Spoiling Scalzi: A Real-Time Read of Kaiju Preservation Society (Finale)
What follows is part 4 of our ongoing multi-part preview of John Scalzi’s upcoming standalone novel, The Kaiju Preservation Society. For part three, click here. For part two, click here. For part one, which includes a brief plot summary, click here. As with the previous entries, BEYOND HERE BE SPOILERS.
Page 222: Humorous moment when group takes out a patrolling guard is dragged on too long and becomes annoying. Bitch biologist initially suggests murder. Party settles on hiding and looting the body.
Page 224: Jamie takes guy's phone, looks through it for "secret plans", and somehow knows that he's found some. Presumably the file was named dastardly_plan.pdf, and was not password protected. Despite there being no cell or internet service, he's able to send this file to his own phone because the nearby military encampment has an intranet with WiFi.
Now I'm admittedly no tech whiz, but I'm under the impression this shouldn't be possible, since both WiFi networks and intranets require usernames and passwords to be accessed, neither of which Jamie had, but anyway, he manages to retrieve a document that contains a layout of the makeshift facility they're keeping the kaiju in. Man, what luck!
NPC chemist thinks calling something a trans-dimensional portal constitutes a copyright violation from Doom Eternal. John clearly leaned hard on his old contacts at Kotaku for that gem.
Page 225: NPCs debate whether or not the giant cosmic hole puncher surrounding a skyscraper-sized winged pregnant hellspawn will have a guard detail attached to it. "Why would it be guarded?" one of them says.
Page 230: Gang fumbles their way through a doomed rescue effort. Turns out Asshole CEO was behind it all along!
Page 232-233: Asshole CEO reveals dastardly plan, Bond villain-style. Plans to create an organic growable nuclear power plants from various collected kaiju DNA samples, not only not caring if it explodes, but counting on it so he can take advantage of the geopolitical / financial havoc that results. Eventually Asshole CEO becomes aware the group is inviting him to monologue in order to prolong their lives, then keeps on doing it. A second reference to Doom Eternal is made. How do you do, fellow kids?
Page 236: Orphan #4
Page 237: Sidelong non-named dig at Trump because of course.
Page 238-9: After a lame, drawn-out diversion tactic, the Scooby Gang sic a mob of alien parasites attached to the kaiju onto their captors, everybody breaks for it amidst the chaos. Jamie is shotgunned in the head but it's really more of a graze, so he's fine.
Page 245-6: After two pages of hero / nemesis banter, a giant alien parasite takes down Asshole CEO. Kaiju finally decides to bounce and starts flying off. Martin, the actual hero in this novel, shows up in the chopper and in a bona fide badass scene, buzzes the kaiju enough to get her attention and lead her back to the trans-dimensional portal, where the rest of the nerds are waiting to zap her back home.
The helicopter chase was well written, but only because Scalzi accidentally had the plot temporarily being driven by someone who wasn't a living meme. Broken clocks and all that, I guess.
Page 254: In possibly the most far-fetched bit of fiction in the entire book, the incoming Biden administration wastes no time investigating past and present CEOs of the corrupt energy company behind the whole ordeal on suspicion of decades of abuse and fraud.
Page 256: With cover stories firmly in place and things back to normal, Jamie finishes his tour and happily returns to his shitty apartment and gay roommates. Food arrives, and Jamie recognizes the delivery woman as an old co-worker from his former employer. He hands her a card for KPS, telling her they've got a job opening (on account of the last guy getting murdered). Everybody lives quirkily ever after, the end.
Closing Thoughts
Back in 2015, Scalzi told the Mercury News, “A lot of the success that I’ve had has come from the fact that I see it as part of my job to be a writer of gateway science fiction, that somebody who hasn’t read a lot of science-fiction, who may not even think of themselves as a science-fiction fan, can pick one up and enjoy."
Accessibility is an important thing for a writer to consider when writing a genre like sci-fi, and I applaud Scalzi for having it at the fore of his mind when considering his audience. Historically, it's an bunch that tends to cloister tightly together until something like Star Wars makes it supernova into the mainstream, whereupon fandoms stake down camps over canon and lore and recloister. We contract and expand as violently as the cosmos themselves, and it's easy to lose sight of the importance of welcoming newcomers, especially in this tidal wave of Disneyfied faux-geek consumerism we often find ourselves swimming upstream against. One who turns their nose up at the stewardship of that gateway does so at the art's peril.
However, once through that portal, we have a responsibility to offer our reader more than the mundane. Science Fiction is an open invitation to leave the banal behind, to literally reach for the stars, And with this novel, Sclazi has managed to take the otherworldly and wonderous and turn it into a literal joke. It's 258 pages of scenes that barely get described, people with no dreams or motives, and monsters -- monsters!-- that barely exist as a concept. It's an open, sprawling world that he doesn't respect enough to put any effort into. He might as well have published this as a book of Mad Libs and said to the reader, "Here, you do it."
Even the pulpiest, most gimmick-laden space westerns of Mike Resnick had characters that had more humanity and dimension than the utterly forgettable people in The Kaiju Preservation Society. This isn't gateway science fiction, it never even left it's mother's basement to get to the gateway. And of course, as I mentioned in part one of this series, it didn't have to be this way. Scalzi has talent that refuses to tap. Political opinions he refuses to subdue for the sake of his fan's enjoyment. Years ago, I read these words:
On my seventy-fifth birthday, I did two things. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the Army.
And was hopelessly hooked for an entire book. That's gone now. And I wish it would come back.
If you want an immersive science fiction novel, there are plenty of sterling examples to choose from on this site, from authors both obscure and well-known, none lacking for talent. If you want to laugh, I'd humbly suggest the excellent The Thing From HR by the great Roy Griffis. We've reviewed it here and here if you want to take a look.
And, as always, keep reading. Keep dreaming. Keep looking to the stars. Thanks for coming along on the ride.