Literature / The Kaiju Preservation Society

The Kaiju Preservation Society is a 2022 science fiction novel by John Scalzi.

Jamie Gray is fired just as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the world, and thus is forced to work as a food delivery driver. One day, Jamie runs into an old acquaintance named Tom, who says he works for a NGO that works with large animals. He gives Jamie a card and a job offer. Jamie agrees and is soon on a plane to Greenland.

What Tom failed to mention is that Jamie won't be working on their own Earth, but rather on a parallel Earth where evolution took a different path. And the large animals are, in fact, kaijus. The KPS is a multinational organization funded by major world governments and private companies. Their task is twofold. First, they keep the kaijus from invading our Earth whenever a nuclear explosion weakens the fabric between the world, something that has happened several times in history but was covered up. Second, they protect the kaijus from poachers who find a way to cross over illegally.

---

The Kaiju Preservation Society contains examples of:

• Ace Pilot: Martin Satie (who is later revealed to be a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force) is the pilot of Tanaka Base's Chopper Two. He's a master pilot, who's got lots of experience getting close to kaijus and flying circles around them.
• Alien Food Is Edible: Only the poopfruit, much more edible than it sounds ^note "It'd have to, wouldn't it?". Everything else is not edible to humans, due to how differently evolution went on the Kaiju Earth. And while the locals would really like to eat humans, that's just because they want to eat everything that seems vaguely edible and they're not smart enough to realize when they shouldn't. Preventing yourself from being eaten is as much for their sake as yours.
• All Atmospheres Are Equal: The greater oxygen avalibility at kaiju earth is needed for the Kaiju to even be able to breathe, the local humans get a mild case of Hyperoxia not unlike being in an oxygen chamber. The makeup is thick enough that helium can be pulled from the air easily, one wonders how much is easily escaping into space.
• Alternate Landmark History: Landmark movie but it ends up being the same thing. Here instead of being caught downwind of nuclear testing and getting everyone on the Lucky Dragon sick, it turns out the crew instead caught sight of the kaiju that followed said nuclear testing to this earth and ended being chased by the US navy.
• Alternate Universe: The kaiju live on an alternate Earth that took a different evolutionary path. Geographically, the continents are the same as on our Earth, but this world is significantly hotter, and the lack of polar ice caps means that many of our coastal areas are flooded on kaiju Earth. It also results in a denser atmosphere with higher humidity. For example, Honda Base (the site of the NorthAm dimensional gate) is located in Greenland, and KPS employees always enjoy seeing the reactions of new recruits when they first go through the gate and are exposed to a lush jungle instead of a frozen wasteland. It's mentioned that there are an infinite number of parallel worlds, but kaiju Earth is the only one they've figured out how to access.
• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: Just like many others, this book makes the mistake of assuming that an unstable nuclear reactor = nuclear bomb. When a kaiju with a faulty or damaged reactor explodes, it's treated as a nuclear-level detonation in the 10-kiloton range instead of a Chernobyl-style nuclear meltdown (i.e. a conventional explosion that scatters radiation all over the place). And it's not a question of safeguards the way one of the scientists explains it. Nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs are simply built differently.
  • As with many modern examples of this trope they bend over backward to justify it pointing out that the nuclear reactors are generational examples. When one kaiju dies its body will be scavenged by others so the optimal elements (in this case Actinides) may well have been selected over millions of years with the correct uranium, thorium, or even plutonium being divvied up among the various kaiju species.
• Behemoth Battle: While traveling from Honda Base to Tanaka Base in the Shobijin airship, the new arrivals to Kaiju Earth become unintentional witnesses to a battle between two kaijus, one of which they know and which should've been picked up on the Shobijin radar due to the tracker placed on it. The airship has to rapidly gain altitude in order to avoid becoming collateral damage. Later on, the losing kaiju ends up having its biological nuclear reactor explode, which isn't that uncommon when two kaiju fight.
