Summary: Funny, sort of scifi novel, set during the covid pandemic.
I first read John Scalzi’s Agent to the Stars and then read a number of his other books over a couple of years. Then I moved on and I didn’t pick up a Scalzi novel for about six years or so. Last year there was a 2 for 1 sale and I saw one book I wanted and Scalzi’s Starter Villain was essentially free. And a year later I actually picked up Starter Villain on a whim and remembered why I like Scalzi.
He is funny. He takes ideas that have been well done and then gives it a new spin that both stands alone as a story, but also is even better if you know the original. Redshirts was told from the perspective of the crew where the crew knew something was going on and if they went on an away mission they would probably die. Fuzzy Nation is a spin on Henry Beam Piper’s 1962 Little Fuzzy. Old Man’s War is inspired by Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. There are a number of other books that are original, but it is often the “inspired by” book that are the most funny. And while I like the more serious scifi, I tend to use Scalzi’s funny novels to help break me out of reading slumps.
Kaiju Preservation Society is a covid novel. Jamie Gray left his English PhD program to work in communications for a start up. He gets fired, unfairly, just before covid hits NYC and he spends months working as a food delivery person before being offered a job by someone he knew from his grad program. Jamie is desperate for a job, his friend Tom is desperate to get someone at the last minute because he is leaving on a project and one of his team members has covid.
It is not much of a spoiler (since it is on the book description) that the job that Jamie is being hired to do is not on earth, or at least not on our earth. When humans started using nuclear power, they started opening up portals to alternate dimension of earth. Jamie is going to an earth that evolved Kaiju (Godzilla) as the dominant species. Everything on that version of earth will try to kill you.
As Scalzi says in the author’s note at the end, this is not intended to be a deep novel, it is intended to be a pop song. The plot is fairly predictable, but it is still fun. I alternated between the kindle and the audiobook. Wil Wheaton narrated the audiobook. I like Wheaton’s narration most of the time, but he has a narrow range of narration and if the character’s don’t really fit, he isn’t a great narrator. This one fits okay, but Wheaton does tend to make people a bit more snarky than necessary. One reviewer I read said that Wheaton’s narration always makes him want to punch him. I like Wheaton’s narration most of the time, but I get that impulse.
This is a fun book that I enjoyed and also fluffy in a very good way that we all need sometimes.
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook