Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Tor Books (2022), 272 pages
Description
When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls "an animal rights organization." Tom's team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble. It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society whose found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Narilka
Jamie Grey finds himself laid off from his corporate job at a food delivery company during his 6-month performance review. The whole nation had just locked down for the pandemic and Jamie finds himself forced to make ends meet by taking a job as a "deliverator" at the company that had just let him
This book is so much fun. I loved all the scifi references Scalzi included though I'm sure there are some I didn't get. The story is well paced and keeps moving through out, leading up to an exciting climax. The charters have just enough background and personality to get us to root for them without being too deep. I loved how Scalzi put in the author's note to treat this book as more of a pop song. I believe I enjoyed it just as it was intended.
I listened to the audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton with my husband on a few car rides. Wheaton delivers Scalzi's sarcastic and snarky humor perfectly and had both of us laughing out loud. Scalzi's writing and Wheaton's narration make a great pairing.
Show More
go. Luck is on his side as Jamie begins delivering food to an old acquaintance who just happens to have a job opening for Jamie at his place of employment, KPS. KPS is in animal activist organization and Jamie jumps at the chance. Jamie has no idea just what KPS's mission is: to preserve Kaiju in a parallel universe. It's really not a spoiler. I mean, it's in the title! This book is so much fun. I loved all the scifi references Scalzi included though I'm sure there are some I didn't get. The story is well paced and keeps moving through out, leading up to an exciting climax. The charters have just enough background and personality to get us to root for them without being too deep. I loved how Scalzi put in the author's note to treat this book as more of a pop song. I believe I enjoyed it just as it was intended.
I listened to the audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton with my husband on a few car rides. Wheaton delivers Scalzi's sarcastic and snarky humor perfectly and had both of us laughing out loud. Scalzi's writing and Wheaton's narration make a great pairing.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lavaturtle
This was a whole lot of fun! Love the premise, love the feel of the tight-knit organization populated by quirky, devoted scientists. The plot was exciting, the villain was the actual worst, and the level of snark about the state of the world was just about right. Also, great to see a non-binary
Show More
major character! Show Less
LibraryThing member amysisson
This was entertaining -- it is Scalzi, after all -- but. I continue to be bothered by the fact that so many of the characters have the exact same voice, the exact same snark, the exact same values. It's like they're an amalgam of, well, Scalzi, because it's the same voice that's on his blog.
Andthe main character doesn't acknowledge that he is actually responsible for many deaths. He gets a recorded confession by the bad guy for a dangerous attempted crime. Instead of reporting it, he takes it upon himself to blackmail the bad guy into never coming back to Kaiju. Then the bad guy kills a lot of people. Um.....? But the main character goes merrily along, a little smug in his humbleness that he turns down a major promotion so he can continue to be a "regular guy" and "carry things."
And
Show More
although I did enjoy this, I was really bothered by the fact that Show Less
LibraryThing member JudyGibson
This one was so much fun to read! I loved it. Good good guys, bad bad guys, giant scary monsters, what more could you want?
LibraryThing member acdha
This is a fun read. The author wrote it as an antidote for dark times and succeeded, much as we all might wish 2020 hadn’t happened.
LibraryThing member Shrike58
When Scalzi calls this a "pop song" of a novel he's being right on target. As besides being a portal fantasy for adults, and a secret history, it's a commentary on 2020 and all that, with all the snark and disdain that year deserves. I had a lot of fun with it and if you ever enjoyed the man's work
Show More
you'll enjoy this book; unless you're a predator capitalist. Show Less
LibraryThing member rivkat
As the pandemic gears up, our protagonist loses his tech job and is reduced to delivering food for the app he once actually worked for. Then he gets a much weirder job. Kaijus, asshole billionaires, and gleeful fun ensue. It is as slight and rollicking as it sounds, and I enjoyed it though probably
Show More
not as much as Scalzi enjoyed writing it because that’s probably impossible. Show Less
LibraryThing member readinggeek451
Early in the pandemic, Jamie escapes his food delivery drudgery by accepting a mysterious offer for a job with a secretive organization focused on protecting large animals. Those animals turn out to be kaiju--monsters such as Godzilla--on an alternate Earth. Most of his fellow employees are
Smoothly written and a lot of fun.