• Big Bad: Rob Sanders, Jamie's former boss, turns out to be the one behind Bella crossing over to our Earth. He and his family have been trying to get their hands on a living kaiju for decades, so they could take DNA samples and figure out how to grow organic nuclear reactors. Rob knows that Bella being on our Earth will result in her reactor blowing up, but he considers it a good thing, since it means there will not be a trace left of his actions. And if she ends up moving to the nearest body of water, as dying kaiju tend to do, and destroy a Canadian town, then he'll consider it a bonus, since it'll likely end up with the US President declaring martial law and canceling the 2020 elections.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Everything in the alternate "Kaiju" Earth, starting with the fact they view uranium as a tasty, tasty snack. The kaiju aren't so much animals as mobile ecosystems—mature kaiju have their own organic nuclear reactors, complete with a set of parasites specifically evolved to act as air conditioning so they don't overheat.
  • To reiterate they have no direct analog on our earth. Apparently, the parasites are a needed part of Kaiju development to reach their massive size. Otherwise, they'll spend their entire lives roughly the size of something between an elephant and a sauropod.
  • Also that nuclear reactor? If it forms badly, due to a birth defect, the Kaiju can also detonate because as it's pointed out "nature doesn't overengineer". For comparison this link shows just some of the design flaws in human biology.
• Book Ends: The novels begins with Jamie being screwed over by Rob Sanders and being forced to become a food delivery person, which results in Jamie getting a business card and a job offer from an old acquaintance. At the end of the book, Jamie gets a food delivery from Qanisha Williams who also got screwed over by Rob, forcing her to become a food delivery person. So Jamie gives that person a business card and a job offer.
  • The first and last words that Rob says to Jamie in the story are the same: "Jamie Gray? Let's do this." The first time, it's right before Jamie's performance review meeting. The second time, it's right before Rob tries to murder Jamie with a shotgun.
• Breath Weapon: An unintentional example with the kaiju. While they don't normally breathe fire, a kaiju with a damaged reactor or problems with air circulation can begin to "vent", which means periodically expel radioactive flames through what can be charitably called a "mouth". KPS employees usually time periods between "ventings". If it's a single "venting" every half an hour or so, then the kaiju might recover, but if it's under five minutes, then the kaiju is done for, and it's a good idea to run like hell. It's possible that Godzilla's atomic breath was inspired by "venting".
• Bribe Backfire: When visiting Tanaka Base, Rob Sanders wants to get a closer look at Bella and tries to bribe Satie to land near the kaiju. Satie initially ignores him, but when Rob ups the price, Satie hovers over just above the ground and tells him to get out. Rob turns to General Tipton, but Satie says that he's in charge of Chopper Two, and the man has just insulted him. Twice, and Satie was willing to overlook the first time. Rob finally apologizes, but Satie still files a report after returning to the base.
• Bring My Brown Pants: When new recruits like Jamie go through "ground training" (being certified to work on the jungle floor), Step One is making sure said new recruits understand just how dangerous Kaiju Earth is. This trope ensues most of the time; Jamie's trainer comments that the ones who don't are the ones she worries about.
• Closed Circle: Travel between the kaiju Earth and regular Earth can only go through nuclear-powered dimensional gates. Tanaka Base doesn't have its own, so you also have to take a twenty-plus-hour airship ride to Honda Base to get to the gate—and about halfway through the book, Honda Base starts pulling apart the mechanism for maintenance, which means that for several weeks there is no gate within less than several months' travel. Additionally, there's no communication with the normal Earth (obviously), or even with most of the other bases on this Earth, due to radio signals having to bounce off specific aerostats.
• Conversational Troping: Quite common, since everyone is familiar with Kaiju movies and Jamie is an actual expert on science fiction. A notable one is Jamie explaining the concept of Lampshade Hanging during an Info Dump section full of them.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Rob Sanders. He steals Jamie's ideas to make their company profitable and then fires Jamie - over a token bet with his secretary over whether or not Jamie will accept a position as a delivery driver thanks to the pandemic job market. He even references Trading Places over this while utterly failing to grasp that the fact that the Dukes were willing to destroy people's lives over a petty wager was the reason they were the villains of the movie. He then accepts a buyout of his company that leaves virtually everyone in it high and dry because the buyout benefits only applied to class A stock and the employee 401K only paid out class B stock - even later admitting that the whole reason he founded the company was to get it bought up by a competitor. He later makes several attempts to poach kaiju DNA, nearly nuking Canada in the process.
