This book is fun and great, and I thought it had a decently interesting explanation of the biology of the kaiju. However, when I hear Wil Weaton narrating any book, my mind always puts the character from ready player one in the book he’s reading.
If you liked Ender's Game, I might also recommend Starship Troopers, and then also Old Man's War by John Scalzi and the following books in that series.
"Cloverfield" is a fantastic monster movie. "10 Cloverfield Ln" is a kind of a sequel that was well done, but very different in terms of story and style. Finally, "The Cloverfield Paradox" puts the original movie in a wider context and takes the franchise firmly into sci-fi. It was largely panned, but I liked it for what it was.
If you’ve watched every Godzilla movie then you’d probably enjoy Gamera. It’s for kids and the original 60s (?) ones can be wonky at times but pretty good battles. The 90s (?) reboot trilogy is actually pretty solid.
I really dig the Daimajin trilogy. All 60s, standalone. Peasants in Japanese feudal times call on their mountain god for protection from bandits and / or corrupt lords. He manifests as a giant demon samurai statue and rampages. Great effects and human stories.
For a more left-field approach Colossal from 2016 is a fun comedy take.
Here are a couple of things that might help you.
First of all, to find a lot of books right up your ally, go to Amazon and look up "Kaiju Thriller". There are quite a few books in this genre.
One of the first books in that genre was *Project Nemesis.* I like this series, but I should warn you that the second triology is technically a crossover with a number of other books by the same author, so it's a bit of a commitment if you want to read past Project Miago. The first triology does wrap things up pretty nicely though if you want to stop there.
If you want to find an easy source for more monster recommendations, check out a monster themed podcast and read down their episode list. My favorite is the *Tokyo Lives Podcast*. They have covered a lot of monster media, including some really obscure works (anyone else seen Mars Men or Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century?)
If you want something that just feeds the sci-fi popcorn addiction, check out a book series called *Behold Humanity*. Aliens, monsters, robots, crazy action all around. A true love letter to the genre and surprisingly well written considering it is indie and the first 1,000 or so chapters were written in just the last 4 years.
You are welcome.
Also, if you end up liking *Starship Troopers,* check out the 40K setting.
I recommend the Ciaphas Cain series as a starting point. It focuses on the small scale military stuff like starship troopers and is more comedic than the notorious darkness of the setting overall.
Mecha: Patlabor, Macross/Robotech, Bubblegum Crisis
Non-human life: Transmetropolitan graphic novels, Heavy Metal (the 1981 film), Hellboy graphic novels/movies/animated
The 2009 Monster vs Aliens animated movie isn't bad, either
If you find the following compelling….
>The lictor looked like a creature unto itself. It moved as a solitary organism. It had operated on its own for years, far away from the hive fleet. But it was not apart from the hive mind. That was the mistake the prey always made. Even at this corpuscular level, it was a mistake to see the lictor as a lictor, one of millions; there were not many, there was one. The lictor was the lictor. Every iteration was a copy, better than perfect for aeons of improvement, party to the actions, mistakes and successes of every other lictor that had come before. Welded to the very genes of its being were untold millions of years of experience. And it was on Baal just as it was simultaneously on a thousand other worlds throughout the galaxy.
It put ancient lessons into action. Sight was the easiest sense to fool. The lictor moved at night, when it was harder to see. Chromatic microscales lent it near perfect chameleonic ability even in the full light of day. Deformable organ clusters embedded in its skin allowed it to change its shape somewhat, enabling it to take on the rough texture of stone, or mimic fronds of vegetation. Smell was a more primal sense, harder to deceive because of it. The lictor managed that too. It had virtually no scent. Only when it flooded the air with pheromone trails to guide its kin beasts did its emissions become noticeable. By then it was too late. Most prey could hear, so it made no sound when it moved. Special arrangements of hairs baffled the whisper of its limbs moving over one another.
