The Kaiju Preservation Society

"Previous Hugo Award-winner ( Redshirts , 2013) Scalzi returns with a sci-fi caper that begins in New York in the early days of the pandemic. The novel is, gleefully and explicitly, pandemic escapism – the book that Scalzi wrote when producing his intended brooding epic novel proved impossible. As Scalzi says in the author’s note: “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.” Right before the pandemic, Jamie Gray loses his job. From this starting point, Scalzi deftly escalates the gravity of Gray’s situation, so that by the time he is offered a vague but potentially dangerous job with a highly secretive organisation, we are willing him to take it. This sets the stage for his induction into the Kaiju Preservation Society – the body responsible for researching the monstrous inhabitants of another dimension. And, importantly, ensuring that they stay in that other dimension. A very funny and enjoyable caper ensues. Notably, no argument needs to be made here for an anti-extractive or environmentally cautious approach to the alien world. The good guys adopt this position as default; the bad guys are the bad guys precisely because they don’t, and the stupidity of this is treated as self-evident. The earlier arguments of writers like Ursula Le Guin have set the moral parameters."