• Cross-Species Disease: Averted, new KPS recruits get a huge amount of vaccines so they don't die from the diseases that lurk in the open air, the diseases the Kaiju can give you, or the one that their parasites can give you. Further, all the greenhouses and aquacultured fish are heavily locked down to keep any of their diseases from escaping into the Kaiju Earth Biosphere. Good luck trying to import a chicken.
• Deadpan Snarker: Niamh Healy is monarch of this, though Jamie, Martin, Bryn MacDonald, and Kahurangi have their moments as well.
• Death World: Everything on the alternate Earth has evolved to be as deadly as possible just so it can compete with the kaiju parasites. (Nothing tries to compete directly with the kaiju except other kaiju.) A Scary Stinging Swarm is the least you can expect in the Hungry Jungle that is this world.
• Digital Piracy Is Okay: Backed up by international treaty no less. When people are out in the wilderness on a Deathworld the availability of sanity preserving media takes precedence over corporate profits.
• Downer Beginning: The book starts off with Jamie being fired by boss Rob Sanders and forced to work as a food "Deliverator" for the company, just as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the nation.
• Exact Words: When one of the VIPs tries to bribe Satie to let him off the helicopter near the nesting Kaiju, Satie's reaction involves saying that if the VIP gets off, he will not let him get back on.
• Gender-Concealing Writing: Like Lock In, Scalzi uses The All-Concealing "I" to avoid having to specify the protagonist's gender.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Tree Crabs, comparable in size to real-life Coconut Crabs, only they're fast, pack hunters, and have venom bites that mercifully can't kill a human.
• Giant Equals Invincible: Subverted, the Kaiju are apex predators on their earth, and could wreck a city if they ended up on our side. But then they’d have to face modern munitions, part of the society's efforts are to help the various Kaiju species recover from the purge roughly 50 years where the army used a lot of Daisy Cutters on Kaiju Earth to stop them coming over. Further, those who did end up here suffocated because there was too little oxygen for them on this earth. Which Bella has to contend with in the climax, which makes the mission to rescue her a Race Against the Clock.
• Guns Are Worthless: At least against the alternate Earth wildlife, they are. For one thing, the atmosphere is slightly thicker, which interferes with bullets' trajectories and makes them much less effective. For another, everything is simply too fast and tough to make shooting a tiny projectile a good idea. While Jamie is given a shotgun just in case, it comes with a warning that it's better to rely on a stun baton, a canister gun that shoots "eat me" pheromones as a distraction, or simply run away.
• Hazmat Suit: Everyone wears jumpsuits at the base but you need one of these if you intend to step outside.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Initially Tom jokes with Jamie that they're almost contractually obligated to drop this line, given their work as conservationists for the most dangerous creatures alive. Later played horribly straight. Sure, Bella and her parasites might be capable of killing hundreds of people without much effort—but they're just animals acting the way their nature dictates. The people trying to exploit Bella, on the other hand, are making the choice to commit coldblooded murder and endanger thousands for the sake of profit.
• Hungry Jungle: Exaggerated. From what we see Kaiju Earth is literally this. There aren't any ice caps so the sea levels are pretty high and the atmospheric levels have only risen since the Jurassic. Every human is on an oxygen high. All of this means that the place is a Death World, places like the Amazon pale in comparison to the ecosystems here. If you don't take pheromonal precautions you'll be stripped to the bone and then the bones get eaten.
  "They'll take you before you can scream."
• Injection Plot: Jamie is very reticent to be doing this as they have to take thirty vaccines to work for KPS. They can't move their arm afterward and Jamie is told of the various side effects they have to deal with, including supreme laxitude that will sometimes occur with strange homicidal thoughts, migraines after looking at the color blue for too long, and because their system will call diarrhea for 24 hours in regards to fat you could well foul yourself after eating bacon. Worse all these problems can occur simultaneously.