Show More
scientists with doctorates; Jamie is there to lift things. The job is amazing and occasionally terrifying. Then the evil billionaire shows up. (No, really.)Smoothly written and a lot of fun.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SpaceandSorcery
I received this novel from Macmillan-Tor/Forge through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review: my thanks to both of them for this opportunity
The past two years have indisputably affected us all, one way or the other, and yet it was still a surprise for me to learn that even a cheerful
At the onset of the Covid pandemic, Jamie Gray works in the marketing department of a food-delivery startup named füdmüd, from which he’s suddenly fired: in dire need of paying the bills, and with job opportunities vanishing quickly due to the crisis, he has no other choice but to accept work in actually delivering food to füdmüd’s clients. Having been befriended by one of them, Jamie is offered a chance to work with the KPS and he accepts eagerly: what he does not know is that the job will entail direct contact with huge, Godzilla-like creatures in a very unusual, very unexpected environment. While making new friends and adjusting to the new work situation, Jamie will need all his resourcefulness and dexterity to deal with the unexpected challenges presented by this job, and to defeat the dastardly plot of the (required) evil corporation - and to lift things, of course, because that’s what he was hired to do…
Jamie is an easy person to get attached to, not least because he’s a nerd, his dialogue crowded with pop-culture and SF references that bring instant recognition and a sense of easy kinship: in the course of the story, he turns from a simple Things Lifter to a hero (even if an unassuming one) and where other less skilled writers might have fallen into the “Gary Stu Trap” with him, Scalzi takes that trope and turns it on its head, creating a fun, very relatable main character we can all root for. He’s the lone Everyman in the midst of a group of quite talented scientists, and yet his penchant for SF-related themes allows him to take the mental steps necessary to adjust to the KPS environment and to thrive in it: I’ve often maintained that the kind of “mind training” offered by speculative fiction makes us nerds able to bridge chasms that might scare other people, because we can go that extra mile with no effort at all, and Jamie is indeed proof of that.
As far as personal interactions go, I found The Kaiju Preservation Society enjoys the same kind of easygoing, humorous banter I first encountered in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series: here it serves both to define characters and to provide the necessary scientific explanations (both real and imagined) that might otherwise have felt like weighty info dumps and that instead flow easily and at times even become entertainingly informative. The sense of camaraderie, and then friendship, that binds these different people is a joy to behold and serves to balance out the unavoidable drama and loss that at some point hit the small community, forcing these dedicated, peaceful scientists (plus the Weight Lifter) to tap their reserves of courage and face an impending threat and the high stakes it brings about.
That threat comes - of course - from corporate greed and in particular from an individual Jamie knows well: this guy is the epitome of the mustache-twirling villain and, again, he might have turned into an unavoidable trope, but once again Scalzi manages to poke some fun at this particular cliché by shining a bright light on it instead of trying to mask it. It’s a well-know (and much scorned) habit for villains to launch in detailed monologues about their intentions before attempting to kill the heroes, and this particular bad guy indulges in it quite a bit, but here the habit of “monologuing” is openly addressed both by the villain and his would-be victims, turning what could otherwise have been a trite situation into another opportunity for John Scalzi’s peculiar brand of humor. In other words, this is a… tongue-in-cheek villain, one I both loathed and enjoyed.
