Book Review: Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters edited by Tim Marquitz & N.X. Sharps
Like many a Godzilla fan, I have a fondness for movies where gigantic monsters rampage across the landscape. The fandom has more or less adopted the Japanese term for such monsters, kaiju. While the big critters have been a staples of movies and comic books for a while, they’ve been relatively sparse in literature. The foreword by Jeremy Robinson talks a bit about being the author of the first kaiju novel to be a bestseller since the Godzilla books way back when. This bulky volume collects 23 stories on the theme.
The collection opens with “Big Ben and the End of the Pier Show” by James Lovegrove. The battle between the title mecha (giant robot) and a rampaging monster is told mostly from the point of view of the owner of a failing entertainment venue that’s likely to be smashed in the process. He was thinking of burning the property for insurance money, but his policy doesn’t cover kaiju damage.
The end piece is “The Turn of the Card” by James Swallow. It is based on the “Colossal Kaiju Combat” game, and imagines what it’s like for the humans trapped in a battle royale situation between various monsters pitted against each other by forces beyond human comprehension. I did not see that ending coming.
There’s a fair amount of variation on the theme. Sometimes it’s humans doing stupid things that unleashes the monsters, other times the monsters just show up. Some stories are told from the perspective of the monsters, others by monster hunters, and some by the bystanders on the ground. Sometimes the monster is defeated at great cost, sometimes the monster wins.
Some standouts:
“The Serpent’s Heart” by Howard Andrew Jones features a straight-up sea serpent as an Islamic scholar and his bodyguard investigate why it’s been interfering with shipping between their country and India. A Chinese sorceress may have more to do with this than she’s willing to let on. The most swashbuckling story in this book.
“The Behemoth” by Jonathan Wood has a mecha pilot take drastic steps when he learns his wife has been chosen as a “proxy”, one of those sacrificed to the mecha’s operations to defeat monsters. Flashbacks show that he’s been self-centered and callous, but trying to turn his life around. Can he make things right?
“Fall of Babylon” by James Maxey takes on the Revelation of John of Patmos. The story itself is so-so, but the imagery is awesome.
“With Bright Shining Faces” by J.C. Koch turns the stock horror movie trope of children drawing pictures of the monsters well before the adults realize they’re real into the main plot point. It may have one of the happier endings in this book, from a certain point of view.
Content note: Lots of violence, as you’d expect; vivisection, harm to children, and “Devil’s Cap Brawl” by Edward M. Erdelac has a racist character that spews multiple slurs.
The second edition excises one story that was in the first edition, about a monster smashing Hollywood.
Overall, an entertaining collection for fans of kaiju. There’s a second volume subtitled “Reign of Monsters” if you like this one.
