Category: Science Fiction

Reviews: 3 x Kaiju

~ Peter Young ~ Leave a comment

James Morrow, Shambling Towards Hiroshima, 2009
TACHYON PUBLICATIONS, 2009, ISBN 978-1-892391-84-1, trade paperback, $14.95
In 1945 the US Navy developed a top secret biological weapon: giant mutant fire-breathing iguanas bred to stomp Japanese cities. Hollywood monster-suit actor Syms Thorley is drafted to put terror into the hearts of a group of visiting Japanese diplomats with his depiction of what might happen if Emperor Hirohito doesn’t surrender; and if that doesn’t work there’s always the Manhattan Project. Shambling Towards Hiroshima takes the form of a suicide note written at a 1984 horror movie convention in Baltimore, but outside of that frame this is a lovingly crafted satire that is also a tribute to Hollywood’s monster movies, with educated nods in all directions. The first three quarters of this novella feels self-consciously ridiculous because Morrow is depicting military life imitating what is essentially a pretty ridiculous art, but he has serious points to make and there comes a well crafted moment towards the end at which he wants you stop laughing and consider a few things. Morrow is interviewed on video about the story here, but I’m glad I indulged in this wry, clever book first.

Hiroshi Yamamoto, MM9, 2007
Translated by Nathan Collins
HAIKASORU, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4215-4089-4, trade paperback, $14.99
What if the world had a Richter-like scale for monster attacks? And where better to show how the whole thing works than in Japan? Given that this is such a brilliant idea, when teamed up with this book’s self-serving ending it was probably inevitable that a TV series would result from this fix-up of episodic short stories about the Monsterological Measures Department, doing battle to contain outbreaks of kaiju activity across Japan. As a science fiction writer, Yamamoto’s first priority had to be that of getting around the law of conservation of mass to account for the extraordinary size of some monsters and their unlikely ability to support themselves/breathe fire/stomp buildings with apparent ease, and Yamamoto has given his monsters a clever yet almost whimsical explanation that conveniently excuses them from the laws of physics of our universe. Yamamoto’s speculation in this aspect of the novel is engaging but not always rigourous, and when evaluated by his characters the explanations are often too easily accepted by the MMD without a great deal of debate because, well, there’s a monster to defeat now and it answers the problem of how to tackle the kaiju somehow. I admit to approaching MM9 from the wrong direction at first, expecting a more tongue-in-cheek and self-knowing escapade than the straightforward episodic adventure we were given, but after realising how I should be reading it this novel was good fun, and Yamamoto’s mythical monsters are always neat inventions. I’m now awaiting a dubbed/subtitled DVD release of the TV series with bated breath.

Review: Chan Koonchung, The Fat Years, 2009

~ Peter Young ~ Leave a comment

This novel has one of the best introductions I’ve come across in a long while: an essay by the sinologist Julia Lovell, in which she both places the novel in its present-day sociological context and also sets the stage admirably for the story to come: in a near-future China a month has gone missing, not only from official records but also from peoples’ memories, and no one could care less. But there’s also a group of unaffected people who collectively try to find out the reason for this cheerful cultural amnesia about certain events the Party wishes to ‘erase’, and something radical has to be done to discover what mark China plans to make on the rest of the world. The Fat Years is only a dystopia on its thin surface – China emerged from something far worse in real life from the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution; today there’s no Mao-like figure, the Party is driven more by pragmatism than ideology and has an unspoken contract with the people: “tolerate our authoritarianism, and we will make you rich”. Explored admirably here, the bigger question then becomes, “Between a good hell and a fake paradise, which one would you choose?”, so ‘post-dystopia’ would definitely be a more accurate description. China also has leaders with a variety of agendas ranging from outright fascism to the spread of democracy and Christianity, and these disparate groups are all characterised in the novel. Yes, there are Orwellian undertones, but they only underpin this exploration of China’s very likely future, with good characterisation and a little too much info-dumping. Still, this is a necessary and challenging book.