The Kaiju Preservation Society is a stand-alone science fiction novel that is a Hugo finalist for 2023. This is not the “serious” novel in that list; Scalzi himself describes it as a “pop song” of a novel. Which it is, a delightful one, that has some serious things to say about capitalism and a look at how the COVID-19 pandemic had many of us feeling while we were under lockdown. The novel is set in 2020 into 2021.

The novel is science fiction in the loosest of terms: it uses science to “explain” how the biosystem on the alternate Earth they are on works, and the science is genuine, but I suspect that an actual biologist would disagree with the explanations given. It doesn’t actually matter; the science is there to explain how a kaiju, or Godzilla-like creature, would exist. The fun of the story is not the science, it’s the situation and the people.

As is typical for a Scalzi novel, the cast of characters is diverse: The characters come from all different backgrounds, multiple genders (yes, at least one is non-binary), and probably sexual orientation. As is not uncommon with a Scalzi novel, sex isn’t a high priority of the story, and I don’t remember any pairings being mentioned, so sexual orientation isn’t important. The main character, Jamie Gray, is probably male, but I don’t actually remember it ever being specifically mentioned; this is another common Scalzi feature. The villain of the story is at the apex of privilege: a rich, cis het WASP male dudebro, and every bit as unpleasant as that sounds.

This was likely nominated for the Hugo since it is a lot of fun and very much a pandemic novel; it isn’t a work of “artistic merit”. It has also been nominated for the Dragon Award for best SF novel and won the Locus Award for best SF novel. However, in looking over the nominees, most of the ones I’ve already read fit into this category, and most of the others likely do as well. This isn’t my top choice, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it won, and it wouldn’t bother me one bit. I highly recommend it.

Scalzi, John. The Kaiju Preservation Society. New York, New York: Tor Books, 2022. 79,821 words. 5 stars.

Since the word “empire” is in the title, it shouldn’t be a surprise that The Collapsing Empire reminds me more than a bit of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series.  Not in a plagiarized way, just that both series are telling a story about an empire that is about to collapse.

In this first novel of a planned series, the setup occurs.  The emperox, a gender-neutral term for emperor/empress, has just changed.  Regular space pilots are starting to notice that there are problems with the Flow, the method used to travel “faster-than-light”.  Without the Flow, each system will be isolated and, with the exception of End, none of the human population lives on planets.  Earth was isolated from the rest of the human population centuries ago, when the Flow moved.  The Nohamapetan family is being more ruthless than usual.  And only three scientists know why.

I usually enjoy Scalzi’s standalone novels, but the ones he writes as series I find less enjoyable.  Lock In and its sequel Head On are the exception.  I’m not sure why that’s so.  The plot moved along well, I didn’t get bogged down in it, but I never really found myself caring for the characters or for what was going to happen.  The world-building isn’t especially exciting; it’s a far-flung space empire that’s lost track of Earth.  That said, the science either agrees with science as it’s currently known or is at least plausible.

All in all, it’s a perfectly acceptable science fiction novel; I’m just not sure why it was nominated for a Hugo.

Scalzi, John.  The Collapsing Empire.  New York: Tor Books, 2017.  Kindle edition.  Amazon.