The Kaiju Preservation Society

by John Scalzi

“Mosquitoes kill more humans every year than every other type of animal combined,” Tom said to him, “including other humans. And to flip that around, humans have wiped our version of Earth clean of almost every single animal much larger than we are. We hunt them to extinction, and we put ourselves into their environments. Size isn’t the issue. It never was.”

“The only real question is, who are the monsters?” “They ask that question in every monster movie, you know. It’s an actual trope.” “I know,” Tom said. “What does it say about us that it’s relevant every single time they ask it?”

“Pandas are cute, but they’re not what you would call rocket scientists, and sometimes they forget how to breed, you know? So humans have to help them make a love connection. Well, kaiju are the biggest, stupidest pandas you will ever meet.”

You’re feeling cognitive dissonance, Jamie. Two contradictory-yet-entirely-valid-within-their-contexts thoughts about the same subject. And humans hate that shit. We hate it so much. The worst answer for us for anything is, ‘It depends.’”

“We ask that question because the people who watch Godzilla movies and Jurassic Park movies are fundamentally better prepared for the reality of this place. Our brains already have a model for it so we don’t blow a fuse when we come over. Well, it works the other way, too. If we’re so used to a fictional version of something, it makes it easier to deny the existence of the real version.”