The Kaiju Preservation Society
A pop song of a book?
Includes some spoilers!
With five books left in the Goodreads reading challenge, and the year coming to a close, I was looking for a short and easy read. A Reddit user told me that The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi was just that.
Plot synopsis:
When Jamie Gray loses his job as a marketing executive during the COVID-19 pandemic, his new gig as a food delivery driver unexpectedly lands him a job in the secret Kaiju Preservation Society. As the name suggests, the KPS is responsible for protecting and studying the huge monsters, known as kaiju, residing in a parallel earth accessible via a few portals scattered around the world.
Unlike the team of scientists and experts who dominate the KPS ranks, Jamie’s degree in literature offers little relevance in this bizarre new environment. Recruited primarily to be a facilitator for the other team members, or lifting things as Jamie calls it, he soon finds himself thrust into high-stakes adventures where the dangers are as massive as the creatures they strive to safeguard.
Sounds fun.
Is it any good?
Reddit wasn’t lying, Kaiju Preservation Society is both short and lightweight. But also simple and predictable.
The protagonist, Jamie Gray, is a smart, wisecracking, highly educated person with a perfect moral compass. In other words, not that interesting of a character. Whenever something bad happens to him, it’s not his fault. Whether it’s him getting fired, or someone dies. If he is there to make a choice, he will make the right one.
Sidenote: I envisioned Jamie as a man, even though I don’t think Scalzi ever tells us the gender. Maybe I thought this because I’m a guy, or maybe because the Jamies I can name on the top of my head are Jamie Foxx, Jamie Hyneman, and Jamie Oliver.
The antagonist, Robert Sanders, is rich and evil. He steals ideas, thinks only of himself, and likes to use his money to force people to do his bidding. Sometimes for his own gain, other times just to play with them. He comes from a rich family that are big-time donors to the KPS, giving them access to the kaiju world. Of course, the donations aren’t about altruism. The family always has their own goals in mind, not caring whether they are at odds with KPS’s values or goals.
The other characters are mostly cracking jokes and «fake arguing». It’s the Marvel problem. If the characters don’t take the situation seriously, why should we? It was hard to know who was who, as they were all talking the same way, competing to be the most savvy conversationist. The book is also riddled with pop-culture references which never fails to break my immersion.
While the story is by the number, the world Scalzi introduces us to is original, fun, and believable. There are quite a lot of exposition dumps needed to explain how the world works, and he manages to keep them interesting enough. The title is awesome, however, it does come with a few challenges. The first few chapters setting up Jamie are pretty boring when we know there are kaiju lurking around in the later pages. Would it be more interesting if we also followed the person in KPS who Jamie replaced? Just to get a drip of the world before we’re tossed into it? It’s not like the existence of kaiju is a huge plot twist.
All in all, a forgettable story in an interesting world.
The afterword
I usually skim the afterword since it’s typically about the author’s gratitude and the challenges they faced while writing the book. This one had a twist. Instead of talking about how hard this book was to write, Scalzi talks about the hardships of the book he was supposed to write but didn’t finish. KPS, however, was easy. He compared it to a pop song. I don’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, it makes me angry. Is he saying that he could have written a better book with fewer cliches and better characters, but didn’t bother? I love the world he created, so I’d love a more exciting story. On the other hand, people love this book. It’s got 3.99/5 on Goodreads and 4.4/5 on Amazon.
Scalzi clearly succeeded in creating a mass-appeal, pop-song novel. But is it catchy enough for people to read it over and over again like they would a pop-song? To quote the legendary Kabin Crew & Lisdoonvarna Crew.
I doubt it.