Last but not least, this novel focuses on a singular and fascinating environment inhabited by these huge, towering creatures - and their proportionately big parasites - and sporting its own well-crafted ecosystem in which even the most outlandish feature has its reason to be, and is part of the fun in the story. I quite enjoyed The Kaiju Preservation Society, not only for its amusement quotient, but because of its hopefulness and optimism: these elements might look utopian, given that in the real world things almost never work so well, but as I said at the start of this review, we all need a bit of light in the darkness now and then, to believe that good can triumph over evil, and this book provided these features at the right time. For which I’m certainly grateful…
The past two years have indisputably affected us all, one way or the other, and yet it was still a surprise for me to learn that even a cheerful
Show More
personality like that of writer John Scalzi, who comes across as an individual gifted with an inexhaustible reserve of whimsical humor, suffered from the heavy toll of the situation: in the Author’s Note at the end of this book he shares his difficult journey with a book he was attempting to write, a book that was ultimately put on the back burner in favor of this one. In Scalzi’s own words, that other book was a “brooding symphony”, while The Kaiju Preservation Society is a “pop song”, one “meant to be light and catchy”: I, for one, am very grateful that he was inspired to write it, because it turned out to be a delightfully escapist story that for a couple of days managed to entertain me, making me smile often and laugh out loud in several occasions. In these times, this is a precious gift, indeed.At the onset of the Covid pandemic, Jamie Gray works in the marketing department of a food-delivery startup named füdmüd, from which he’s suddenly fired: in dire need of paying the bills, and with job opportunities vanishing quickly due to the crisis, he has no other choice but to accept work in actually delivering food to füdmüd’s clients. Having been befriended by one of them, Jamie is offered a chance to work with the KPS and he accepts eagerly: what he does not know is that the job will entail direct contact with huge, Godzilla-like creatures in a very unusual, very unexpected environment. While making new friends and adjusting to the new work situation, Jamie will need all his resourcefulness and dexterity to deal with the unexpected challenges presented by this job, and to defeat the dastardly plot of the (required) evil corporation - and to lift things, of course, because that’s what he was hired to do…
Jamie is an easy person to get attached to, not least because he’s a nerd, his dialogue crowded with pop-culture and SF references that bring instant recognition and a sense of easy kinship: in the course of the story, he turns from a simple Things Lifter to a hero (even if an unassuming one) and where other less skilled writers might have fallen into the “Gary Stu Trap” with him, Scalzi takes that trope and turns it on its head, creating a fun, very relatable main character we can all root for. He’s the lone Everyman in the midst of a group of quite talented scientists, and yet his penchant for SF-related themes allows him to take the mental steps necessary to adjust to the KPS environment and to thrive in it: I’ve often maintained that the kind of “mind training” offered by speculative fiction makes us nerds able to bridge chasms that might scare other people, because we can go that extra mile with no effort at all, and Jamie is indeed proof of that.
As far as personal interactions go, I found The Kaiju Preservation Society enjoys the same kind of easygoing, humorous banter I first encountered in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series: here it serves both to define characters and to provide the necessary scientific explanations (both real and imagined) that might otherwise have felt like weighty info dumps and that instead flow easily and at times even become entertainingly informative. The sense of camaraderie, and then friendship, that binds these different people is a joy to behold and serves to balance out the unavoidable drama and loss that at some point hit the small community, forcing these dedicated, peaceful scientists (plus the Weight Lifter) to tap their reserves of courage and face an impending threat and the high stakes it brings about.
That threat comes - of course - from corporate greed and in particular from an individual Jamie knows well: this guy is the epitome of the mustache-twirling villain and, again, he might have turned into an unavoidable trope, but once again Scalzi manages to poke some fun at this particular cliché by shining a bright light on it instead of trying to mask it. It’s a well-know (and much scorned) habit for villains to launch in detailed monologues about their intentions before attempting to kill the heroes, and this particular bad guy indulges in it quite a bit, but here the habit of “monologuing” is openly addressed both by the villain and his would-be victims, turning what could otherwise have been a trite situation into another opportunity for John Scalzi’s peculiar brand of humor. In other words, this is a… tongue-in-cheek villain, one I both loathed and enjoyed.
Last but not least, this novel focuses on a singular and fascinating environment inhabited by these huge, towering creatures - and their proportionately big parasites - and sporting its own well-crafted ecosystem in which even the most outlandish feature has its reason to be, and is part of the fun in the story. I quite enjoyed The Kaiju Preservation Society, not only for its amusement quotient, but because of its hopefulness and optimism: these elements might look utopian, given that in the real world things almost never work so well, but as I said at the start of this review, we all need a bit of light in the darkness now and then, to believe that good can triumph over evil, and this book provided these features at the right time. For which I’m certainly grateful…
Show Less
LibraryThing member JoshEnglish
This is a fun popcorn movie in novel format. It doesn't ask a lot of the reader and managed to annoy my wife with how much I openly chuckled while reading it.
