Ep 719 - The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi

Summary

Overdue Podcast Ep 719: The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi

Date: September 8, 2025
Hosts: Andrew and Craig

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Andrew and Craig dive into John Scalzi’s 2022 novel, The Kaiju Preservation Society. Andrew has read the book; Craig is the audience surrogate. The conversation blends Scalzi’s background, a deep dive into kaiju and monster-movie lore, the context and tone of the book (written during early COVID), and a breakdown of its plot, themes, and critiques. The episode maintains a comedic, referential, and nerdy tone throughout, consistent with the hosts’ rapport.

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Main Themes & Purpose

• Exploring how The Kaiju Preservation Society riffs on kaiju genre conventions, while serving as both sci-fi escapism and a pop-cultural/political commentary.
• A look at John Scalzi’s career and the internetty, referential style he brings to this book.
• Discussion of how the book acts as a stress-relieving “pop song” rather than a brooding epic, intentionally written to be fun and diverting in the wake of real-world anxiety.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

John Scalzi: Background and Context

• Scalzi’s career: Author, internet personality, blogger since the pre-social media days; Hugo winner for both fiction and fan writing.
  • “He is a man about a slightly pre-social media internet. And that is like part of his whole deal.” (Craig, 11:02)
• Wrote Kaiju Preservation Society in early 2021 during COVID: Frustrated by trying to write a dark, serious book; pivoted to something joyous and lighter as a personal escape and a gift to readers.
  • “This is not a brooding symphony. This is a pop song. I think people are in the mood for a pop song.” (Scalzi, quoted by Craig, 19:49)
• Scalzi’s style: Quippy, internet-aware, full of banter, frequent pop-culture references.

What is “Kaiju”?—Genre & Historical Context

• Japanese word for “strange beast,” popularized by Godzilla and other monster movies.
• The hosts reminisce about their own kaiju media touchstones—Godzilla, Gamera, Power Rangers, etc.—and how the genre has crossed over, especially in U.S. pop culture.
• Godzilla’s origins are deeply rooted in Japanese anxieties over nuclear testing and destruction.
  • “The thing that they really zeroed in on in creating the film originally was ... Japan had been bombed twice by the United States with atomic weapons ... And now here lets make a monster movie about a nuclear weapon monster.” (Craig, 22:44)

Book Background & COVID Context

• Written at the height of early pandemic uncertainty; references to the COVID lockdown, early vaccines, and the “hot vax summer” optimism emerge in the book.
  • “In this book, you get a COVID vaccine and then you don’t have to worry about COVID anymore ever again.” (Andrew, 63:00)

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Plot Summary & Structure

[30:17]–[35:02] Setup: Jamie’s Pandemic Plight

• Jamie, early-30s, lives in NYC; laid off from “Food Mood” (a delivery gig app) by a cartoonishly capitalist boss, Rob Sanders.
• The COVID pandemic hits, leaving Jamie and his creative-arts roommates financially strapped; Jamie pivots to delivery driving.

[35:03]–[41:54] Entering the Kaiju World

• Jamie bumps into Tom, a college acquaintance, who offers a mysterious job: “How would you feel about an employment opportunity where you work with wild animals?” (Andrew, 34:30)
• Jamie joins a classified organization—The Kaiju Preservation Society—requiring him to travel to a military base in Greenland that’s actually a portal to an alternate Earth (“Kaiju Earth”).

[41:54]–[56:33] Kaiju Earth: Rules, Worldbuilding & Science

• Kaiju Earth: A parallel world, no humans, giant monsters ("kaiju") rule the food chain.
• Kaiju biology: They possess organic nuclear reactors, cooled by symbiotic parasites; only some reach true “Godzilla” size.
• Kaiju sometimes cross into Earth; this spawned the original kaiju legends/movies in our world.
• Nuclear explosions thin the barrier between worlds—historical nukes explain Godzilla’s emergence as a myth.
• “...when something big and radioactive explodes ... the layer between our Earth and Kaiju Earth gets thin and creates an opportunity for things to pass through.” (Andrew, 49:00)

[53:07]–[61:02] Corporate Malfeasance & The Plot’s Main Engine

• Rob Sanders (Jamie’s old boss) reappears as the villain, interested in weaponizing kaiju for capitalist gain.
• Sanders’ plot: steal kaiju genetic material to create organic nuclear reactors for private profit.
• Paramilitary forces kidnap a giant kaiju (Bella) to Earth; chaos (and potential nuclear explosion-level disaster) ensues.
• The scientists and Jamie must find and return Bella before she explodes, threatening to expose the secret and kill thousands.

[61:24]–[66:04] Satire, Political Subtext, and Escapism

• The book skewers tech billionaires, casting “Food Mood” Sanders as an avatar for contemporary tech bros (Musk, Bezos, etc.).
  • “It actually is always this ... rich guy who comes from rich guys who does not think any of the rules apply to him...” (Andrew, 63:59)
• Trump-era political jokes and afterword references; the world’s “bad president” and his “large adult sons” get up to kaiju-related mischief.
• COVID is more of a setting than a central theme, but the book’s lightness is a conscious antidote to pandemic gloom.

[66:04]–[67:48] Tone, Style, and Critique

• The book is intentionally breezy, fun, and loaded with pop-culture references.
• Critique: Andrew felt the dialogue was too quippy and samey—everyone has the same sarcastic, referential voice; banter can feel forced.
  • "...everybody talks the same and so you don't end up with any really super memorable characters because everybody's just got the same kind of like, sarcastic, quippy, like, Joss Whedonid sort of voice." (Andrew, 36:11)
• The structure is energetic and moves quickly in the latter half.
• Not a deeply character-driven piece; more a sci-fi romp with big ideas.

[67:48]–End: Final Thoughts & Miscellany

• The kaiju are described more in Lovecraftian than detailed sci-fi terms—big, amorphous, left to the imagination.
• Parallels with Jurassic Park and Alien: Capitalism as the real monster.
• Not a long book; easy fun, but the style may wear thin for some, especially if you’re not into meta-referential sci-fi.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the book’s escapist intent:
  “This is not a brooding symphony. This is a pop song. I think people are in the mood for a pop song.”
  — John Scalzi (quoted by Craig, 19:49)

• On the reality of tech villains:
  “It actually is always this ... rich guy who comes from rich guys who does not think any of the rules apply to him...”
  — Andrew (63:59)

• On COVID’s fleeting optimism:
  “In this book, you get a COVID vaccine and then you don’t have to worry about COVID anymore ever again.”
  — Andrew (63:00)

• On writing for escapism:
  “I’m stressed. I’m this big ball of tension and confusion and tiredness. Take me away.”
  — John Scalzi (quoted, 19:49)

• Meta humor on plot progression:
  “Let me vanquish that monster with knowledge, which is the greatest, the greatest weapon of all. // Twas knowledge killed the beast.”
  — Andrew and Craig (30:11–30:21)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:37 – Show proper begins; Kaiju banter and personal monster-movie histories
• 13:13 – Scalzi writing Kaiju during COVID, author background, blogging
• 20:40 – Author’s “pop song” intent; Monster history, Godzilla’s atomic origins
• 30:17 – Detailed plot introduction: Jamie and Food Mood
• 35:03 – Jamie recruited by Kaiju Preservation Society
• 41:54 – Kaiju Earth revealed, worldbuilding, and monster biology
• 53:07 – Capitalist villain Sanders’ plot, kaiju theft, and the big stakes
• 61:24 – Scalzi’s satire of tech billionaires and political references
• 66:04 – Tone/style critiques; book’s intention as escapism
• 67:48+ – Final thoughts on monster descriptions, genre parallels, the book as breezy fun

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Conclusion: Should You Read It?

If you’re seeking a fast, fun, monster-filled romp with science-y worldbuilding and a sharp edge of contemporary satire—especially if you appreciate internetty, reference-heavy humor—The Kaiju Preservation Society is an easy recommendation. If banter overload and sameness of character voice bother you, temper your expectations for depth and character complexity, but enjoy the breezy ride and big ideas.

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Further Engagement

• Listener prompt:
  “Send us your Kaiju fan art of any Kaiju!” (68:30)
• Next episodes:
  Cranford (Elizabeth Gaskell), The Buddha in the Attic (Julie Otsuka), The Jungle Book (Kipling)

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For more book breakdowns or to join their community, visit overduepodcast.com or their Patreon at patreon.com/overduepod.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a headgun podcast.

