And while I wasn’t really sure how much I needed a series of this, I’m happy to report that I equally enjoyed A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, the follow-up, which picks up right after the end of the first novella. I quite enjoyed Becky Chambers’s A Psalm for the Wild-Built, a remarkably kind, warm, and humane little story about the importance of kindness and small gestures in the face of a world that can make us feel powerless or insignificant. I maybe wish there was a little more heft to it, but as a fun bit of imaginative storytelling, it hit the spot nicely. But as Scalzi says, “we all need a pop song from time to time,” and he’s not wrong – KPS was exactly what I needed after a few heavier books and some general stress in life. That’s both to its credit – the book is hugely fun, harbors no illusions about what it is, and delivers the entertainment is wants to do – and its detriment, as the villain is a bit heavy-handed, the plot a little obvious and unsurprising, and the world ultimately less explored than I wish it was. (Kaiju is the Japanese name for the giant monster genre.) Told in Scalzi’s usual jokey, quippy style, KPS moves rapidly, delivers some amazing wonder, gives enough plot to get the job done, and moves on – much like the pop song he concedes the book to be. It’s meant to be light and catchy, with three minutes of hooks and choruses for you to sing along with, and then you’re done and you go on with your day, hopefully with a smile on your face.” That’s a pretty accurate description of KPS, which is an enormously entertaining, if slight, book about a government agency that oversees, studies, and yes, preserves a planet full of kaiju – massive monsters a la Godzilla, Mothra, and the like. In his afterword, John Scalzi says of The Kaiju Preservation Society that “it is not…a brooding symphony of a novel.

Scalzi lock in series