LibraryThing member breic
Perhaps the best Scalzi I've read—but that's not saying much. Fun and empty entertainment.
LibraryThing member jlynno84
I have been reading John Scalzi for many years and I have loved everything I have read. When I saw that he had a new book coming out, I requested it without even reading the description which only made the ride more fun and entertaining.
Screwed over by a truly hate-able boss at the start of the
In the author’s note at the end, he described this book as a “pop song” and I think that perfectly captures what how it made me feel reading it. Scalzi created a beautiful world, likeable characters, and a fascinating plot. I just felt light when I finished it, grateful for the true escape from reality that it offered.
I had the great joy of getting an eARC of Kaiju Preservation Society and immediately devoured it. I loved it so much that I turned around and bought it as an audiobook which is narrated by the fabulous Wil Wheaton who was just perfect for this story.
Screwed over by a truly hate-able boss at the start of the
Show More
pandemic, Jamie Gray suddenly finds himself trying to survive as a food delivery person, but eventually loses that job too! Jamie doesn’t know how he is going to keep paying his rent, so when a guy he met back in college offers him a job Jamie jumps at it, even though he only vaguely knows that it is “fieldwork” with “large animals.” Jamie is quite shocked when he is whisked to a remote secret base and steps out into a world beyond imagination.In the author’s note at the end, he described this book as a “pop song” and I think that perfectly captures what how it made me feel reading it. Scalzi created a beautiful world, likeable characters, and a fascinating plot. I just felt light when I finished it, grateful for the true escape from reality that it offered.
I had the great joy of getting an eARC of Kaiju Preservation Society and immediately devoured it. I loved it so much that I turned around and bought it as an audiobook which is narrated by the fabulous Wil Wheaton who was just perfect for this story.
Show Less
LibraryThing member hcnewton
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---
You have no idea how difficult it was for me to not say, ‘Welcome to Jurassic Park!’ to all of you just now.”
“Jurassic Park didn’t end well for anyone in it,” I pointed out. “Book or movie.”
“Well, they were sloppy,” Tom
WHAT'S THE KAIJU PRESERVATION SOCIETY ABOUT?
Jamie Gray drops out of his Ph.D. program (writing a dissertation on utopian and dystopian literature) thanks to a quarter-life crisis that gets him to want to make a lot of money. So he goes to work for a tech startup, starts to make decent money, and gets fired just as COVID lockdowns start. He starts scraping by on his savings and meager work for a food-delivery app.
Until he delivers shawarma to Tom one day—the two were acquaintances in college, and they have a brief conversation where a couple of things come out—Jamie hates delivering food, and the NGO that Tom works for has an immediate need of someone on his team. He doesn't give Tom a lot of information, but that the work involves travel and large animals. His team is set to depart soon, and they can't without a full team. They just need someone who can, and is willing to, lift things. Tom points out his nice condo as proof that they pay well. Jamie signs on.
A few days later, Jamie and a few other new people on the team find out what the initials in KPS stand for—after it's too late for them to back out. They've traveled to a parallel Earth populated by Kaiju for a six-month stint at one of the human bases.
Obviously, like the book and movie referenced above, things go wrong. They just have to for the sake of a novel, right? (but up until then, I think I could've made a case for this being an entire novel without that—it exists as one for longer than I expected—and I would've liked it just as much as the one Scalzi delivered).
THE SCIENCE FICTION-Y BITS
Given Tom's work, and Jamie's, Scalzi's able to gloss over a lot of the how-they-eat-and-breathe (and other science facts...la! la! la!) stuff, but he does reference things like the square-cube law when it comes to enormously big creatures. Jamie's new friends include scientists who can deliver some of the biology, chemistry, etc. that are needed for the story—but when it's needed, they're always explaining it to the liberal arts guy on their team, so the reader doesn't have to wade through the heady stuff (something Michael Crichton could've used, for example).
It's not a perfect way to deal with these things, but it sure works well, and Scalzi feeds it to the reader in his usual charming way, so I embraced it.
