and newly awakened ability to cross between parallel worlds to save him. On the lighter end of the scifi spectrum, The Possibilities explores the fears and anxieties of motherhood through the spectrum of the multiverse.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson*

Utterly unique in worldbuilding, story, and prose, Midnight Robber follows young Tan-Tan and her father, inhabitants of the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint. When her father commits a terrible crime, he's exiled to a parallel version of the same planet, home to strange aliens and other human exiles. Tan-Tan, not wanting to lose her father, follows with him. Trapped on this new planet, he becomes her worst nightmare. Enter this book with caution, as it contains graphic child sexual abuse.

Bridge by Lauren Beukes

When she was little, Bridge and her mother Jo used to play a game - one where they traveled to other worlds, inhabiting the bodies of their other selves. Now Jo is dead, and as Bridge is cleaning out her apartment she finds a strange device: a dreamworm, the very thing that supposedly makes inter-dimensional travel possible. Suddenly faced with the possibility that multiverse travel is real, Bridge is struck by a different question: could her mother still be alive? Scifi spiced with a healthy dose of body horror and some absolutely wild twists, Bridge also features a bisexual lead (however this is a blink and you'll miss it moment) and a nonbinary co-narrator.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey

An AI threatens millions of alternate versions of Earth, and a political and trading alliance binding them all together is prepared to stop it no matter the cost to human life.

Ida by Alison Evans

Young Adult. Ida struggles more than most young girls with finding her path, as she has the ability to shift between parallel worlds, allowing her to see many different possibilities

The Art of Saving the World by Corinne Duyvis

Young Adult. A dimensional rift has opened in Hazel's backyard, and is strangely tied to her presence, growing volatile if she travels too far away and forcing her to stay in her home town. That is, until not one but three other Hazels falls through the rift into her world.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray, Interworld by Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

[offonaherosjourney]

The thing about The Kaiju Preservation Society is that going in you just KNOW that at some point a stupidly entitled billionare is going to attempt to use the kaiju for their own gain, because of fucking course they would.

And what keeps you reading, besides the fun and engaging characters and worldbuilding, is not the imperious need to find out where the plot could possibly heading, it's the knowledge that at some point that stupidly entitled billionare is going to die in an extremely karmic satisfying way and you want a front row seat.

[we-dont-eat-books]

no pronoun (human) main characters slap. I need 3 more of these.

[a-ramblinrose]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge || May 19 || Newest Book:  The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

[mfred]

(Almost) all vibes, no plot.

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Sometimes, you read a book and you learn something about yourself. As it turns out, I am pro-plot. Maybe even a plot lover, if you will. I learned this lesson because The Kaiju Preservation Society, while interesting, detailed, and entertaining, nearly had me DNFing it for a lack of plot.

If you are at all interested in the science of kaiju, this is the book for you. Wow, there is a lot of science! I actually kind of forgot that kaiju aren't real, at some points, because the science is so convinving. There is a lot of exposition (maybe even info-dumping). A lot of one character describing kaiju biology or environment or physics to another. It helps that almost every character in the book is a scientist of some sort.

But what the book lacks is a story, if that makes sense. Sure, there's a main character and his motivations and the things that happen to him, but it's all in service of explaining kaiju. Not until about 70% of the way through did I feel like something was happening with the actually story of it all. And I, for one, really need the story to be a story, not just a device to explain the existence of a mega monster.

4 stars, rounded up.

[tinynavajoreads]

Just One More Page's March Book Photo Challenge

March 1, 2023 - TBR This Month

I saw this pop up on my feed and I'm trying to find smaller ways to participate more in the booklr community. And I knew that I had a lot of books that I had acquired recently, and these are only part of what's on my to-be-read list, but ones that I figured I could read this month. Or, at least, make an attempt at reading. We'll see how far I actually get.

First on my TBR is The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I have read this book before, but this time around it's for the Traveling Book Project being put in by @just0nemorepage and I'm excited for it!

The rest of the list is Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket, The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah, Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling, Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley, and Book of Night by Holly Black.

What's your TBR for this month? Do you plan one? Or just get what feels like you'll most read at the moment? I usually do what I feel like I'll read, but I do have a rough idea of books I would like to read.

[the-final-sentence]

‘I think you’d be perfect for it.’

John Scalzi, from The Kaiju Preservation Society

[literary-illuminati]

Sea of Tranquility and The Kaiju Preservation Society are incredibly different books, but they're both really blatantly Pandemic Novels (already a disappearing cultural moment!).

And despite being by far the less literary KPS really wins out in the comparison by being the one of the two to not, like, forget all the people stuck working shitty 'essential' service industry jobs for whom getting cooped up in their apartment and interacting only through zoom wasn't quite a universal shared experience.

[fruitarchive]

the kaiju preservation society, john scalzi

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Martha Wells and John Scalzi at Joseph-Beth Booksellers!!

Y’all GUESS WHO I GOT TO SEE!!! In real life!! With my own two eyeballs!!!

It was an absolutely delightful chat (I took two pages of notes! scribbled in All My Margins!), very cozy, AND neither of them had signing limits! I love hearing authors talk about their Authorial Woes and Process Quirks, because it’s always hugely validating and just neat to hear.