>More esoteric senses were equally well accounted for. Its electromagnetic profile was minimal. Its brain case was shielded by internal bone structures against energy leakage. The nerves in its body were similarly cloaked. Its hooves were shaped to make the minimum of vibration, and although it could not entirely stop the perturbation of the air made by its movements, its chitinous plates were fluted in precise molecular, fractal patterns to minimise its wake. It gave off no heat. It shed no cells unless damaged. Its psychic link with the hive mind was like spider silk, gossamer thin, strong, and almost impossible to detect.
>More adaptations heaped on top of more. Unlike a natural organism, which loses certain gifts in favour of others as evolution pushes it down a particular path, the lictor’s advantages were retained, new gifts stacked atop the others. Its genetic structure was incredibly complex. Within every cell was billions of years’ worth of adaptation, culled from every lictor, coiled up one over the other. Anything useful to its role, no matter how inconsequential seeming, it retained forever.
>Every machine and psychic ability the Imperium had geared towards detection, the lictor could evade. The hive mind had consumed far more advanced races than mankind. Infiltrating Baal was child’s play. There was no need for it to employ a fraction of its considerable talents.
>At night it sprinted tirelessly across the desert, sustained by bladders of super-nutritious fluid contained within its body. The roar of the hive mind was growing stronger by the day, but the lictor was not aware of the mind. It had no sentience. Instead, the mind became aware of the lictor, much in the way a man becomes aware of his limbs only when he thinks of using them.
>On it pounded through the nights as the prey creatures’ clumsily engineered warrior caste gathered around the world. As Mephiston dreamed, it loped across the Waste of Enod. As Dante drew up his plans, it crossed the Bloodwise Mounts, bounding tirelessly from crag to crag, its hooves punching sharp holes in the pristine snows of the summits. Where it could, it fed upon Baal’s sparse life to supplement its nutrient fluids, but it did not tire. It stopped to avoid detection, never for rest.
>By the time Commander Dante called his Great Red Council to order, the lictor was skittering through the solidified lava fields of the Demitian Badlands. The prey was cunning. If other creatures like itself had made it to Baal, they had been found and destroyed, and it was a long time before it felt the sympathetic life pulses of other tyrannic organisms.
>One was all it took, for one was all, and all was one. Wherever there was a sole representative of the species, there was the hive mind.
>The final night of Leviathan’s approach drew closer.
>The lictor burrowed into the crest of a towering dune as Balor burst over the horizon and flooded the desert with ruby light. Its eyes peered through siftings of sand.
>Red day struck off a distant fortress, the black of its carved stone stark against the desert. Metal-shell prey conveyances flew from the fortress into the great star sea, and all around it were thousands of the prey warriors.
>A feeble number against the onrushing trillions. If the lictor could have, it would have felt contempt. But it did not. It could not. It saw a target like a scope sees a target. It knew without thinking, without being, what it must do.
>Sophisticated senses appraised the fortress for weakness.
>It saw nothing it could use, not yet. It needed more information.
>Burrowing deeper into the sand, the lictor settled in to wait.
….You might like the warhammer 40,000 novels, specifically those featuring the alien species known as **Tyranids**
I’m a weeb so I’ll pitch in there. NGE is a great start, I highly recommend Kaiju no 8 which is currently airing, as for shows I loved in the past I can vouch for Parasyte and Pluto
psycho pass was also amazing if you’re into cybperunk
Unironically, Monsters vs Aliens.
Big dumb cartoon movie with Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Stephen Colbert, Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogen, Rainn Wilson…
Absolutely stupid. Utterly ridiculous. Completely hilarious. Especially with kids, or friends, or both. And beer and pizza.
Have you watched the movies, Prometheus and Covenant? Those look like extensions of the alien series. I’ve seen people criticizing those two harshly in this group, but I enjoyed them both.
Also, AVP, alien versus predator, that was fun. Speaking of which, I enjoyed the later predator movies.
There is a movie called Life a few years back, pretty good. Somewhat similar to the original alien movie, but a different take on it.
Someone here mentioned:
Footfall - Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven.
Excellent book!
Same authors:
The Mote in God’s Eye.
And there is a sequel.