POP*.* FICTION
In his Author's Note, Scalzi states:
KPS is not, and I say this with absolutely no slight intended, a brooding symphony of a novel. It’s a pop song. It’s meant to be light and catchy, with three minutes of hooks and choruses for you to sing along with, and then you’re done and you go on with your day, hopefully with a smile on your face. I had fun writing this, and I needed to have fun writing this. We all need a pop song from time to time, particularly after a stretch of darkness.
I'd been describing it as a popcorn movie in a book. He says pop song. It's pop-something.
It's the movie you escape to in the middle of a heatwave and forget about the oppressive weather, the sun, and everything else to enjoy the heat and some pure entertainment. It's the song you find yourself overplaying because it's just so catchy until you get sick of it (although you can't help singing along) and abandon it for years until it comes up on some random mix and you become obsessed with it again for a couple of weeks.
What I found striking about Scalzi saying that is that it reminds me of Seanan McGuire's comments about the last Toby Daye novel—she needed to write something like that (and I enjoyed it for similar reasons to this one). Are we going to see more books like this from other authors soon? Did 2020/2021 gift us a slew of authors writing happy books as a way to shake it off? (I wonder if Winslow's Free Billy fits here).
Frankly, I hope so.
SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE KAIJU PRESERVATION SOCIETY?
“Why isn’t he eating us?” I asked. We were now close enough to Edward that this was not an entirely irrelevant question.
“He’s asleep,” Satie said.
I glanced over at him. “Asleep?”
“They sleep, yup.”
“How can you tell when he’s asleep?”
“He’s not eating us, for one,” Satie said. “You can’t see his eyes, for another.”
I love popcorn movies, I love pop songs like that...and well, you can probably see where that's going. I'm not the world's largest Kaiju fan (don't actively dislike them, either), but it really doesn't matter, this book skips all that and jumps right to the pleasure center of the brain the same way a catchy tune can.
Reading The Kaiju Preservation Society reminded me of the first time I read Ready Player One (before the movie, distance, and the sequel made me take a second/third/fourth look at it). Or Snow Crash (a wise reference for Scalzi to make early on). It sort of reminded me of the first time I read High Fidelity, too. The catchy, irreverent narrative; the snappy dialogue; the first-person narrator you click with right away*...it just took me a few pages to know that I was going to find nothing but joy in these pages.
*or probably never.
And really, I don't have a lot to say about the book beyond this. It brought me joy for a couple of days. Thinking about it now is doing the same thing. Go get your hands on this text-based dopamine hit in your preferred medium (I bet Wheaton's audiobook narration is perfect), sit back, and enjoy yourself.
---
You have no idea how difficult it was for me to not say, ‘Welcome to Jurassic Park!’ to all of you just now.”
“Jurassic Park didn’t end well for anyone in it,” I pointed out. “Book or movie.”
“Well, they were sloppy,” Tom
Show More
said. “We’re not sloppy. And, they were fictional. This is real.”WHAT'S THE KAIJU PRESERVATION SOCIETY ABOUT?
Jamie Gray drops out of his Ph.D. program (writing a dissertation on utopian and dystopian literature) thanks to a quarter-life crisis that gets him to want to make a lot of money. So he goes to work for a tech startup, starts to make decent money, and gets fired just as COVID lockdowns start. He starts scraping by on his savings and meager work for a food-delivery app.
Until he delivers shawarma to Tom one day—the two were acquaintances in college, and they have a brief conversation where a couple of things come out—Jamie hates delivering food, and the NGO that Tom works for has an immediate need of someone on his team. He doesn't give Tom a lot of information, but that the work involves travel and large animals. His team is set to depart soon, and they can't without a full team. They just need someone who can, and is willing to, lift things. Tom points out his nice condo as proof that they pay well. Jamie signs on.
A few days later, Jamie and a few other new people on the team find out what the initials in KPS stand for—after it's too late for them to back out. They've traveled to a parallel Earth populated by Kaiju for a six-month stint at one of the human bases.
