John J. Vinacci

On the ‘softer’ side of sci-fi, The Kaiju Preservation Society clocks in as a light and catchy read (the author says of this work in the Afterword) that focuses on our protagonist and his friends, all newbies to the KPS, an organization dedicated to, well, preserving kaiju [monsters like Godzilla, for example] on an alternate earth. The novel begins set against the backdrop of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic where our young protagonist, Jamie, finds himself unceremoniously fired from a job he actually cared about. Struggling to make ends meet, Jamie becomes instantly relatable and it’s only when a fortuitous meeting occurs that Jamie’s life takes a turn for the entirely unexpected. Most of the book reads as a fish-out-of-water tale and we don’t get around to the organization actually having to preserve any kaiju until late in the book. Until that point, most of what happens to Jamie on the alternate earth are about him and the particulars of his job, none of which are particularly e...