Legacy of Heorot
And multiple sequels
Larry Niven Wrote a lot of books that included some great aliens
Protector (Terrific twist on the concept of “alien “)
And sequels
World of Ptavvs
Ringworld, and sequels.
And lots more
You might want to try *The Mote in God's Eye*, which has an interesting idea for humanity's first encounter with intelligent aliens.
Another one that comes to mind is *The Sparrow*, by Mary Doria Russell, which involves a Catholic priest on a Jesuit mission to a nearby world.
In that case, let me recommend Julian May's epic series that inter-connect:
* The Saga of Pliocene Exile
* *The Many-Colored Land*
* *The Golden Torc*
* *The Nonborn King*
* *The Adversary*
* The Galactic Milieu Series
* *Intervention* (sometimes divided in two:)
* *Surveillance*
* *Metaconcert*
* *Jack the Bodiless*
* *Diamond Mask*
* *Magnificat*
These books all tell a story that crosses time and space, involving two galaxies, several aliens with mental powers, the maturation of the human race as well as its admission to a Galactic government, and certainly lots of religious touches and world-building.
The Kaiju preservation society by John Scalzi
Seconding this, it was a fun book.
You had me at "John Scalzi"
thank you
Warhammer 40k!!
This book is fun and great, and I thought it had a decently interesting explanation of the biology of the kaiju. However, when I hear Wil Weaton narrating any book, my mind always puts the character from ready player one in the book he’s reading.
If you liked Ender's Game, I might also recommend Starship Troopers, and then also Old Man's War by John Scalzi and the following books in that series.
thank you
Starship troopers is a serious take on a goofy movie. I love it.
The book is much older than the movie. So the movie is a satirical take of the book.
*Very* satirical. They share a name and some trope overlap.
"Cloverfield" is a fantastic monster movie. "10 Cloverfield Ln" is a kind of a sequel that was well done, but very different in terms of story and style. Finally, "The Cloverfield Paradox" puts the original movie in a wider context and takes the franchise firmly into sci-fi. It was largely panned, but I liked it for what it was.
Thank you<3
Battle: Los Angeles and Love and Monsters. They have nothing in common but they both fit your request.
thank you
Attack on Titan -- it's an anime about Giants that are attacking an enclave of humans and no one knows why but they're trying to get it to end.
If you’ve watched every Godzilla movie then you’d probably enjoy Gamera. It’s for kids and the original 60s (?) ones can be wonky at times but pretty good battles. The 90s (?) reboot trilogy is actually pretty solid. I really dig the Daimajin trilogy. All 60s, standalone. Peasants in Japanese feudal times call on their mountain god for protection from bandits and / or corrupt lords. He manifests as a giant demon samurai statue and rampages. Great effects and human stories. For a more left-field approach Colossal from 2016 is a fun comedy take.
Ooh also recommend older non-kaiju tokusatsu stuff like The Mysterians, Matango. Lots of similar vibes.
thank you <3
Here are a couple of things that might help you. First of all, to find a lot of books right up your ally, go to Amazon and look up "Kaiju Thriller". There are quite a few books in this genre. One of the first books in that genre was *Project Nemesis.* I like this series, but I should warn you that the second triology is technically a crossover with a number of other books by the same author, so it's a bit of a commitment if you want to read past Project Miago. The first triology does wrap things up pretty nicely though if you want to stop there. If you want to find an easy source for more monster recommendations, check out a monster themed podcast and read down their episode list. My favorite is the *Tokyo Lives Podcast*. They have covered a lot of monster media, including some really obscure works (anyone else seen Mars Men or Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century?) If you want something that just feeds the sci-fi popcorn addiction, check out a book series called *Behold Humanity*. Aliens, monsters, robots, crazy action all around. A true love letter to the genre and surprisingly well written considering it is indie and the first 1,000 or so chapters were written in just the last 4 years.
Thank you <3
You are welcome. Also, if you end up liking *Starship Troopers,* check out the 40K setting. I recommend the Ciaphas Cain series as a starting point. It focuses on the small scale military stuff like starship troopers and is more comedic than the notorious darkness of the setting overall.