Obviously, like the book and movie referenced above, things go wrong. They just have to for the sake of a novel, right? (but up until then, I think I could've made a case for this being an entire novel without that—it exists as one for longer than I expected—and I would've liked it just as much as the one Scalzi delivered).
THE SCIENCE FICTION-Y BITS
Given Tom's work, and Jamie's, Scalzi's able to gloss over a lot of the how-they-eat-and-breathe (and other science facts...la! la! la!) stuff, but he does reference things like the square-cube law when it comes to enormously big creatures. Jamie's new friends include scientists who can deliver some of the biology, chemistry, etc. that are needed for the story—but when it's needed, they're always explaining it to the liberal arts guy on their team, so the reader doesn't have to wade through the heady stuff (something Michael Crichton could've used, for example).
It's not a perfect way to deal with these things, but it sure works well, and Scalzi feeds it to the reader in his usual charming way, so I embraced it.
POP*.* FICTION
In his Author's Note, Scalzi states:
KPS is not, and I say this with absolutely no slight intended, a brooding symphony of a novel. It’s a pop song. It’s meant to be light and catchy, with three minutes of hooks and choruses for you to sing along with, and then you’re done and you go on with your day, hopefully with a smile on your face. I had fun writing this, and I needed to have fun writing this. We all need a pop song from time to time, particularly after a stretch of darkness.
I'd been describing it as a popcorn movie in a book. He says pop song. It's pop-something.
It's the movie you escape to in the middle of a heatwave and forget about the oppressive weather, the sun, and everything else to enjoy the heat and some pure entertainment. It's the song you find yourself overplaying because it's just so catchy until you get sick of it (although you can't help singing along) and abandon it for years until it comes up on some random mix and you become obsessed with it again for a couple of weeks.
What I found striking about Scalzi saying that is that it reminds me of Seanan McGuire's comments about the last Toby Daye novel—she needed to write something like that (and I enjoyed it for similar reasons to this one). Are we going to see more books like this from other authors soon? Did 2020/2021 gift us a slew of authors writing happy books as a way to shake it off? (I wonder if Winslow's Free Billy fits here).
Frankly, I hope so.
SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE KAIJU PRESERVATION SOCIETY?
“Why isn’t he eating us?” I asked. We were now close enough to Edward that this was not an entirely irrelevant question.
“He’s asleep,” Satie said.
I glanced over at him. “Asleep?”
“They sleep, yup.”
“How can you tell when he’s asleep?”
“He’s not eating us, for one,” Satie said. “You can’t see his eyes, for another.”
I love popcorn movies, I love pop songs like that...and well, you can probably see where that's going. I'm not the world's largest Kaiju fan (don't actively dislike them, either), but it really doesn't matter, this book skips all that and jumps right to the pleasure center of the brain the same way a catchy tune can.
Reading The Kaiju Preservation Society reminded me of the first time I read Ready Player One (before the movie, distance, and the sequel made me take a second/third/fourth look at it). Or Snow Crash (a wise reference for Scalzi to make early on). It sort of reminded me of the first time I read High Fidelity, too. The catchy, irreverent narrative; the snappy dialogue; the first-person narrator you click with right away*...it just took me a few pages to know that I was going to find nothing but joy in these pages.
*or probably never.
And really, I don't have a lot to say about the book beyond this. It brought me joy for a couple of days. Thinking about it now is doing the same thing. Go get your hands on this text-based dopamine hit in your preferred medium (I bet Wheaton's audiobook narration is perfect), sit back, and enjoy yourself.
Show Less
LibraryThing member TBones
Absolutely exciting fun! This title didn’t have any dull scenes. What it did have was humor, great characters, interesting scientific stuff, enormous creatures, and action packed into a fantastic show.
LibraryThing member Carolesrandomlife
I had a fantastic time with this book! I read because I want to be entertained and this book did just that in a spectacular fashion. I was hooked from the first page and just couldn’t get enough of this story. In a lot of ways, this is the book that I didn’t know that I needed. I am so glad
The book kicks off in New York City during the Covid-19 pandemic. Jamie finds himself being a delivery driver for the same food app he had been working for in a more professional role before losing that job. He learns about a new potential job from one of his customers and decides to go for it. All he knows is that he will be working with large animals and his job will be to lift things. Before long, Jaime is in an alternate version of Earth that is filled with gigantic Godzilla-like creatures called kaiju. The work can be dangerous and Jaime seems to be in the middle of things more often than not.