[Craig]

In Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver. Salvation has a price. Is humanity willing to pay it?

[Andrew]

In a climate ravaged landscape where AI and humans vie for political power, a journalist must unravel a murderous plot that will either upend the world or save it. In 2050, investigative journalist Marcus Tully is grieving his wife and unborn child 10 years after they perished in a deadly heat wave that gripped the Persian Gulf. Now the whole planet is both burning and drowning, and the nations of the world decide to elect a global leader to steer humanity through the climate apocalypse. The final two candidates, a former US President and Solomon, the first artificial intellect to hold political office.

[Craig]

Wait a second.

[Andrew]

Whoa. AI Politicians. As election day races closer, Craig Solomon's creator is murdered and it's up to Tully to find the culprit. Soon, Tully is unraveling a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels. As the investigation heats up and the planet hurdles ever closer to the brink. T must find the truth and convince the world to face it. Because salvation has a price. But is humanity willing to pay it?

[Craig]

I don't know if we're willing to pay. I said that earlier and I wasn't sure and you just said it and I'm not.

[Andrew]

Still not sure. I'm not sure. You're gonna have to read this book and figure it out.

[Craig]

Okay? You will have to read it. So I'm calling our listeners to action. Artificial Wisdom is a pitch perfect near future thriller wrapped in a murder mystery. It's a masterclass in playing an intimate story out on a global stage dealing with big societal issues of climate change and technology. Alongside genuine human drama. It adds to the growing conversation about AI by presenting a speculative world in which humanity is trying to determine if surrendering control to an AI in the interests of solving climate change is in the best interest of humanity and the planet. I just think that our listeners might want to read Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver.

[Andrew]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now.

[Craig]

Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig. My name is Andrew and I am a big monster. Just, I feel it all the time.

[Andrew]

I did know that about you.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Just like emotionally, if not physically, kind of a big monster.

[Craig]

I'm a monster in many ways. I am often told by my son that I am a monster. Usually in A game of pretend that I didn't know was happening.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I was gonna ask, is that. Is that an observation or is that like a directive from. From him?

[Craig]

Usually A directive. Correct. Because he's not a teenager yet. So it is not like. It's not a derisive retort.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's just like, you're a monster. You are a monster.

[Craig]

You are a monster now. And I'm like, okay, I'm a monster now. So that probably mirrors the experience of many, you know, mutant giant creatures sometimes when you're.

[Andrew]

When your beard gets particularly out of control.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

Without a bit of like a Sasquatch. Sasquatchy quality.

[Craig]

I were to become a Kaiju relevant to this week's book, the Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalci. On this, our podcast, where each week one of us reads a book and tells the other person about it. You didn't think that clause could go on that long?

[Andrew]

Sometimes, yeah, sometimes you get caught in that little cul de sac.

[Craig]

The clause to sack. I would probably be some sort of beard based Kaiju at this point. The hair would get all big and take over my body as I grew, you know, turn into some sort of Sasquatch.

[Andrew]

Ian Sasquatch.

[Craig]

Anybody who lives in Saskatchewan not like that word because it's just like I'm.

[Andrew]

I'm looking up whether there are any canonical Godzilla monsters that are also mammals. I mean, he's not really a guy. He was his own thing.

[Craig]

Yeah. But he's fought Godzilla, so. Yeah, I guess he has multiple times gone. They've gone many rounds.

[Andrew]

But I think if you're talking about just like the native non crossover event Godzilla films, I think that. I think that like, robots are better represented than mammals in the gallery.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Well, Andrew, each week, as I said, we talk about a book and you read the book this week. Remind us what it's called again.

[Andrew]

Kaiju Preservation Society.

[Craig]

Okay. Okay. And have you. We not. We have not talked about this man or his work before.

[Andrew]

No. I'm like dimly aware of him as like a man about the Internet.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But other than that, I know, like, I. I know that he operates in like a sci fi kind of nerd kind of space. And that's pretty much what I know.

[Craig]

Sure. You've ever been in that space? You've ever been a sci fi nerd?

[Andrew]

It's a space that I. It's a space that I know.

[Craig]

Space. Get it?

[Andrew]

This isn't. This doesn't do space. This does Multi. This does multiverse.

[Craig]

Oh. Does it do Hollow Earth?

[Andrew]

No, it doesn't do. I don't think so.

[Craig]

Because that's the big thing of the new Godzilla movies.

[Andrew]

No, I don't know. It doesn't do. It doesn't do Hollow Earth either. Like an earth that's hollow inside or earth that's like a hologram. I'm not sure which. Which one you met, but it's neither of those.

[Craig]

I mean, that. That you could go in it. Like it's a big tube. Anyway, yeah. I'm interested to learn more about this book. I do like big monsters. Think. I think I can trace. Like, I was looking at just like what Kaiju are from a kind of storytelling trope.

[Andrew]

Yeah. What kind of Kaiju stories are you the most familiar with? Obviously we know the Jack Black version.

[Craig]

Of King Kong, the Jack Black version of Gulliver's Travels. He's a Kaiju.

[Andrew]

I guess he's a Kaiju in that. I've. I'd watched a lot of the Godzilla. The original Godzilla movies, and then one of the. One of the, like, post 2010 reboots of it. I think the main one, the.

[Craig]

The America. American. Yeah.

[Andrew]

But not like.

[Craig]

Because Godzilla is very well regarded and I've not watched it and I didn't watch Godzilla minus one.

[Andrew]

Whichever one had Bryan Cranston in it.

[Craig]

I think it was called Just Godzilla. Yeah, I saw Godzilla vs Kong. I watched that.

[Andrew]

I've seen a bunch of Gamera movies through the filter of Mystery Science Theater.

[Craig]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew]

Gamera is kind of a. Kind of a kitty. Sort of a Pepsi to Godzilla's Coke, if you will.

[Craig]

I was thinking I watched a lot of Power Rangers as a kid, which is.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah, lots of Kaijus. So like, Kaiju, I guess, is the plural of Kaiju.

[Craig]

Yeah, is because that's a lot of footage of the Super Sentai show that was like, chopped up.

[Andrew]

And then they did the wraparounds with Balkan Skull, the gang, the most important.

[Craig]

Characters and like that and Kamen Rider were two big Japanese TV shows that were doing Kaiju stuff. But yeah, I think my love of it goes back to Power Rangers as an early media where there were big monsters that were clearly just people in rubber suits in big suits getting punched. But yeah, I do have fondness for old, old Godzilla flicks from the. Like once you get three or four sequels in and then it's just kind of silly. Rubber punching.

[Andrew]

It is. Yeah, that. That's when you get deep into the. Into the Mechagodzilla and Like we're not, we're not trying to, we're not trying to work in metaphor or anything anymore. It's hard to say subtlety when the entire thing revolves around like a 200 foot high lizard monster. But yeah. The first Godzilla had like symbolism that it was.

[Craig]

It did.

[Andrew]

At least.

[Craig]

It did. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And that's, and that's super relevant for this book. I will say, I will say for this book I've got some critiques of like the experience of reading it, but I think the ideas are fun.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Just thinking about it in terms of like sci fi stuff. The. I love Star Trek, obviously Star wars. Increasingly I could take or leave just as a, as a free as a franchise on average.

[Craig]

I know you can't not watch when.

[Andrew]

I have Star wars, just whenever I have time and I need a show to half pay attention to, they've put another one out.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And so I have somehow found myself watching like most of them.

[Craig]

Uh huh.

[Andrew]

But the, their approach to sci fi where people from different planets are just like humans with like weird stuff like glued to their heads or like strange hair or something. It's fun. But it's the kind of sci fi that I've been enjoying the most like recently. And this includes like Scavenger's Reign, the, the animated show from a couple of years ago is shows works that take a more expansive view of like what life would be like if it developed completely independently somewhere else. Instead of having like a bi. Sort of a biped, carbon based.

[Craig]

Yes, sure.

[Andrew]

View of what life was. And this, this book is playing in that space a little bit in a way that I think is fun. And it also is like interacting with some of what the original Godzilla movie is doing. So yeah. I just want to say up front that's fun.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

We give books with good ideas a lot of, A lot of credit.

[Craig]

Yeah. Give him some leeway to be whatever other else they want to be.

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

So Mr. Scalzi, born 1969. Nice. In California. He grew up reading a lot of sci fi and mystery. And when he thought about becoming a writer for his career, he says he flipped a coin to decide which genre and heads came up. And so he went sci fi. He says he.

[Andrew]

I think that's, that's one of the, you know, when you do like a rock paper scissors or a coin flip.

[Craig]

Sort of thing, you kind of have one you want.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, and if the one that you don't want comes up, it just kind of like, helps crystallize the choice.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

For you. Yeah. Okay.

[Craig]

He attended a boarding school in Claremont, California on scholarship. One of the. He has a blog website thing called whatever that he started in September of 98 when you said he's like a man about the Internet. He is a man about a slightly. A pre social media Internet. And that is like part of his whole deal. Yeah, but he had a. He had an essay kind of go viral from that blog called. I don't know if it's called Being Poor, but like, some of his writing in that essay is related to growing up in poverty.

[Andrew]

I think there are a lot of. There are a good, good few people in that COHORT that's like 10 to 15 years older than us who was that part of that first wave of blogging. And they got like, big enough during that wave to like, continue having their own.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Like, brand and like, gravitational pull as the social media era takes off.

[Craig]

The thing that's neat about his blog, about his website that I can just put in now over talking about it, he received multiple nominations and a Hugo award for his writing about science fiction, which makes him one of the only people to have received a Hugo for his fictional work. And the best fan writer award, which is what they use to, like, recognize people who have written about science fiction. Like, not. Not in like a professional critical capacity, which is.

[Andrew]

I appreciate that they've left room for that.

[Craig]

Yeah, he. I did just scroll through it, like, lately just to see what he's been writing. And it's just. It's just good blog stuff. Here's a book I read. Here's some music I made. We got a new kitten. I have a Pixel 10 Pro, and I have thoughts about it. I've been watching Jenny Nicholson videos on YouTube, and she's pretty good at it. Like, just a guy on the Internet. And it's.

[Andrew]

I got thoughts. I'm gonna put them up on the site that is not controlled by a weird billionaire.

[Craig]

None of them seem to be politically inflammatory in a way that I disagree with personally, which makes it a positive experience for me.

[Andrew]

Anyway, lots of this book came out in 2022, but he's writing it sort of in very early 2021. It's of such a specific moment in Covid history. COVID pandemic and like American politics. And it brushes up against it kind of deliberately because the. The sense. And you can talk about his process writing this book, but the sense I got is, like, this is a book that just kind of fell out of him.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Which I do not mean like in a derogatory way, but it was just like whatever was on his mind. And a lot of like political Covid stuff was apparently on his mind when he was. When he was doing it.

[Craig]

Yeah, he. He studied philosophy at UChicago. He was the EIC of a student newspaper there. He began working freelance for the Sun Times. He moved back west and was writing columns and film reviews for the Fresno be a great name for a paper. I just a b. Fresno be a buzz, buzz, buzz. That's the buzz.

[Andrew]

The bee.

[Craig]

And in 1996 he moves to D.C. to be the in house writer for AOL. I don'. I don't know what he was supposed to be doing there.

[Andrew]

You've got mail, baby.

[Craig]

Maybe he was going to write the next one. I don't know. They laid him off.

[Andrew]

People forget that the early Internet was like human curated. Like the early versions of the Yahoo and stuff were not algorithmic search engines that would like dynamically bring stuff up. It was a database of links and.

[Craig]

Stuff that people put together a.

[Andrew]

Well, keyword search and yet so there were a lot of people in charge of just kind of sifting through that and surfacing the interesting stuff which I think is probably part of similar to what he might do would have been doing at aol.

[Craig]

Yeah. He was then laid off two years later and and just said I'm just gonna write books and be a freelance writer. His first novel, 1997 is Agent to the Stars is published free to read on his website is a first contact story about an alien hiring a Hollywood agent to make them more appealing to the human race. That gives you a good sense of what this guy's up to. Old Man's War is his first traditionally published novel. I think that's about making old guys go to war. I have it in my notes from our Columbus Day episode when I was taking notes on military sci fi. That's all I know about Old man. But he was publishing like a chapter a day of it on his website and then Tor picked it up. He writes something called Fuzzy Nation In 2011 he writes Red Shirts, a novel with three codas. In 2012 which won the Hugo. He thought that there was a dearth. Plenty of people had had fun with the red shirt concept from Star Trek but that he thought that there was something to be done at novel length with it. So if we ever come back, I would probably ask you to see if you were interested in red shirts, Andrew. If we ever come back to him.

[Andrew]

For people who don't know, Star Trek, they got colorful uniforms, right?

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And a lot of time at the beginning of an episode, like three or four people would beam down to the surface of a weir. Weird planet to investigate something. And it would be like two named characters who were at the top of the call sheet. And one guy that you'd never seen before. And he was usually wearing a red shirt because that was the color that, like, the engineering and security people wore. And so that person would always die because you can't kill the. You can't kill, like William Shatner. You can't kill. You can't kill Spock. So you got to kill this red shirt. Nobody.

[Craig]

Yep. So, yeah, that's one of his biggest claims to fame, I think, other than Old Man's War and a couple other series. In 2015, he gets a 13 book deal from Tor.

[Andrew]

They love a lot of books and. Unlucky number.

[Craig]

Yeah. Some of his stories get adapted for the Love, Death and Robots series on Netflix. He writes this. This comes out in 2022, wins an Alex Award and the Locus Award. And then in 2024, Tor is like, we're gonna keep betting big on this guy. We love this guy. More books from this guy. In 2010, he was elected as the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He served for three years. And then let's get to this book. As you said, Andrew, he was writing this in 2020. He had. He obviously, he had this deal with Tor. So he's got him. He's got to write books. He's just got to write them. And he was writing another novel that he referred to as Das Boot in Space. Just way too serious. Way too. He says this is honestly his most political book in a way, but that.

[Andrew]

Kaiju, or the one that Kaiju. Okay.

[Craig]

In the sense that I think because it's addressing, like, real world, contemporary politics. Whereas, like, whatever he was doing was like political, like political thriller Y in space. And he was like, this is bumming me out. I don't like it. I don't want to do it. Let me write about big monsters. And he says he worked backwards from like, well, if you did have big monsters, how would they work? That was something he was interested to do.

[Andrew]

Yeah. He has kind of an afterword in the. In this book where he talks about this. This whole thing. And he was saying that basically, yeah, everybody. Everybody who lived through 2020 remembers the year that it. That it was. And it was pretty. It was pretty rough in a lot of ways. And he was trying to write this book. He got sick in some way that left him with, like, a brain fog. And he said he never tested positive for Covid, but it seemed like that's probably what happened. The symptoms were similar to what. What people were experiencing at the time. And he. Then he. You know, he gets better, and he's feeling better, and he sits down and he writes, like, 3,000 words of that. Of that difficult book that he feels like are really great. And then for, like, the first time ever in his whole personal history, his computer ate the work and he couldn't find the words anymore. And he kind of took that. He took that as a sign that was time to move on. He emails his editor saying, hey, I'm gonna miss a deadline for, like, the first time ever. I'm super sorry. And then, like, pretty soon after that, emails his editor again, is like, hey, remember how I told you I was having a really hard time writing and I couldn't give you this book? Well, here's like, an idea for this other thing, and I'll have it for you in, like, a few weeks.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Because it's just coming out, really.

[Craig]

I think he said he wrote it in, like, five or six weeks at least. The first draft, an interview with Clark's World magazine, talking about kind of like the. I guess, the heft of the story or whatever. He thinks that, you know, the book is what it's trying to do. He says, I can't guarantee you that the Kaiju Preservation Society is going to be remembered next year. That wasn't the goal. The goal for this was simply, I'm stressed. I'm this big ball of tension and confusion and tiredness. Take me away. This is not a brooding symphony. This is a pop song. I think people are in the mood for a pop song. So, yeah, he is obviously, as you said, maybe dancing up against some heavier stuff. But he is writing a big book about, you know, big monsters. Just, let's do. Let's do the monsters do their thing.

[Andrew]

Yeah. He grew up Monster mash.

[Craig]

A monster mash. Yeah. Watching Godzilla and Ultraman. And he is interested in kind of solving Kaiju physiology. I want to know more about that. And yes, here's the quote. This is, in many ways the most directly political novel I've ever written. Even though it's not a political novel. It just exists in a time where everything is. And then he cursed political. Andrew, do you know what Kaiju means in Japanese?

[Andrew]

Not. No.

[Craig]

Strange beast.

[Andrew]

So I assumed it was something in that. In that vein, like, big, big monster. Big animal, like big something. Yeah.

[Craig]

So for folks who don't know, you know, it's sci fi monster fiction with giant monsters. It's kind of credited to the team who created Godzilla, Eiji Subaraya, Ishiro Honda, Tomoyuki Tanaka and a few others. They were inspired by King Kong and the Lost World, that kind of stop motion monster stuff from the 1920s in.

[Andrew]

Film, some of which I think was silent, if I'm remembering right.

[Craig]

But yeah, and even before that, some of those are based on some stories that are being written around the turn of the century. You've got kind of a mishmash of mythical creatures and now this kind of explosion of paleontology research that is happening. That's like, what if big monsters like dinosaurs were walking around the year before Godzilla? There's a Harryhausen film based on a Ray Bradbury story about a big dinosaur that was in the Arctic. And then the specific thing with Godzilla. And so I'll be interested to know what the version that crops up with this book is. Andrew, as you said, Godzilla does get silly with just dudes in rubber suits punching each other. But the thing that they really zeroed in on in creating the film originally was not only had Japan been bombed twice by the United States with atomic weapons, but there had just recently been the Bikini Atoll test. And a fish fishing boat of men were all poisoned, got radiation poisoning from the test. So that happens In March of 1954, another Toho Productions film gets canceled. And then they're, they're making Godzilla by the end of that year. So like that is, it's not just, oh, obviously it's not just like, oh, seven or eight years ago. It's like literally this year we are now concerned about more nuclear weapons. And now here let's make a monster movie about a nuclear weapon monster.

[Andrew]

I think where Godzilla got really silly is when he did a face turn and became the hero of the movie. Fight off other monsters that were trying to destroy Japan.

[Craig]

That's true. But yeah, we talked about this a little bit already. There's decades of Godzilla films. We get stuff like Rodan and Gamera. A lot of these folks then get folded into Godzilla. Like anyone could just show up and fight Godzilla from whatever franchise. King Kong comes back in the like late 60s and 70s because of how popular Godzilla got. There's the Ultraman stuff, which is like now there's giant people fighting giant Kaiju in like a serialized fashion. Kamen Rider and Super Sentai. And then you also see it in anime. And then that becomes like a Feed critic. You know, creative feedback loop.

[Andrew]

Anime.

[Craig]

Anime. Excuse me. You've got, like, the giant Saiyan monkeys in early Dragon Ball. You've got all the Evangelion stuff. You've got the stuff in Gundam. I don't even know what's going on in Gundam. Whatever. You've got this. You've got the big naked dudes in Attack on Titan now that run around.

[Andrew]

Where's Transformers fall in all this? Are they big enough? Are they. They're car size. They're big, but I don't think they're Kaiju big.

[Craig]

Some of them are bigger than others, which is all like, why does Megatron turn into a handgun in the cartoon? Like, it's such a weird. It's a metaphor for something.

[Andrew]

I think it. Like, if Optimus prime was standing next to the Megazord, he would be dwarfed. I think.

[Craig]

Yeah, the Megazord. I mean, please. Megazord's huge.

[Andrew]

It's big.

[Craig]

And then you've also just got, like, other modern monster films that probably, like, tap into some of the same stuff, whether it's Jurassic park or Cloverfield before Del Toro makes Pacific Rim, which if, like, if you're not into a Godzilla, but maybe you like modern action movies. You. Maybe you saw Pacific Rim, and then Godzilla comes back and Brian Cranston's there, and King Kong is there. And here we are today watching giant things beat each other up. I think.

[Andrew]

I also think about King Kong is King Kong dies at the end of King Kong.

[Craig]

Well, I don't want to.

[Andrew]

I don't want to spoil the movie for anybody. The house is. How's this guy? Are these all prequels? Like, these are things that King Kong did before. I don't think they climbed up the Empire State Building.

[Craig]

No, that. You just got to imagine that they. They didn't get him off the island in that way. I don't really know. I don't. I don't remember how Kong gets into Godzilla X Kong, because there's a Kong movie that I didn't see.

[Andrew]

They're not always. Yeah. Like, I. I've not watched every, like, Godzilla and camera movie, but there are varying explanations for how the other big monsters come around. Like, you get unfrozen from, like, arctic sea ice or you come from space or. I don't know. There's lots.

[Craig]

Do you know, Andrew, when the first time you heard the word Kaiju was, though?

[Andrew]

Oh, that was way more recently.

[Craig]

Because I. I can.

[Andrew]

Like, within. Within the last, like, 15 years, maybe.

[Craig]

For me, I'm gonna. I'M gonna say it might have been, like, closer to 20, but not more than 20. At a high school friend's house watching, like, local wrestling tapes or something, where dudes were dressed as, like, monsters and behaving like Kaiju, and people were using the word Kaiju, and I was like, wow, that's what that is. Okay.

[Andrew]

I've got to imagine. Yeah. That. That. That terms. This is all. This is me just.

[Craig]

Yeah, you're going. I know what I think.

[Andrew]

I know you're gonna say drawing loose associations. But there's a time in. In, like, the 90s, into the 2000s, like, it used to be, the anime in America was referred to sometimes as Japanimation.

[Craig]

That's what.

[Andrew]

Because it's. Because of its distinct look.

[Craig]

I was thinking in my video store was called Japanimation.

[Andrew]

Yeah, the. The introduction of the word Kaiju comes with this, like, larger wave of, like, otaku stuff, of, like, people learning more of, like, the native terminology for.

[Craig]

And actually using it.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like culture imported from Japan and using it. Yeah.

[Craig]

I think you're right about that.

[Andrew]

It feels right even if it isn't, you know, and that's the most important thing.

[Craig]

Well, before we say anything else that feels right, but definitely isn't, let's take a quick break, and then Andrew can put on a big rubber suit and punch me. Or whatever is gonna happen in this book.

[Andrew]

It's gonna make for great podcasting. I'll tell you what.

[Craig]

Andrew Craig. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. We all turn to some funny places for support sometimes, but not everyone is a therapist, Andrew. Not everyone is the one.

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

Find your right match with BetterHelp. Have you done this, Andrew? You're dealing with something. Let's say something. You're chewing on a work problem or a relationship question, and you'll just. You'll talk to anybody about it. Your barista, your barber.

[Andrew]

I mean, if you're talking about funny places to turn for help. I mean, I gotta tell you about this. This clown who you could go see to make yourself feel better when you're feeling a little bit blue. His name's Pagliacci. He's really great. I've heard so many good things.

[Craig]

Gotta look in the mirror and see whether or not I'm still wearing my clown makeup. It can be fun to talk to Polyachi and other folks like this about everyday stuff, but they might not have all the right answers when you're dealing with real issues. Instead, get guidance from a credentialed therapist online with BetterHelp. BetterHelp has been matching people for over 10 years with an average 4.9 rating out of 1.7 million client session reviews. They've got their therapist match commitment where you fill out a short questionnaire and then they boop match you to the right person. And if they don't get it right, you can switch at any time. They are the world's largest online therapy platform. Over 30,000 licensed therapists that are designed to meet with you in your schedule. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of Expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp, our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] overdue. That's a BetterHelp H E L P.com overdue. Quick Andrew, run. There's a giant monster destroying our podcast. My ignorance of this book.

[Andrew]

Well, let me vanquish that monster with knowledge, which is the greatest, the greatest weapon of all.

[Craig]

Twas knowledge killed the beast.

[Andrew]

So let me tell you about the Kaiju Preservation Society, please. This is in early 2020. Young, like a early 30 something guy named Jamie is working at a hot Internet like food delivery company. A grubhub alike, okay. Called Food Mood. But food. Yeah, but because it is the Internet, it's F you with an umlaut D Mu with an umlaut D Fud Mud. Feed. Feed me.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And Jamie is going into his like the guy who runs the company is like boss's boss, his office to do a six month performance evaluation. Feeling pretty confident about it. He feels like he has some great ideas for how to improve the business. He's mostly focused. You know that Jamie is a virtuous boy because he wants to make the service better at the expense of a little bit of short term profit. But then he's thinking people like our service so much that they'll. That will corner the market and everybody will want to use us instead of the other guys.

