Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again

By: Shigeru Kayama, Jeffrey Angles - translator

Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab

Godzilla emerged from the sea to devastate Tokyo in the now-classic 1954 film, creating a global sensation and launching one of the world's most successful movie and media franchises. Awakened and transformed by nuclear weapons testing, Godzilla serves as a terrifying metaphor for humanity's shortsighted destructiveness: this was the intent of Shigeru Kayama, the science fiction writer who drafted the 1954 original film and its first sequel and, in 1955, published these novellas.

Although the Godzilla films have been analyzed in detail by cultural historians, film scholars, and generations of fans, Kayama's two Godzilla novellas have never been available in English. This book finally provides English-speaking fans and critics the original texts. The novellas reveal valuable insights into Kayama's vision, feature plots that differ from the films, and display the author's antinuclear, proenvironmental convictions.

Kayama's fiction depicts Godzilla as engaging in guerrilla-style warfare against humanity, which has allowed the destruction of the natural world through its irresponsible, immoral perversion of science. As human activity continues to cause mass extinctions and rapid climatic change, Godzilla provides a fable for the Anthropocene, powerfully reminding us that nature will fight back against humanity's onslaught.

©2004 Godzilla by Shigeru Kayama: Copyright 2004 by Yoshihiro Yamaguchi; English translation copyright 2023 by Jeffrey Angles (P)2025 Tantor Media

I really enjoyed the book!

I'm very exited when I found out that this book was getting an audio version for Audible. Now that I've listened to it I found it a very enjoyable listen.

Godzilla forever!

The novelization is very faithful to the original media. The ending does drag a little bit, but that's just a nitpick, it's not enough to lower the score.

For Young Adult readers

Nice for American audiences to get a chance to enjoy these. I didn’t realize they were written for the YA market when I preordered. Mostly had this on in the background but did really enjoy the afterword that was included after the second story.

What a long time Gojii fan wanted.

Story is simply told but enjoyable. There is also some good history about Godzilla at the end is the two stories.