There was so much that I liked bout this book. There was a lot of entertaining action in this incredibly uniquely crafted world. The book was rather funny. I loved the sense of humor that wove its way throughout the book. The characters were great and I really wanted to see things work out for them. Even the villain was well-done and quite easy to hate. Throw in a few science fiction references and you have this entertaining little book.
I would highly recommend this book to others. It was the kind of story that is just fun to lose yourself in for a little while. I am definitely going to have to read more of this author’s work very soon.
Show More
that this book found its way into my hands.The book kicks off in New York City during the Covid-19 pandemic. Jamie finds himself being a delivery driver for the same food app he had been working for in a more professional role before losing that job. He learns about a new potential job from one of his customers and decides to go for it. All he knows is that he will be working with large animals and his job will be to lift things. Before long, Jaime is in an alternate version of Earth that is filled with gigantic Godzilla-like creatures called kaiju. The work can be dangerous and Jaime seems to be in the middle of things more often than not.
There was so much that I liked bout this book. There was a lot of entertaining action in this incredibly uniquely crafted world. The book was rather funny. I loved the sense of humor that wove its way throughout the book. The characters were great and I really wanted to see things work out for them. Even the villain was well-done and quite easy to hate. Throw in a few science fiction references and you have this entertaining little book.
I would highly recommend this book to others. It was the kind of story that is just fun to lose yourself in for a little while. I am definitely going to have to read more of this author’s work very soon.
Show Less
LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
You can never go wrong with a book by John Scalzi. He's a competent writer that puts together great stories, usually with a bit of a twist, and this one is no exception.
Its exactly what a book featuring a Godzilla type monster should be, scary, intriguing, and full of science-ese that almost makes
Its not perfect. I found the four newbies to have the same sarcastic humor and at times difficult to tell apart. The bad guy, well, evil industrialist is a bit stereotypical. But for what it is, it really is a perfect read.
Its exactly what a book featuring a Godzilla type monster should be, scary, intriguing, and full of science-ese that almost makes
Show More
sense, but is mostly made up. In the hands a lesser author, this would come off as cheesy. But in the hands of Scalzi, you get a well written popcorn story that is fast to read, isn't stupid, and actually says something without going into too much of a morality speech.Its not perfect. I found the four newbies to have the same sarcastic humor and at times difficult to tell apart. The bad guy, well, evil industrialist is a bit stereotypical. But for what it is, it really is a perfect read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Guide2
Quick read and entertaining as usual from Scalzi, with lots of current cultural and political references. Lacking a bit of tension at the beginning and a bit frantic at the end, but a fun ride overall.
LibraryThing member purpledog
This book was fun and a total pleasure to read. On an alternate Earth there are giant creatures that are called Kaiju, after Godzilla. They have evolved to have their own organic nuclear power plant. They are now endangered and there is a top-secret project in place to protect them.