• Kaiju: The kaiju don't look like any of the giant People In Rubber Suit monsters from movies. The only species that get in-depth description has a very Lovecraftian feel to them, with multiple eyes (or something that functions like eyes) and tentacles. With "wings" and the ability to fly due to the much thicker atmosphere of the Kaiju Earth. The KPS usually tags mature kaiju with trackers, but they can occasionally get lost due to the parasites that live on the massive creatures dislodging them.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Lampshaded. Jamie and the other newbies do more in their first month than some people do in their entire careers.
• Meaningful Name:
  • One of Jamie's roommates works in theater and is named Laertes after a character in Hamlet. Since there's mention of his parents deadnaming him he probably did it deliberately.
  • Dr. Niamh Healy, they’re a nuclear physicist/astronomer whose first name means “Bright” in Gaelic, which could refer either to the brightness of a nuclear explosion/the stars, or to the second meaning of ‘bright’, i.e., intelligent or clever. Then, their last name literally means “Scientific” in Gaelic (the latter example is discussed in-universe).
    Niamh: Fun fact: “Healy” means “Scientific” in Gaelic. I am Dr. Scientific. You may bow to me now.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Tom Stevens, who recruits Jamie into KPS and provides advice and exposition for the first two-thirds of the novel, gets captured and executed by the Big Bad's mercenaries when he interrupts Bella's kidnapping.
• The Multiverse: Discussed when an airforce general is briefed about the kaiju situation. Our Earth and Kaiju earth are the only ones that can be visited because both use atomic power in some way which is why kaiju are able to come there.
• Nice Girl: Aparna, the biologist. She easily makes amends with a more senior scientist she shows up in a meeting (after everyone thought they were going to be nemeses for life), and is the only one who suggests that they might be able to deal peacefully with Bella's kidnappers by reasoning with them that Bella should go back before she explodes. She acknowledges that they probably can't, but she just wanted to bring up the possibility before they had to get violent.
• No Biochemical Barriers: Justified as it's an alternate earth, diverging at least around the time of the Chicxulub impactor. Humans are the only mammals on Kaiju Earth, there are no birds, and reptiles and amphibians are much less successful given the Kaiju and their parasites there.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Downplayed, but Kahurangi is apparently both a chemist and a geologist, while Niamh Healy is both a nuclear physicist and an astrophysicist or astronomer. However, everyone else has only one scientific field (though Aparna’s is just “biology”, which is better than Kahurangi, but still absurdly broad).
• Out of Job, into the Plot: Twice, first Jamie gets fired from their job as an assistant marketing executive and then gets fired again as the company gets sold to Uber. This is when they get the job for KPS.
• Proportionately Ponderous Parasites: Par for the course considering the book's subject matter. The difference is that these ones are better termed "Symbiotes" taking over vital functions of the kaiju like eating and even breathing. There are even a widespread species of parasites solely dedicated to helping the various species of kaiju breathe. In fact, they're considered the top threat on Kaiju earth with Kaiju themselves being walking ecosystems one should treat like a storm or other natural disaster you just need to prepare against.
• Red Herring: Some of the military visitors ask very pointed questions about whether the kaiju can be controlled with pheromones. However, they understand when the scientists explain it's not exact and they can't give orders, and they don't try anything. It's Rob who's the problem.
• Running Gag:
  • Jamie learning that various friends have doctorates when they're announced as "Dr. [Last Name]". Jamie finally wonders if literally everyone else on the entire planet has a doctorate, and Jamie is the sole person who just has a master's degree.
  • Jamie and friends saying that gross kaiju-related phrases, like "tumescent cloaca", would make good band names.
  • Jamie consistently stating "I lift things" as a job description.
  • Not naming the US President during the pandemic, even though it's pretty clear who they're talking about.
• Safely Secluded Science Center: Downplayed, all the bases across Kaiju Earth are meant to be this but it's not always successful.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: Pretty much 100 percent of the time you'll encounter one when you go outside, necessitating a Hazmat Suit. These swarms are even hazardous to helicopters, as they can clog the vents. Bigger components need to be punched out of the way.
• Shipper on Deck: The KPS has been trying to get two kaiju of a relatively rare species (nicknamed Edward and Bella) to make babies instead of trying to kill each other for some time. When they finally do, the eggs become a key plot point.
