Monster Makers, Inc.

by Laurence Yep

The alien Rell, a mysterious and warlike race, are challenging human space and threatening invasion of the colony on Carefree. And Doc Sawyer, head of MMI, and his teenage son, Rob, are caught in the middle of it.

Carefree is one of the galactic Rim worlds, and the Sawyers have come here to set up their experimental biogenetic engineering company, MMI. They produce genetically altered animals to aid in the exploration and development of new planets for settlement—and they also produce monsters as pets and for promotional use. “Yes, Virginia, there is a godzilla,” is their marketing spiel.

There have been a series of accidents at MMI, which indicate the possibility of sabotage. As the story opens, the security fences have gone down and a number of monsters have escaped their island compound. Rob must round them up on land and in the water. Unfortunately, one of them, a feisty, three-foot-tall godzilla, has made it to the mainland and invaded the domains of the ritziest resort hotel on the planet, where, frightened but determined, it wreaks havoc with the grounds and buildings, finally leading Rob on a dangerous and hilarious chase through the heating ducts.

In the course of his rescue of this godzilla, Rob meets Shandi, a rich young girl who will play an important role in the events to come. For this attack on MMI reveals the opening ploy in an insidious plan that Doc, Rob, and Shandi set out to stop before Carefree becomes an enslaved dominion of the Rell.

Genres: Science Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Born June 14, 1948 in San Francisco, California, Yep was the son of Thomas Gim Yep and Franche Lee Yep. Franche Lee, her family's youngest child, was born in Ohio and raised in West Virginia where her family owned a Chinese laundry. Yep's father, Thomas, was born in China and came to America at the age of ten where he lived, not in Chinatown, but with an Irish friend in a white neighborhood. After troubling times during the Depression, he was able to open a grocery store in an African-American neighborhood. Growing up in San Francisco, Yep felt alienated. He was in his own words his neighborhood's "all-purpose Asian" and did not feel he had a culture of his own. Joanne Ryder, a children's book author, and Yep met and became friends during college while she was his editor. They later married and now live in San Francisco.

Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.

Reviews

[Neal Fernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this when I was around 12. One of the books that made me an avid reader.

[Gabe cochran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun

[Foxtower · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun little read!

[Foxtower · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun little read!