[Craig]

Okay. This altruism sounds effective to me.

[Andrew]

Yeah, this sounds like yeah, right. And his jerk boss, Rob Sanders.

[Craig]

Says.

[Andrew]

Yeah, these are all. Yeah. Rob Sanders at Feed Me says, yeah, Jamie, these are great ideas, but you are fired. Oh, so he's not, he's not saying you're fired. What he's saying is we are, we are reassigning you to a different, more on the ground role. And the, the new job that Jamie is being offered is to be a delivery driver for. Well, that's very different because he's being let go.

[Craig]

Oh, okay.

[Andrew]

And There's. And there's a lot of. There's a lot of poking fun, like, gig economy stuff here. There is. You know, Jamie does not have insurance, but he does get, like, 15% off at the duane. Ready?

[Craig]

Great. Yes.

[Andrew]

Because he's a delivery driver for food mood.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And then right after this happens, the pandemic hits. The COVID pandemic.

[Craig]

Oh, the COVID 19 pandemic.

[Andrew]

Pandemic hits, and the entire city of New York City shuts down.

[Craig]

Okay, but he's a food delivery driver.

[Andrew]

Yes. So he is. He spends the first part of the book. He's got a couple. He's got a couple of roommates. One of them just, like, bails, like, right at the start of the pandemic is like this. This is shutting down everything. This is a big city with a lot of people in it. I'm not gonna do this anymore.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And a lot of people did do that.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

In response to the COVID lockdown stuff. So Jamie is going around masked. He's delivering food to people. He's miserable. He did not want to be doing this. But like, nobody else who he's living with, like, his friends who he lives with do not have stable income or employment either, because they were in the arts, like, the performing arts. And it was the pandemic. And so he's, you know, he's. He's not having a great time, but he does delivering food. One day run into this old friend of his named Tom. We went to. He went to college with, like, they weren't like, close friends, but they do, like, recognize each other. They. They, you know, went to the same parties sometimes. And Tom, eventually, after, you know, after a few food deliveries and a few conversations, says, hey, Jamie, you're kind of into, like, nerdy, like, sci fi kind of like monster movie stuff, right? Like, I remember this about you because you, like, did your thesis about some of it or something. And Jamie's like, yeah, sure, I do that stuff. And Tom was like, hey, would. Do you. How would you feel about an employment opportunity where you work with wild animals?

[Craig]

What?

[Andrew]

And Jamie's like, sure, I do. I need money, and you're offering me money, and I hate the not job that I have now, so, sure, why not? Okay, I'm gonna do this.

[Craig]

This is like some, like, sort of like a Men in Black invitation. Like, would you.

[Andrew]

It's a very. Like, we. We can. We' invite you to join this organization, and we cannot tell you the specifics about what the organization is until you've been Read into it.

[Craig]

Okay. Okay.

[Andrew]

Already?

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

By the time. By the time you know everything, we would have to kill you if any of it got out. So, like, we have to. We have to make sure that you're cool first. So, you know, he does. He does an interview and a background check and whatever, and he. He passes everything. He's going to be fine. He's. He's going to. He's mostly going to be kind of a grunt, kind of. The line that's used over and over throughout the book is the. Jamie lifts things. He is just going there to be kind of a manual laborer at whatever this organization is.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

So he and a few other people. And I'm not. I'm honestly not going to get super far into any of the other characters in this book because it's not really like. My biggest critique of the book is that it has that thing where everybody talks the same and so you don't end up with any really super memorable characters because everybody's just got the same kind of like, sarcastic, quippy, like, Joss Whedonid sort of voice.

[Craig]

Do you. Are you ever like, okay, I know I asked this question of you a lot. Like, is it a close third person on any character? Is it following?

[Andrew]

Why do you ask me about this all the time?

[Craig]

Because it helps me understand why some characters feel samey. Because if it's like, if it's over one character's perspective, it's over Jamie's perspective. Okay. Because, like, I feel like if one care when books hop between perspective, that does help differentiate characters.

[Andrew]

And it's like first person Jamie.

[Craig]

Okay, that's. Yeah, that's fine. That's. But that I literally don't know. So that's why I asked, because I didn't read the book. So it's helpful to me.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you just, like, you just like to know where the camera is.

[Craig]

I do. I do like to know where the camera is because that is a structural.

[Andrew]

Second person novel where you're just like, really? You're just in the person's face.

[Craig]

I've ever enjoyed one of those. Yeah, but go ahead.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, so you have access only to Jamie's thoughts and then dialog from everybody else, and all the dialogue kind of sounds the same. And that kind of. That was wearing on me for the first half of the book or so. And then you hit the second half and things get a little more like, okay, we set. We spent the first half of the book setting everything up, and now we're just gonna go boom, boom. Boom. And do like our little actiony plot for the rest of it.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

But the Jamie and some other people who I'm not going to talk about.

[Craig]

Show up for work.

[Andrew]

They're flying to a. What is thought to be a defunct military base in Greenland, but it turns out it's defunct. It turns out that it is a portal to an alternate version of Earth.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And the animals that they're going to be taking care of are in fact, gigantic, like building sized monsters. Like bigger. Bigger than building sized.

[Craig]

But you got to go through the portal to get to them. Or they're here on this side.

[Andrew]

You got to go. Do you got to go through the portal to get to them?

[Craig]

Okay. Okay.

[Andrew]

So these. These are Kaiju.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

It's the. The interesting loop of the. Of the nomenclature and sort of the. The connection to real world, like Godzilla and monster movies, which absolutely do exist. I had read that on our side of the portal.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Is It's a. So world. World governments and rich people, like billionaires kind of. It's. It's an open secret among the very, very, like, up of. Of government and, like, I don't know, military contractors. Like, those are the kinds of people who tend to know that like, Kaiju Earth exists.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

So it's not a total secret. That's not.

[Craig]

The.

[Andrew]

Keeping the secret from getting out is like a partial motivation sometimes. But it's not as though, you know, Jamie and the people working here, the only people who know what. What Kaiju Earth is. But a couple of times, Kaiju from Kaiju Earth have crossed over into our world, and they get seen in a sort of Loch Ness monster, like Bigfoot sort of way where there's not like a definitive proof of these monsters or where they came from. But enough people are telling a similar story that it. It inspires the people who made the original Godzilla movie.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

And that sets up, you know, what we know about Kaiju in our universe.

[Craig]

Easy enough. That's great. Okay, cool.

[Andrew]

And then the. All the. All the terminology that rose up around those movies and was used to, you know, to talk about the monsters and to talk about everything else gets used to refer to the giant monsters here. Where the. Where the Kaiju actually exists. All of the sort of outposts and bases on Kaiju Earth that the, like, scientists use are named after people who worked on the original Godzilla movies.

[Craig]

Oh, neat.

[Andrew]

Tanaka base is.

[Craig]

Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

The main location that most. Most things take place on.

[Craig]

Cool.

[Andrew]

But yeah, it's like there. There is just. There's funding from lots of governments and also some private investment that just keeps a constant. A small but constant presence of humans on this side of like the. The dimensional barrier who are here to. Mostly to study Kaiju. There's a lot of discussion of like, manufacturing pheromones that do different things and using those to. To attract or ward off or scare the life that exists on the Kaiju version of Earth.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

As you know, as needs to happen for the purposes of the book.

[Craig]

And what is different about Kaiju? Earth. And how do we learn about it?

[Andrew]

Kaiju. Earth's got a very like, oxygen rich atmosphere.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And mostly it's just that humans are not. Humans are not here.

[Craig]

Well, sure.

[Andrew]

The main. The fact that Kaiju exists is a big. Is a big one. That's a big one. And then the biology of the Kaiju, the entire rest of the world is sort of oriented around that.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

So let me. Let me tell you what. It's basically a conference room meeting with some. With like a. With a military commander who's there. And they're just kind of trying to explain. There are a lot of meetings where people are explaining to Jamie or around Jamie, like, specifics about the way that Kaiju work.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

So there are these giant. These giant creatures. And Jamie and others are like, aren't these. Aren't these things too big? Like, you know. You know what happens to like a beached whale where it just, like it.

