Summary

The Kaiju Preservation Society is a fantasy novel that follows Jaime Gray who dropped out of his doctoral program (having completed a dissertation on the novel Snowcrash) to work as an executive at a food delivery startup.

Sometime early in the pandemic, Jaime finds himself unemployed and delivering food for the same startup and happenstances his way into a new gig working for KPS—which we later learn is the Kaiju Preservation Society.

He travels to work in a parallel universe where he “lifts things” while others try to save and preserve Kaiju—yes, the giant Godzilla monsters.

This book was so much fun! I got the audiobook and it’s narrated by Will Wheaton for extra geek cred.

I laughed out loud a lot during this read. As an attempted and lapsed vegan, this line got me where I live:

“They have vegan cheese.” “No, they don’t. They have shredded orange and white sadness that mocks cheese and everything it stands for.”

– John Scalzi, The Kaiju Preservation Society

SPOILERs

There’s a hamartia preventing me from giving this book the five-star rating it otherwise completely fucking deserves. And—to make matters worse—it’s in a scene that could have been cut.

The main bad guy is the dude who started füdmüd—the food delivery startup Jaime worked for—and the bad guy is a billionare so, obviously, he gets to come pet the kaiju: fine. THEN Jaime gets him to reveal his big secret fucking plan AND THEN JAIME TELLS NO ONE!?!

If Jaime had told someone it seems clear that the main baddie would have gone to jail and not been able to do anything worse. But he didn’t for some reason. At the end people learn Jaime knew and no one seems to care. The End. Boo.

Anyway, still had fun.

Details

Links

• Worldcat
• Open Library
• Bookshop
• Goodreads