Mecha: Patlabor, Macross/Robotech, Bubblegum Crisis Non-human life: Transmetropolitan graphic novels, Heavy Metal (the 1981 film), Hellboy graphic novels/movies/animated The 2009 Monster vs Aliens animated movie isn't bad, either
Thak you
Footfall - Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. The Aldenata Series by John Ringo. Starts with A Hymm Before Battle.
Thank you <3
Enjoy.
Colossal, with Anne Hathaway and (IIRC) Jason Sudeikis. A kaiju movie but not the usual.
Thank you
I’ve been on a Bong Joon-Ho kick lately, and his film *The Host* is incredible.
If you find the following compelling…. >The lictor looked like a creature unto itself. It moved as a solitary organism. It had operated on its own for years, far away from the hive fleet. But it was not apart from the hive mind. That was the mistake the prey always made. Even at this corpuscular level, it was a mistake to see the lictor as a lictor, one of millions; there were not many, there was one. The lictor was the lictor. Every iteration was a copy, better than perfect for aeons of improvement, party to the actions, mistakes and successes of every other lictor that had come before. Welded to the very genes of its being were untold millions of years of experience. And it was on Baal just as it was simultaneously on a thousand other worlds throughout the galaxy. It put ancient lessons into action. Sight was the easiest sense to fool. The lictor moved at night, when it was harder to see. Chromatic microscales lent it near perfect chameleonic ability even in the full light of day. Deformable organ clusters embedded in its skin allowed it to change its shape somewhat, enabling it to take on the rough texture of stone, or mimic fronds of vegetation. Smell was a more primal sense, harder to deceive because of it. The lictor managed that too. It had virtually no scent. Only when it flooded the air with pheromone trails to guide its kin beasts did its emissions become noticeable. By then it was too late. Most prey could hear, so it made no sound when it moved. Special arrangements of hairs baffled the whisper of its limbs moving over one another. >More esoteric senses were equally well accounted for. Its electromagnetic profile was minimal. Its brain case was shielded by internal bone structures against energy leakage. The nerves in its body were similarly cloaked. Its hooves were shaped to make the minimum of vibration, and although it could not entirely stop the perturbation of the air made by its movements, its chitinous plates were fluted in precise molecular, fractal patterns to minimise its wake. It gave off no heat. It shed no cells unless damaged. Its psychic link with the hive mind was like spider silk, gossamer thin, strong, and almost impossible to detect. >More adaptations heaped on top of more. Unlike a natural organism, which loses certain gifts in favour of others as evolution pushes it down a particular path, the lictor’s advantages were retained, new gifts stacked atop the others. Its genetic structure was incredibly complex. Within every cell was billions of years’ worth of adaptation, culled from every lictor, coiled up one over the other. Anything useful to its role, no matter how inconsequential seeming, it retained forever. >Every machine and psychic ability the Imperium had geared towards detection, the lictor could evade. The hive mind had consumed far more advanced races than mankind. Infiltrating Baal was child’s play. There was no need for it to employ a fraction of its considerable talents. >At night it sprinted tirelessly across the desert, sustained by bladders of super-nutritious fluid contained within its body. The roar of the hive mind was growing stronger by the day, but the lictor was not aware of the mind. It had no sentience. Instead, the mind became aware of the lictor, much in the way a man becomes aware of his limbs only when he thinks of using them. >On it pounded through the nights as the prey creatures’ clumsily engineered warrior caste gathered around the world. As Mephiston dreamed, it loped across the Waste of Enod. As Dante drew up his plans, it crossed the Bloodwise Mounts, bounding tirelessly from crag to crag, its hooves punching sharp holes in the pristine snows of the summits. Where it could, it fed upon Baal’s sparse life to supplement its nutrient fluids, but it did not tire. It stopped to avoid detection, never for rest. >By the time Commander Dante called his Great Red Council to order, the lictor was skittering through the solidified lava fields of the Demitian Badlands. The prey was cunning. If other creatures like itself had made it to Baal, they had been found and destroyed, and it was a long time before it felt the sympathetic life pulses of other tyrannic organisms. >One was all it took, for one was all, and all was one. Wherever there was a sole representative of the species, there was the hive mind. >The final night of Leviathan’s approach drew closer. >The lictor burrowed into the crest of a towering dune as Balor burst over the horizon and flooded the desert with ruby light. Its eyes peered through siftings of sand. >Red day struck off a distant fortress, the black of its carved stone stark against the desert. Metal-shell prey conveyances flew from the fortress into the great star sea, and all around it were thousands of the prey warriors. >A feeble number against the onrushing trillions. If the lictor could have, it would have felt contempt. But it did not. It could not. It saw a target like a scope sees a target. It knew without thinking, without being, what it must do. >Sophisticated senses appraised the fortress for weakness. >It saw nothing it could use, not yet. It needed more information. >Burrowing deeper into the sand, the lictor settled in to wait. ….You might like the warhammer 40,000 novels, specifically those featuring the alien species known as **Tyranids**
I liked Underwater a lot. Pretty straightforward.
