Book Review: The Kaiju Preservation by John Scalzi (four stars)
“These things weren’t built. They evolved. Evolution doesn’t overengineer. The kaiju nuclear bioreactors work well enough. Until they don’t.”
Excellent world and creature building. Raises hope that Scalzi hasn’t completely sold out to corporate bookdom. Leaving his Interdepency trash, he returns to the fresh, enjoyable storytelling of Old Man’s War and Redshirts.
“Did you mean to make it look like an Ewok village, or was that just an accident?” “Well, technically speaking, Tanaka predates the Ewok village by a couple of decades. So it looks like us.” “Does George Lucas know that?” “He might.”
Since the story is told entirely from the protagonist’s point of view, the reader knows little of Jamie’s appearance, race, sexuality, politics, etc. And doesn’t need to. If Scalzi tells us more, it’d just slow the flow.
“Is there something about this place that everyone is great, except that they will murder you if you cross them?” “There is a certain personality type that thrives here, yes,”
Apparently he can’t write without peppering the text with gratuitous expletives. Spiced with humor and pop SF references. That said, enough typos made it through to suggest springing for another edit.
“Of course it feels weird. Back home, a nuclear explosion is an existential threat. Here, it’s just Tuesday.”
Ought to be a movie. Seriously. At least as big budget as Avatar.
“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.” John Scalzi
As a Matter of Fancy 