The Kaiju Preservation Society

By: John Scalzi

Narrated by: Wil Wheaton

The Kaiju Preservation Society is John Scalzi's first stand-alone adventure since the conclusion of his New York Times best-selling Interdependency trilogy.

When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food-delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization”. Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on.

What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda, and they're in trouble.

It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society who's found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.

©2022 John Scalzi (P)2021 Audible, Inc.

Fun, Hardcore Geekery

Disclaimer: I am incredibly biased and am sure that bias will be heavily reflected here.

Scalzi and Wheaton are always a pleasure for me, but this was the story I needed most in this horrendous time. Without spoiling anything, my imagination frequently heard a rusty, grumbly gate opening in the background of my mind while listening. The Kaiju Preservation Society is so much fun that anyone who grew up between the 70s and 90s can enjoy. Good-naturedly poking gentle fun at Millennials added some pleasant seasoning to the story; stir in a dash of telling a genuinely inconsiderate billionaire to his face exactly what he could do with himself and his money was like molten chocolate cake warming my gooey bits.

To paraphrase the author, this is the right novel for a really awful time. Please do yourself a favor and read/listen to it.

Ignore the political reviews, it's no political

I almost didn't get this book because there were so many negative reviews that talked about politics overwhelming the story, those reviews are "inaccurate". This is a typical story written by Scalzi and read by Wheaton, if you like his other books of this type you will like this. The characters speak with usual Scalzi dialog and Wheaton gives his usual performance. (This is like Scalzi's Red Shirts and not God Engines.)

As to the politics (I'm fairly certain that nothing in here is a spoiler):
1) It is set in the quarantine and the main character is in a city where people think you should wear masks (wow, that's political!). Oh, and this effects the story for all of the first 15 minutes and is only used as setup for the story,
2) It has a character who is the worst part of person who creates a startup company and screws over employees. While this plays into the story it is just a way of setting up the main character to progress through the story, it isn't preachy and isn't a main part of the book.
3) There is a transgender character who is a main part of the story. Does this character have a romantic roll in the story? No. Does this character scream on about how they need to be respected? No. What is this character's cardinal sin? They are referred to as "They" throughout the book. You could literally replace the pronoun "they" with "he" or "she" in the book and make no other changes and have the exact same story. I have to admit, I found it jarring for the first hour or so because I'm not used to hearing "they" referring to a character in the story, after that I have kept noticing because all I can think of is "I bet that's making one of the other reviewers head explode"...
4) There is one scene where they talk about the president (or maybe former president's) big dumb sons wanting to do something stupid. I learned from one of the other reviewers that this is apparently a reference to Trump.
5) There is another scene where they refer to a President who seems to favor business and would like a crisis to help him get re-elected. This scene also makes a 2 line reference to Elon Musk. The entirety of this is under 5 minutes.

This is literally what has other reviewers losing their minds about virtue signaling and this being political. (yes I'm liberal but that doesn't mean I have to scream at authors who don't have the same perspective as me, this has less political perspective than anything written by John Ringo and John Ringo writes entertaining books too (I'm not a fan of Sara Palin but maybe she would be good in a zombie apocalypse and it's definitely entertaining.). ((This is like when people protested the film Dogma for being anti-Christian))

So in summary, it's typical Scalzi read by Wheaton and is no more political than anything else he's written except that there is a character referred to using "they" and starts in the pandemic...

The Book I Needed

I'm sobbing. Not at the story - which was great btw! it lifted my spirits. I made me laugh when things would happen and I would think ... "because of course it did" and that would be the literal next line of the book. I'm sobbing because Scalzi, your author's note at the end spoke to my soul. This book...it put me in a good mood. And I am having one of those weeks! but this - it made me laugh and I just want to say thank you John Scalzi for this book. You are amazing. your work is amazing and Will Wheaton always narrates spectacularly. read this book. it will lift your spirits. it will make you smile. it's easy and happy.

What ride!

John Scalzi never fails to amaze, amuse & in general create great stories with a twist. Wil Wheaton performs admirably!

Just wonderful! Exactly the Story I Needed to Read!

I have listened to many John Scalzi’s audiobooks previously, so of course I purchased this one on it’s release day. It is great! It has comfortable elements from some of his other books, but with a whole new story. It was light and very entertaining.