[Craig]

It just explodes.

[Andrew]

It gets on the beach and then it was not even that it explodes. It gets on the beach and then it's just like too big to be alive anymore.

[Craig]

Correct. Sure. Okay. Yeah.

[Andrew]

And so ever so Jamie is like, aren't these. Aren't these creatures too big to. To live? Like, why. How do they. How do they exist at this. At this size? And there's this whole. There's this whole setup where when Kaiju get to a certain size, they start to attract these parasites. And because the Kaiju are big, their parasites are also like, big. They're like, you know, like animal. Like Earth, animal sized.

[Craig]

Why not?

[Andrew]

And these parasites who are not. The book always calls them parasites, even though they're clearly in like, a symbiotic relationship with the Kaiju that they're living on. And the book does acknowledge that, but it just calls them parasites all the time. Because it's easy, right? Think. But the parasites live on the Kaiju. They sort of. They deliver some nutrients to the Kaiju. But one thing that they do is to help cool these things off as they move around. And they're so Big because they would.

[Craig]

Generate so much heat that it would be hard to live.

[Andrew]

And so what happens is these parasites help cool it off. The Kaiju need a huge amount of energy just to get up and move around. And so they organically develop internal nuclear reactors.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

And so it's kind of an inefficient system, just in the way that a lot of biology is inefficient compared to a mechanism that you would actually design. But they talk about. Somebody's asking about, like, Kaiju puberty. And one of the. One of the scientists, like, it's not. That's not really a great metaphor because there are tons of Kaiju that never get much bigger than, like, a T. Rex or an elephant. And they are. They just never get to this next stage of production because they don't get, like, the. The. The parasites or whatever that they need to cool them down. And so they just stay in this, like, smaller state forever until they. They die.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Only, you know, it's only a few of these monsters that really get to be, like, Godzilla side. Like, big, big boys.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

That'S. That's all interesting. Like, that's all kind of neat.

[Craig]

Yeah, that is kind of neat.

[Andrew]

When you. When we first get to Kaiju Earth, we see a fight between a couple of them.

[Craig]

Oh, are they all different like that? Like, is it Godzilla style where it's like, there's a. There's a flying one and there's a turtle one?

[Andrew]

It's not. You don't actually see, like, a ton of unique Kaiju, but it seems like there are types of them.

[Craig]

Okay. Steel.

[Andrew]

No, not, like Pokemon types. They're just, like, different species. Like. Like sub varieties of Kaiju. And yes, some of them do fly. Some of them don't.

[Craig]

Okay. But right.

[Andrew]

Right when they get in, like, they see a couple of them fight. One who's been named Kevin. Like, the ones who kind of live in a specific territory have been given names. The two that we spend the most time talking about are these two who the people at Tanaka Base, like, spray with pheromones to. To make them reproduce because they want to study the reproduction cycle. And, Craig, I would love for you to guess what the names of these two romantically involved Kaiju are. Is it, like, it's podcast relevant? It's extremely relevant to our podcast. We.

[Craig]

Is it Edward and Bella?

[Andrew]

It is Edward and Bella Scoutsy.

[Craig]

What? What? Can you give me a flavor, though? I know you said there's, like, a couple different types. Are they, like. Are they big apes? Are they big lizards.

[Andrew]

They're not big apes. They're like big. I envision like big pterodactyl kind of guys.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

They can fly.

[Craig]

Okay. Okay.

[Andrew]

It'd be kind of like, what is Rodan, the one like the big dinosaur?

[Craig]

I think Rodan is the big dinosaur one. Yeah. Because Chidora is the one with three heads, I think. Is that right?

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's kind of, I imagine a Rodan go sort of Ghidorah.

[Craig]

Excuse me? Yeah, King Ghidorah. Ghidorah.

[Andrew]

Ghidra. The three headed monster.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's a Mecha Gidra too.

[Andrew]

That would make sense. But yeah, no, it's. It's a. It's a road. They're Rodan types, I would say.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

So they see this fight between these Kaiju and one of them gets their butt kicked and has like big chunks ripped out of them. And then later on, Jamie and. And some pilot are on. They're just. They're just kind of flying around. Jamie's getting introduced. He's learning the ropes. Like, everybody gets basic weapons training. Because every creature on this planet is like some horrible thing that wants to kill you. But you can ward them off with like, Kaiju pheromones, but you can't ward all of them off. And so you just need to like, have your head on a swivel all the time.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

And it turns out that this. This one that lost that fight is mortally wounded. And it's just like standing in the ocean breathing big, big beams of like, radioactive fire. Like, you know, like a Godzilla.

[Craig]

Like a Godzilla would.

[Andrew]

And it's explained. It's explained to Jamie. This is. This is bad. This is bad. But what's that. What's that meme where it's like they only do this when they're under distress? Like, this isn't cute.

[Craig]

Yep. Yes. You know that one?

[Andrew]

That's. That for Kaiju.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But it's basically trying. Like their internal nuclear reactor is melting down and they're trying to like, vent heat to regulate their temperature a little bit because, like, the parasites who normally do it cannot keep up with it.

[Craig]

Okay. And there's going to be a nuclear explosion.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, this one is in bad shape because every couple of minutes it's trying to vent. And so there's this. It's a big. The monster blows up a big nuclear explosion. But what happens that's unique about this nuclear explosion is so on a planet where things develop their own, like nuclear reactors, just all of life responds differently. To radiation.

[Craig]

Yeah, you would think.

[Andrew]

Yeah. What you get when something big and radioactive explodes is a bunch of, like, other smaller animals. Like, everything from around gets attracted to come in and like, kind of eat and absorb this energy.

[Craig]

Ooh.

[Andrew]

The other thing that happens, though, is that when a radioactive event or explosion or some. Some kind of big, like a burst of radioactive energy happens, the. The layer between our Earth and Kaiju Earth gets thin and creates an opportunity for things to pass through.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And so the reason why it is people from Japan who saw this original Kaiju that, like, broke through to regular Earth and then made all these monster movies is the atom bombs, right? Like the.

[Craig]

Yes, sure. Okay. Like, that.

[Andrew]

And it also happened with, like, atomic tests. It is. This happens. It thins this layer between the universes, and then the Kaiju get attracted to it because it's basically food.

[Craig]

And they can. And they'll move to.

[Andrew]

And they. And they try to bust through the. The thing between the universes.

[Craig]

Okay, so this is. I was worried that you were gonna say that this is where Covid came from. Like, the. The like, energy.

[Andrew]

That's not. No, there's not like a lab leak.

[Craig]

Or, like, theory, but Kaiju wound up in the Wuhan market or something. Like, that's not what you're telling me.

[Andrew]

I was a wet market. There was lots of. There are lots of big monsters.

[Craig]

That's what I'm saying. Okay. But. Okay, this. That's. This is like a fun riff on existing Godzilla stuff and just generally, like, what if we want to play with big monsters and we need to explain where they come from? Like, what can we do? Okay, cool.

[Andrew]

It's a lot more fun when you are explaining it without some of the. Some of the dialogue and interactions that are happening.

[Craig]

You take great care not to give me any of this.

[Andrew]

It's really. It's tough when, like, is it just.

[Craig]

Oh, it's just overly cheeky.

[Andrew]

Well, he's trying. He's trying to do banter. Right. But when you do what's supposed to be, like, off the cuff banter between two characters that you're writing, it just ends up being kind of weird. Like, there are multiple runs where people talk about, like, oh, oh, Edwards quote. Cloaca would be a great band name. And it's like, you can't set yourself up and then go on these long, like, that would be a good band name. Runs with, like, this thing. The situation that you manufacture. Like, it just does. It doesn't feel. It doesn't feel as organic as it's Meant to. To feel.

[Craig]

Sure. Okay.

[Andrew]

In. In my. In my opinion. So what. What has happened in this case is this monster explodes.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And the people at Tanaka base have just run this experiment where they have sprayed pheromones on these two Kaiju to get them to reproduce. They can observe the reproductive cycle. And so this. So Bella, the impregnated Kaiju, comes to the site of this explosion to basically nest there.

