Book Review: The Big Bad Book Of Kaiju Edited by Jonathan Maberry And Henry Herz
Something For Damn Near Everyone. Some *REALLY* Good - Some *REALLY* Bad. This is a collection of 20 short stories and 4 poems from a global variety of authors, at least a few of which I'd read before and a few more I'd at least heard of.
Fortunately/ unfortunately, most of the *really* bad stories are the *first* ones we encounter going straight through the text, meaning that at least once you get through those stories, the rest of the book really picks up.
Mostly the really bad are preachy politics that would get a single star deduction from me if they were standalone stories - these include Lee Murray's Hum, Ann Walsh's Dozer poem, Seanan McGuire's Strange Beasts, and Luke Dumas' These Oceans Once Composed Symphonies. Maurice Broaddus' We Are All Kaiju, however, would have been a two star as a standalone due to its blatant, pervasive, and subtle as a nuclear bomb level bigotry combined with a story that is about as close to openly plagiarizing Rampage as he could likely legally get.
And then there is Tananarive Due's Cris Manning And His Talking Cat, which in addition to being openly Marxist *also* actively calls for violence against those whose politics you disagree with - which is something that should NEVER be platformed in ANY media and which *should* get Due cancelled so hard she can never again so much as flip burgers... but which will unfortunately get her praised by those who agree with her.
But these are just six of the 24 entries here, and everything else would have gotten a five star rating from me individually, raising the overall collection's average to a 4.54, which rounds to 5* as anything higher than 4.5 *exactly* is in fact closer to the higher number.
Among these excellent stories, we really do get several that stand out as intriguing worlds that I'd love to come back to either in subsequent short stories or perhaps in full on novels, and there are a lot of things here I think a wide variety of readers will agree with that perspective on.
Benjamin Spada's Horned was utterly terrifying in the end, but also *really* well done leading up to that ending.
Jonathan Maberry's Complete Garbage was a fun story set in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Kelly Armstrong's Kaiju Theoretically was a phenomenal homage to Jurassic Park.
Kane Gilmour's Forbidden Secrets was very fun and very atypical for such stories... and reminded me of the near century old MGM cartoon King Size Canary (which I had recently seen on social media somewhere - even my zeitgeist connection powers aren't *that* good ;) ).
Jeremy Robinson's Mama Bear is actively set inside the world of one of his standalone novels, which he makes quite clear in the opening few paragraphs... if you've read that novel. If you haven't and/ or this story is your introduction to Robinson, know that the concept he names within this story is the title of that book, should you wish to read more in this particular world... ;)
Scott Sigler's Kaiju Poo-Poo is one of the most wildly inventive stories of this entire collection... yet also is evocative of one of Ron Perlman's lines in Pacific Rim, which was a fun connection in my mind - even though the story itself has next to nothing in common with that franchise beyond being a post apocalyptic kaiju tale.
Henry Herz's Size Does Matter is absolutely a world I'd love to come back to. Somewhat reminiscent of Avatar (or Alien, a touch more directly really), but with an ending that I truly want to see where this story goes from here.
Taiyo Fujii's Tachi-Gami is a historical fiction kaiju tale from the Meiji Restoration period that almost feels like Timothy Spall's Simon Graham from The Last Samurai is telling this particular tale... and it absolutely works on so many levels.
Tim Lebbon's The Pain Of Giants could be really fun expanded out, in the same manner that it sometimes feels that the MCU could place so many more stories in its version of Johannesburg from Avengers: Age of Ultron. Except Lebbon's version would be giant kaiju and their world, possibly with more exploration of some of the things left unexplored in this form of the story.
Kevin J. Anderson is an author I'd never read before (like so many of the other authors named here), but his Just Add Water *reads* even here like it is one small part of a large and expansive pre-existing world that likely has many more stories to read for those so inclined. And given everything here... yes, there will be many who want to see more of this particular world. While not *quite* my normal thing, I include myself among them.
Alma Katsu's Don't Tell Me How To Love Kaiju is a more purely Japanese kaiju tale that absolutely works in so many ways, evocative of everything from Pacific Rim to Pokemon to even some versions of the Godzilla (or Jeremy Robinson's Nemesis) tales and even some of the more famous animes.
Tobi Ogundiran's When A God Weeps is a rather trippy tale that starts out feeling rather Victorian (at least to my mind) before becoming something else entirely (and which I will not spoil here), and the entire tale is really one of the better modern twist tales here.
Finally, Christopher and Daniel Golden's Hanging Gardens is another historical fiction tale set in post-WWII London that very much has War Of The Worlds, Cloverfield, and even Adrian Walker's End Of The World Running Club vibes - and is a truly excellent end to the overall collection, ending it on a particularly high note.
Overall, despite a few struggles up front (that could likely have been better spaced to be a touch more interspersed and spread out among the truly excellent tales), the overall collection here really is quite strong, and with the diversity of tales and perspectives here - yes, including the blatantly political and even bigoted tales - there really is something for damn near any reader out there, with a wide range of global authors represented within the collection to boot. Thus, even with the few struggle stories, this really is a solid collection for anyone looking for quick ish scifi reads and will serve as a great introduction to its many authors for those unfamiliar with their works. Even those readers familiar with a few authors here (as I was) should make it a point to read the entire collection, as you will likely find several more authors to explore further.
Very much recommended.
This review of The Big Bad Book Of Kaiju by Collected Authors was originally written on September 21, 2026.