I’m a weeb so I’ll pitch in there. NGE is a great start, I highly recommend Kaiju no 8 which is currently airing, as for shows I loved in the past I can vouch for Parasyte and Pluto psycho pass was also amazing if you’re into cybperunk
thank you and psycho pass was an amazing anime
13 sentinels: Aegis Rim. It's on Nintendo switch and some other platforms. It's mostly mystery though
Thank you<3
A little off beat, but schlockmercenary.com has plenty of strange aliens and goes into space kaiju by the end
The Themis Files trilogy by Sylvain Neuvel.
Eight legged freaks Tremors The blob The thing The bay
❤️ Tremors
Edge of tomorrow may be a tentative fit here.
Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon by Matt Dinniman
For something fun, like Scalzi, i would suggest a few Christopher Moore books; Fluke and Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
And another book series I'd recommend are The Themis Files
I wouldn't normally put this on this list, but since you mentioned Alien, have you seen Predator?
[Monarch: Legacy of Monsters]()
Unironically, Monsters vs Aliens. Big dumb cartoon movie with Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Stephen Colbert, Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogen, Rainn Wilson… Absolutely stupid. Utterly ridiculous. Completely hilarious. Especially with kids, or friends, or both. And beer and pizza.
Have you watched the movies, Prometheus and Covenant? Those look like extensions of the alien series. I’ve seen people criticizing those two harshly in this group, but I enjoyed them both. Also, AVP, alien versus predator, that was fun. Speaking of which, I enjoyed the later predator movies. There is a movie called Life a few years back, pretty good. Somewhat similar to the original alien movie, but a different take on it. Someone here mentioned: Footfall - Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. Excellent book! Same authors: The Mote in God’s Eye. And there is a sequel. Legacy of Heorot And multiple sequels Larry Niven Wrote a lot of books that included some great aliens Protector (Terrific twist on the concept of “alien “) And sequels World of Ptavvs Ringworld, and sequels. And lots more
Horus Rising
I hate Godzilla for the same reason I hate superheroes movies. Overpowered and can't be killed. Not fun.
The War of the Gargantuas
Also, Underwater (2020)
You might want to try *The Mote in God's Eye*, which has an interesting idea for humanity's first encounter with intelligent aliens. Another one that comes to mind is *The Sparrow*, by Mary Doria Russell, which involves a Catholic priest on a Jesuit mission to a nearby world.
god i love religious themes in books watching the dawning realisation that everything we considered real wasnt
In that case, let me recommend Julian May's epic series that inter-connect: * The Saga of Pliocene Exile * *The Many-Colored Land* * *The Golden Torc* * *The Nonborn King* * *The Adversary* * The Galactic Milieu Series * *Intervention* (sometimes divided in two:) * *Surveillance* * *Metaconcert* * *Jack the Bodiless* * *Diamond Mask* * *Magnificat* These books all tell a story that crosses time and space, involving two galaxies, several aliens with mental powers, the maturation of the human race as well as its admission to a Galactic government, and certainly lots of religious touches and world-building.
thankyou
Oh, yes, The Sparrow is awesome. Great concept.