Kaiju Preservation Society (John Scalzi)
Back to another novel written by Scalzi, this book is about one of my favorite things, giant monsters.
In the author's note, Scalzi writes that this was the book that he needed to write to take him out of the slump from COVID and get back to enjoying writing books again. And you can tell! This book is nonstop funny dialogue and interesting premise. The main character, Jamie Gray, gets fired from his job because of the pandemic, and instead gets roped into a way more fascinating career; maintaining the health of Kaiju in an alternate dimension. The biology of the Kaiju as "walking ecosystems" made it interesting, and I loved the dialogue between the characters (especially Jamie's ongoing motif of him being the one hired to "lift things"). The only catch about the book is that the characters are not as fleshed out, but I understand why. Scalzi describes this book as his "pop" version of a story; light-hearted fun with not as much emotional depth as his other books. So it makes sense for the characters to be like that. Overall, this was a really fun read. It kind of gave me motivation to write again, and write what was fun for me.
"I don't know what twenty thousand acres is in metric."
"About eight thousand hectares," Aparna said.
Tom started at her. "Really, that fast?"
Apartna shrugged. "It's just math."
Tom turned to me. "Did you know that?"
"I did not," I assured him.
"Thank you."
"I lift things."