[Craig]

Oh, to like, draw in all the energy.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And it's created this situation where, like, normally when an explosion or something happens and the barrier between worlds gets gets thinned out, like, it starts healing itself up pretty much instantaneously. But now you've got all of this radioactive energy that was released and then something with essentially a nuclear reactor inside of it sitting next to that spot.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

The time. And so it is. It is keeping the barrier between worlds, like, thin consistently in a way that doesn't normally happen. And then some people come over, some military guy comes over, and he's like, this. This. All of this is happening. Like, the. The area where this is in our world is like an uninhabited Canadian forest. But we still are concerned that something's going to try and come through. And the scientists explain, well, no, when something is trying to come through, it's because there is an atomic explosion on our side and the monsters are trying to get to it. In this case, like, the atomic explosion was on the Kaiju Earth side. And so there's no reason to try to leave. But who. Who is there to also get read in on all this stuff is Rob Sanders from Food Mood.

[Craig]

From Food Mood.

[Andrew]

Rob Sanders from Food Mood is the big bad villain guy of the whole book.

[Craig]

Okay?

[Andrew]

And he implemented. He fire. He fired Jamie. And then he implemented some Jamie's ideas to make the business better, but only to make the business annoying enough that, like, some other company would buy it. And Rob Sanders made a bunch of money in unscrupulous ways. And he. He comes from old money also. And his family's been kind of involved in giving money to the Kaiju preservation society for. For decades and decades. So he's just like a. Yeah. He. He is here ostensibly to just kind of look around and see what all of his fabulous wealth has earned him access to, which is just like a tourist pass to Kaiju Earth. But then it turns out he's also trying to steal some genetic material from Bella. And he tries to rope Jamie in on this, and he gets in trouble, and everybody thinks he's a big butthead. And he goes home and Everything, everything's great, right? Like, that's the last we'll see of that Rob Sanders character. But then they're going, the people in helicopter are going to, like, check on Bella and set up new cameras and instruments in the area so they can keep getting data. And Bella and all the eggs that she's been there with are just gone. Like, they were never there.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

And it turns out that some, some paramilitary group, like, came over to, to this side through the thin barrier and set up a weird contraption and generated enough, like, radioactive energy to take Bella back to regular Earth from Kaiju. Earth.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

And then the rest of the book is kind of like a. Well, we can't tell our bosses about it, but they, they killed our friends. And we got to go. We got to go investigate what happened and we have to go get Bella back because Bella is in our universe and all the parasites that are on her that are, like, regulating her nuclear reactions are dying. And she's going to do a big nuclear explosion in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. Kaiju try to find water when they're dying. So, like, maybe Bella is going to get up and, like, go to an inhabited area and then do a big nuclear explosion. It'll just be bad. It would be bad for the Kaiju Preservation Society and its secrecy. It would be bad for, like, real people getting killed by a monster nuke. Yeah, it would be bad if this happened. And so they all, like Jamie and a ragtag bunch of misfits. Not even misfits, like a ragtag bunch of people in good standing in the Kaiju Preservation Society go to piece together what happened, and they make it through the barrier to regular Earth. And Rob Sanders is there and he starts monologuing about what he, he did. And then he says, yes, I know I'm monologuing. I saw the Incredibles, which is a thing is a thing that happens. It's a, like the dialogue is a, is a little. Is like the main thing that bothered me about it. Like dialogue and characterization. But also it does do like a, a meta aware, like, reference sort of thing that some people like and some people do not, in my experience. You know, I mean, I see. Nodding your head.

[Craig]

No, I know what you mean. I, I, it is tough. I think it is, I think it is neat specific to the topic of this book because I read him mentioning this that, like, the characters know what monster movies are. They know what Godzilla is like. I'm, yeah, I'm always.

[Andrew]

That's a big element of, like, zombie fiction. Like, does. Does zombie fiction exist in this world where zombies exist now?

[Craig]

Are there websites where Bella can go and learn about vampires? You know, like, and how. How. What is the, like, level of truth on them?

[Andrew]

Yes, in fact.

[Craig]

Yes. Yes, in fact. And so, like, I'm. I'm always interested in that stuff. I am a little less interested in just kind of, like, random references to pop culture.

[Andrew]

Well, it's like, it's random references to pop culture. And then also, like, it could. One way to do that would be to use the word monologuing. And then for the reader to be like, oh, I already. Yes, I'm pretty sure I get it. Like, I know where that's coming from already. And then Scalzi turns out to the camera, and it's like, that's from the Incredibles.

[Craig]

Well, and that's. That's a tricky reference, too, because the Incredibles is playing with all of the tropes on purpose, too. Like, characters know that they're monologuing in the Incredibles. Yeah, it's not. You're not. You haven't gone back to the source on that one. So. Okay. Take another swing, I suppose. But. Okay, so he's a bad guy. He's monologuing.

[Andrew]

He's a bad guy. He's monologuing. Like, all that food mood. The Kaiju Preservation Society ragtag misfits are trying to get Bella back by turning this radioactive device back on to get Bella to go through, but they need to steal a USB key. This is the first book I think I've ever read that talks about USB C, specifically.

[Craig]

Oh, neat.

[Andrew]

Talks about the standard. The kind of port that you would need to charge a specific kind of phone.

[Craig]

Okay. To bring a Kaiju back.

[Andrew]

And. Yeah. And it happens. They win. Rob Sanders gets. Gets his face eaten off by a parasite. Well, it happens off camera. You don't know what happens to Rob Sanders, but Rob Sanders gets attacked by one of Bella's parasites after they spray a pheromone that makes all the parasites attack all, like, the paramilitary guys. And they get Bella to come back, and there are a bunch of, like, debriefings. But everything ends up being happily ever after, pretty much.

[Craig]

Does she have the babies?

[Andrew]

And everyone goes, we never see the Kaiju. We never see Kaiju babies.

[Craig]

Missed opportunity.

[Andrew]

Rob Sanders interest in it is like, how can I organically grow nuclear reactors that I can then, like, sell to people? Sure.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And he actually, when Scalzi talks about the book being political, I think some of what it's being political about is that kind of tech oligarchy that was happening.

[Craig]

That was the question I had queued up.

[Andrew]

Yes, the thing. Yeah. And so Rob Sanders says it's, you know, it would be, imagine the benefit to the world if we could easily create these nuclear power sources. And Jamie, wisely, incorrectly, is like, you don't care about the world. You care about making money.

[Craig]

Yep, sure.

[Andrew]

And I think in the years since this book came out, like, especially if you're looking at like Elon. But all, all of these like tech right. People, they all want to talk about their like utopian aims and they're like, it's, it's okay that like AI is gonna, is gonna take your job or whatever because then you just, you don't need one. Just live a utopian existence and you can devote yourself to, to higher things. But also in the here and now, I'm gonn legally and extralegally to stop any efforts to help any poor people anywhere on the planet to like do any of this stuff that would need to happen to make the kind of utopia. Everybody's always talking about Star Trek as a utopia. These billionaire people like Bezos and Musk are both like, oh, Star Trek is so inspiring to me. Star Trek is like a post scarcity society where money doesn't exist. And these people claim to want to get over there, but do not want to think about any of the steps that would need like any of the steps that would, that would need to be implemented to get from where we are now to there. So that was kind of incisive. The other political stuff that the book is doing is just like winking and odd references to Donald Trump being president.

[Craig]

Okay, okay, okay.

[Andrew]

And, and an election happening. An election between Donald Trump and. Well, I mean, Don, the word. The, the name does not appear in.

[Craig]

The book anywhere there was a bad president maybe like, oh, do you.

[Andrew]

This is people looking at each other and being like, oh, you know, who, who's the president right now?

[Craig]

And then that means he knew about the Kaiju. Someone had to tell him. Beautiful.

[Andrew]

Let me freak your bean a little bit more is they talk about how a certain president's large adult, adult sons came over to Kaiju Earth to see the Kaiju because they wanted to hunt them.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And then the afterword that he writes is like, yeah, we. And then we banish that guy to Florida to yell at clouds. And it's like, man, that was a cool moment.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Time.

[Craig]

Yes, yes. When we thought he was gone.

[Andrew]

Where we thought I just where I, where I briefly was able to believe I'm not gonna have to care what this guy does or says ever again.

[Craig]

Oops. Yeah, I was wondering when you. When I read a book that is set during the, you know, COVID pandemic and has like a science fiction bent and whatever, I'm like. And then somebody says it's political, I am wondering if it is political about COVID at all. It doesn't seem like it is because it was written early enough that like, a lot of what we now understand is kind of the political fault lines maybe hadn't fully taken place yet.

