Reviews with content warning for Death - The Kaiju Preservation Society

I enjoyed it. It was a fun popcorn book.

There was some nice homages to classic science-fictions stories.

There was some attention paid to the science of the circumstances and some nice hand waiving with the person explaining things saying I'm not a scientist, you'll need to ask a scientist about that for the harder questions.

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sunn_bleach's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.25

A light and fun “pop song” of sci-fi, in Scalzi’s own words. And sometimes that’s what you need. My one criticism is that all of Scalzi’s characters talk like Discord users. Everything is a quip and a snide comment - people don’t talk that way off the Internet, and Scalzi is so desperate to make sure you get every single one of his references rather than just trust the reader to also be in on the joke.

edit: as time has gone on, I think this is one of the worst books I've read in sci-fi. Scalzi so desperately wants you to think he's funny, but all his characters come off as huge assholes who try their hardest to be the funniest guy in the room. The book is written like a bunch of Tumblr quotes from 2008, with everyone trying to one-up one another. It's a cloying and intensely annoying book, and good god I hate every one of these characters.

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anna_hepworth's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This treads a fine line between parody of and love-letter to B-grade giant monster movies, as well as a somewhat random set of science fictional tropes. It also does it very well -- very readably book, at no point was I strongly invested, but the writing flies along and drags the story and the reader with it. There are a couple of points where the plot beats were just enough off that I concluded that it was satire/parody, and then something more tongue in cheek would happen.

Scalzi has done a significant amount of scientific handwaving, while still maintaining at least some plausible deniability. This is helped by having our viewpoint character be the one with higher education experience in arts, while the rest of the cohort we get much time with are all serious scientists. Go in with low expectations on the scientific plausibility, and high on the entertaining bullshit, and you should be fine.

Having said that, there are some serious moments, and some 'well, the mega-rich really are arseholes' sections. The opening, focusing on unstable work at the beginning of a pandemic is relevant, but unsettling.

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mar's review

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

the way scalzi describes this book in the author's note - like a fun, catchy pop song you sing along to and then move on with your life in a slightly better mood - is Absolutely on point. sometimes u really do need a pop song of a book

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