• Shout-Out:
  • Rob stole the term "deliverators" from Snow Crash. And "trans-dimensional portal" from Doom Eternal.
  • In-universe, all American bases on Kaiju Earth are named after the people involved in the making of the original Godzilla film.
  • Similarly, the American airship is named the Shobijin after two characters in the film Mothra.
  • Among the movies the KPS staff watch at the base are Godzilla and Pacific Rim.
  • Rob Sanders likes making "Duke bets" with people, referring to the $1 bet made by the Duke brothers in the movie Trading Places. Despite being rich, he still makes people pay up when they lose.
  • Edward and Bella are named after the main characters of The Twilight Saga, also as an in-universe shout-out.
• Short Screentime for Reality: Subverted, the titular society is supported by governments and private interests in the “other place”. Jamie is only on this alternate earth because they needed a job during the Covid-19 pandemic and their home reality remains important to the plot.
• Square-Cube Law: Invoked when trying to explain why the kaiju are even possible, but the explanation ends up merely being a Hand Wave. (Basically, the nuclear reactors allow kaiju to be as big as they are. If an adolescent kaiju can't successfully get its reactor going, it just doesn't finish maturing, much like axolotls, and so doesn't hit the massive physics-breaking size of an adult.) Much of their biological processes are offloaded onto their parasites including things like eating and breathing.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Outnumbered by private security contractors? Luckily, Bella is covered in massive, terrifying parasites, and Kahurangi has a pheromone bomb that says "we're under attack, kill everything that moves" in parasite language.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Averted. While the animals on kaiju Earth are all dangerous, they won't pursue prey if it's too much trouble or if an easier target presents itself (hence the "eat me" canisters as a defense—something not moving that smells like food is way more enticing than something brandishing a big electric stick and then running away).
• Supreme Chef: Aparna is a Supreme Cookie Baker. After she verbally slaps down another scientist, everyone expects that scientist to make life (or at least the rest of the mission tour) miserable for Aparna. One batch of homemade cookies later, the two are seen chatting like old friends.
• The Symbiote: The Kaiju can only get as big as they do thanks to an intricate web of commensal and mutual relationships. Not just between the kaiju and their parasites but between the different species of parasites that live on the Kaiju.

• Title Drop: The reveal of Kaiju Earth is also an Internal Reveal of what KPS stands for: Kaiju Preservation Society
• Trans Nature: Niamh is nonbinary and is always referred to with the pronoun "they". No one in the novel so much as bats an eye at that.
• Treetop Town: Tanaka Base. All bases on Kaiju Earth could be this, but Tanaka is the only one seen. Specifically, the entire base is off the ground and built around individual trees under a mesh dome to keep the ever-present Scary Stinging Swarm at bay. It's a much higher-tech version than others in fiction as it goes into the various adaptations to things like plumbing and infrastructure needed to get a base of 150 people functional.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: After the self-selected rescue team gets back to Earth, Kahurangi drafts Aparna to help with a "backup plan". We don't find out what that plan is (dousing Bella and her parasites with the "Red Alert, kill everything that moves" pheromone) until after they've tricked the Big Bad into setting it off.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Niamh is professionally outraged when Kahurangi's idea to use uranium pellets to go through the thin place in the dimensional barrier that Bella was snatched through not only works, but works when everyone does a group fist-bump while holding them. Subverted a few minutes later when everyone realizes they were actually right; the technique did nothing but get them all in place when a breach in the barrier opens for unrelated reasons.
• Zeppelins from Another World: Airships are the most cost-effective way of moving people and cargo across long distances on kaiju Earth. They don't need airstrips or lots of fuel, and the materials can be found on kaiju Earth. For example, helium is in abundance here, and the bladders are made of kaiju hide, which is incredibly strong. The American airship is called the Shobijin, referring to the twin priestesses in the movie Mothra. The kaiju typically ignore airships, unless one happens to get in their way. While the airships aren't that fast (a trip from Honda Base in Greenland to Tanaka Base in Labrador, Canada, takes over 20 hours), the advantages far outweigh the discomfort.