[Andrew]

Yeah. To give you an idea of like the exact six months when this book was written is in this book, you get a COVID vaccine and then you don't have to worry about COVID anymore ever again.

[Craig]

Oh, wow.

[Andrew]

Okay, you remember, you remember that?

[Craig]

I remember that.

[Andrew]

Remember like hot back summer. Like that. That extremely specific window of time.

[Craig]

Yeah. Great.

[Andrew]

Jamie gets like, Jamie gets an early access COVID vaccine, but then he has to keep putting on a mask in public to pretend that he doesn't still scared of COVID so the public doesn't know that he has a vaccine. Yeah.

[Craig]

Okay. The other political stuff is very interesting. I was just wondering.

[Andrew]

Yeah. That. That the stuff that it's doing with like, here's what rich tech guys I actually care about and it's money and that's it.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew]

That. That I thought was. Was more interesting, especially given how it just. It just clocks that kind of guy. Exactly. Well, also, like, just before all of those guys went fully mask off, like psychopath.

[Craig]

I am also like, way less like, really? Rob Sanders of Food Mood is your villain? It's like. No, it actually is always those guys.

[Andrew]

It actually is always this. It's like this guy, this rich guy who comes from rich guys who does not think any of the rules apply to him, who just gets through life doing everything he wants. And yeah, in this particular case, it's cool that in this book a monster eats his face off camera and you never have to see or hear from him again.

[Craig]

There is a.

[Andrew]

It would be more satisfying if he were like frog marched down the street because he'd been arrested by somebody. The book does mention that, like all of Rob Sanders relatives and companies were investigated by the Department of Justice after a new. After a new presidential administration came in. So it's like, yeah.

[Craig]

That is a good ending. That is. That.

[Andrew]

That is a good ending.

[Craig]

Huh. Somebody appointed a really good ag, I bet.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Somebody appointed an AG who wanted to come in and do the job.

[Craig]

Weird.

[Andrew]

This really is a fantasy novel.

[Craig]

The, the, it does remind me of what really comes through when you're reading the novel. Jurassic park is even more so than the movie. How much it is like similar to I guess alien to where it's like capitalism is the real monster. Yeah. And a bunch of people make very bad and craven decisions for the dollar and for things that will allow them to make more money later when they're dealing with unpredictable creatures. And like you're trying to bend the natural or unnatural world to your business aims and like Mother Nature doesn't care about your balance sheet type kind of stuff. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So like I, I had a pretty fun read.

[Craig]

I seemed like it picked up for you after, you know, once the Kaiju really took off.

[Andrew]

It did pick up about halfway through to, you know, it is quippy and sarcastic and referency. But it's not, you know, it's not ready. Player 1 Like I, I was my, I was mildly annoyed by it. It.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

I don't think everybody is going to be mildly annoyed by it. I thought the other. It does kind of make me hesitate to, to go back to another Scalzi.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

In the. I would just be worried that that would be the thing to persist. That would be like the thread that, that runs through all of his work is like that, that same kind of of tone. But, but he also is very upfront about like I, I wanted to write something that was easy and fun and like that this is, this is what came out.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I, I am not inclined to like ding, ding him too much, but it did make like the reading the first half of the book a little like is this how it's going to be the whole way, you know?

[Craig]

Sure, sure, sure, sure. Well, it's also not a very, it's like it's not super long, right?

[Andrew]

It's not super long. It's slightly longer than I expected it to be. But it's. Yeah, it is. To read it in a week is not difficult.

[Craig]

Yeah. Oh cool.

[Andrew]

As a, as a podcast guy.

[Craig]

As a pod. As a pod Kaiju.

[Andrew]

Yeah. We're kind of Kaiju who don't get the parasites and don't grow to big to big size and that's okay.

[Craig]

People still gotta preserve us.

[Andrew]

Yeah. We're gonna live our whole podcast lives as these little like medium sized monsters who are just getting by. Yeah.

[Craig]

Speaking of guys like Food Mood that have just the food mood of podcasts, it's out there. I don't want anything to do with it. That's what I have to say, the Rob saying. I don't want to listen to Rob Sanders. They shut down the Food Mood Podcast network. Deleted it from the Library of Congress. Anyway, Andrew, thanks for telling me about this book. This. Did. Did you like the monsters? Did you want to know more about them? Did you wish that you had more time with them?

[Andrew]

It kind of takes a. A Lovecraftian approach to describing the monsters.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure you do.

[Andrew]

You do not get. They're just very big and they're very scary, and you don't get a super specific impression of what they look like or even like how they're shaped really is like. It's a lot of. It's left up to your imagination.

[Craig]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Andrew]

Which I recognize the effectiveness of that, of that style, of that way of doing things, but, you know, I can't. It's hard. It makes it hard to draw fan art, you know?

[Craig]

Yeah, that's true. Would love to. Would love to see some of that. Send it to us overdupodmo.com send us your Kaiju fan art of any Kaiju. I would love to know if you've drawn Ghidorah. If you've drawn.

[Andrew]

If I. I'm gonna just gamble. You do the thing. I'm gonna see if I can just find Gamora. Gamera the turtle.

[Craig]

Gamera the turtle.

[Andrew]

I'm just gonna see if I can find Godzilla and Rodan kissing.

[Craig]

Okay. While Andrew looks that up, you can obviously tag us in on this sort of stuff.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, wow.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

Here's a picture of them in bed. Like literally in bed.

[Craig]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

Here's a picture of Godzilla giving Rodan a back rub.

[Craig]

Yes. Overdupodmail.com verdupod on Instagram and bluesky. Our theme song is composed by Nick Laurengis. Andrew. Folks want to know more about the show. Where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue Podcast.com is the Internet website where you go to find out more about. More about our podcast. And we have links to the books that we have read and ones that we are going to read. Just the full September schedule. Have we read the September schedule on. I sent you a picture of Godzilla and Rodan kissing and I've seen your face do kombucha girl about it.

[Craig]

I'm really thrown by the, like blue tartan, like picnic blanket background, which is kind of really making it work for me.

[Andrew]

Well.xxmiles01xx on deviantart this is good. I think has done good work if you want to go check it out.

[Craig]

Pretty good. No, I don't know that we read it on air. So let's tell it to you.

[Andrew]

Yeah, tell it to everybody.

[Craig]

We kicked off September last week with the 4 million. This week it's the Kaiju Preservation Society. Next week, Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. Then the Buddha in the Attic by Julietsuka and the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.

[Andrew]

Can't wait for that one.

[Craig]

There might be Kaiju in there or.

[Andrew]

I love just having to preemptively set aside like a solid fifth of the podcast to talk about the specific kind of racist that a guy was.

[Craig]

Yeah, Honestly, that's one of those, like, let me read it so maybe you don't have to.

[Andrew]

It's a cultural institution because of a Disney thing that mostly excises the stuff that is probably most, the most offensive. Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah. That we're, we're looking into.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So let's, let's just go back and see what it's like.

[Craig]

Yeah. So that's September.

[Andrew]

Patreon.com overdue pod is our Patreon project up there. We have bonus material. We have Dusty Bookshelves, our monthly newsletter. You can get access to our Discord community where I'm sure people have lots of thoughts about Kaiju and John Scalzi and.

[Craig]

Should I just go put that picture in there unbidden?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Just see. Just see how people respond. Those are the kind of stuff that you can get early. If you go to patreon.com overdue pod and kick us a little bit of money. Your support makes the show happen, just quite literally. We're like talking into microphones that are connected to preamps that are connected to computers that the show wholly or partially paid for.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

It couldn't be more direct than. Than it is. So again, patreon.com overdue pod thank you to everybody who supports us or is thinking about supporting us. Yeah, we like it a lot when you do that.

[Craig]

Yeah. You make me feel like I have a nuclear reactor in my heart. But it's not going to explode.

[Andrew]

But it's not going to explode. It's going to. It's going to run as, as hot and efficiently as it can without exploding.

[Craig]

Yep. And there will be pheromones.

[Andrew]

Of course. Every week there are pheromones. You just can't smell them because this is an audio medium. All right, everybody, thank you for listening to our podcast. And until we talk to you next time, please try to be happy. That was a Headgum podcast.