Cool idea. I
Cool idea. I
Show More
laughed at some of the scenes. So good and loved that the author did not take himself too seriously with this one. Show Less
LibraryThing member hblanchard
First of all: Giant monsters. Need I say more? No, those of you for whom those two words said it all, have already ordered the book and started reading. This is vintage light Scalzi. He had me before we even got into double digit page numbers (Character loses job, has to pay for crappy NYC
Show More
apartment, complete with tiny drafty room and creaky floor, by a demeaning delivery job, second chapter pores on love for cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson ... and that's before any kaiju show up ...). In the afterword, Scalzi says this is the light fun novel he needed to write during the pandemic, and it is that. We're given a hefty quick and massive dose of the typical Scalzi sarcastic tongue in cheek take on everything, and my only minor complaint is that fun fades in the latter half of the book for a running around plucky kids save the universe comic book like narrative push - but, hey, that's not actually a bad thing. Recommend for Scalzi fans (alright you've left this review already by now), for others, if you want a quick, cute fun read, Redshirts style, go for it. Show Less
LibraryThing member OracleOfCrows
I love John Scalzi, so when I saw this new release I knew I had to read it. He did not disappoint. He manages to merge Godzilla, science, and fun into one book. The concept of living nuclear reactors living in an alternative earth is a refreshing change from the usual sci-fi plots. I love the
Show More
personalities of the characters, their backgrounds and quirks. I'd love to see a sequel, or even span it out into a series. Show Less
LibraryThing member MickyFine
Laid off from his job at a tech company near the beginning of the 2020 shutdowns, Jamie Gray is stuck taking a job doing food delivery. On one of his runs, he delivers to an old college acquaintance, Tom, and after several return visits Tom offers Jamie a job. And thus Jamie joins KPS, a secret
This book is SO much fun. In his acknowledgements, Scalzi notes that this is a pop song of a novel and that that's sometimes exactly what someone needs. He is most decidedly right in my case and I thoroughly enjoyed every second with this book. There's plenty of Scalzi's humour throughout and all of the Kaiju action is really well done. He also creates a cast of diverse characters around Jamie who add so much delight to the world. Highly recommended.
Show More
organization whose job is preventing Kaiju on a parallel earth from crossing over to our earth while at the same time protecting the Kaiju from the threat humanity is to them.This book is SO much fun. In his acknowledgements, Scalzi notes that this is a pop song of a novel and that that's sometimes exactly what someone needs. He is most decidedly right in my case and I thoroughly enjoyed every second with this book. There's plenty of Scalzi's humour throughout and all of the Kaiju action is really well done. He also creates a cast of diverse characters around Jamie who add so much delight to the world. Highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member MontzaleeW
The Kaiju Preservation Society
By John Scalzi
What an amazing ride! Our guy of the story gets canned by his boss because of a bet. He just happens to meet a friend from college who needs a warm body for a job just as a grunt. Someone to work around large animals. Its an animal preserve. He takes the
It's non-stop excitement, action, stimulating tension, wit, and pure craziness that I crave! I would give this 10 stars!
So much happens in here and I don't want to spoil a thing for anyone else so do yourself a big favor and read this book! I thought I would go crazy waiting for my turn from the library!
This is definitely going in my favorite folder and best book for 2022 folder!
Pick this up!
By John Scalzi
What an amazing ride! Our guy of the story gets canned by his boss because of a bet. He just happens to meet a friend from college who needs a warm body for a job just as a grunt. Someone to work around large animals. Its an animal preserve. He takes the
Show More
job. He isn't told exactly what the job really is about until he gets on site. He is with three other newbies. Come to find out, they are trying to preserve Kaiju! Yes! Monsters!It's non-stop excitement, action, stimulating tension, wit, and pure craziness that I crave! I would give this 10 stars!
So much happens in here and I don't want to spoil a thing for anyone else so do yourself a big favor and read this book! I thought I would go crazy waiting for my turn from the library!
This is definitely going in my favorite folder and best book for 2022 folder!
Pick this up!
Show Less
LibraryThing member capewood
2021 book #31. 2022. Newcomers join the KPS and immediately get thrown into the adventure of their lifes. Don't expect a deep story here, just a fun, if improbable, adventure. I don't like everything @scalzi writes but this was a fun read.
LibraryThing member travelgirl-fics
fun popcorn book... could easily become the next jurassic park
LibraryThing member andreas.wpv
Entertaining little novella, clearly more on the fantasy side of Scifi. The story provides easy reading with just enough suspense and a good amount of humor to keep reading. A bit too predictable at times, too shallow to really like it. I enjoyed reading it, but won't read it again, unlike 'agent
Show More
to the stars' for example. Show Less
Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 2023)
Locus Award (Finalist — Science Fiction Novel — 2023)
Alex Award (2023)
Ohioana Book Award (Winner — Readers' Choice — 2023)
Seiun Award (Nominee — 2024)
Dragon Award (Finalist — Science Fiction Novel — 2022)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Fiction — 2022)
LibraryReads (Monthly Pick — March 2022)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2022-03-15
Physical description
272 p.; 8.25 inches
ISBN
0765389126 / 9780765389121