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

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I wouldn’t put it that way, and yes. But the chances are pretty good you won’t experience either side effect, much less both at the same time.” Over time nuclear blasts have weakened the barrier between our Earth and another Earth where huge dinosaur sized creatures, Kaiju, roam freely. It is essentially Kaiju Earth, and the humans are there only to observe, protect and stop the Kaiju from entering our Earth as they previously had done. As Jamie and a team of scientists enter Kaiju Earth, their whole sense of reality is shattered. What follows from then is one hell of a lot of mayhem! Well, I’m glad to hear you say that, Rob.” I tried to move forward again in the beanbag, failed, and decided to risk a small push-up. It realigned the beanbag so I was in a slightly less compacted position, but my tablet slid into the well my body had created. I was now sitting on my tablet. I decided to ignore it. “Tell me how I can serve the company.”

You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Niamh is professionally outraged when Kahurangi's idea to use uranium pellets to go through the thin place in the dimensional barrier that Bella was snatched through not only works, but works when everyone does a group fist-bump while holding them. Subverted a few minutes later when everyone realizes they were actually right; the technique did nothing but get them all in place when a breach in the barrier opens for unrelated reasons.Short Screentime for Reality: Subverted, the titular society is supported by governments and private interests in the “other place”. Jamie is only on this alternate earth because they needed a job during the Covid-19 pandemic and their home reality remains important to the plot. The Kaiju Preservation Society is the upcoming standalone novel by John Scalzi. Although Scalzi is a prolific writer, I’ve always been intimidated by his work assuming that his sci-fi elements would be too technical, and as I’m not exactly scientifically nor technologically minded, I feared I wouldn’t understand key parts of his stories. Yet when I heard about this book, a Jurassic Park esque tale, full of banter and mayhem, I was certain this would be right up my street. I was right. It was! Scalzi is great with the science-fiction references, I was enjoying them a lot. And he doesn't overdo it, like, say, Ernest Cline who just is TOO MUCH. Scalzi is just the right amount. First thing to say is that the “Author’s Note” does a LOT of heavy lifting for this book overall, describing the work as it does as a “pop song” and explaining the understandable circumstances which made the past couple of years less than conducive to writing a more brooding, complex novel.

Lastly, the humor felt kind of lazy to me. It was either "Haha that's so random" humor or humor through repetition of a phrase, i.e. "I lift things". Also every character always had something snarky to say/reply with about everything, even in the more dramatic scenes. This truly felt like going on an adventure. Being in a real jungle of another dimension, trekking dangerously on the lush ground crawling with danger. A legit Jurassic Park in outer space but one that hits so close to home with integrity, curiosity, treachery and greed but most of all, heart. You will grow to care about what’s going on and that makes this book all the better. The one advantage of walking around in a nuclear explosion debris field, if one wanted to call it an advantage, was that there was very little verticality The novel was nominated for the 2022 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel [2] and the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novel. [3] It won a 2023 Alex Award, the American Library Association's annual award recognizing the ten best adult books that appeal to teen readers. [4] [5] It was a top ten finalist for the 2023 Locus Awards, [6] and went on to win the 2023 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. [7] Plot summary [ edit ]Alien Food Is Edible: Only the poopfruit, much more edible than it sounds note "It'd have to, wouldn't it?". Everything else is not edible to humans, due to how differently evolution went on the Kaiju Earth. And while the locals would really like to eat humans, that's just because they want to eat everything that seems vaguely edible and they're not smart enough to realize when they shouldn't. Preventing yourself from being eaten is as much for their sake as yours. This is the first book I read, which was not only written during the Pandemic, but was also relevant, in a round about or direct way, to it:) The author was a good deliverator to some laughs, if you take the book for what it was meant to be and suspend disbelief as far as the science is concerned. Or maybe, that is just me unable to process concepts that do not support our human-centric thinking of the Universe and everything we do not understand, we tend to render impossible. Maybe:) What were you thinking when you started beating the shit out of that thing?" Kahurangi asked Niamh. We were at the point in the video where Niamh had gone ham on the creature, but not yet where they had zapped it.

Jamie and friends saying that gross kaiju-related phrases, like "tumescent cloaca", would make good band names. 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.

Laertes's parents were the sort of outwardly very nice conservative people who wouldn't miss an opportunity to call Laertes by his deadname, and that shit will wear you down over time. pg. 7 I didn’t,” Satie said. “If it were up to me, I would have named them Sid and Nancy. Fits their personalities better. But no one asked me. One of you millennials did it.” Absurdly, gloriously entertaining. A story that hits all the beats and tropes you might think, and that's not a criticism: you read this book with the feelings you read a tropey romance, ie a knowing expectation of what will happen, plus gleeful anticipation for how you're going to get there.