I'm probably
a little bit biased about Godzilla at World's
End. As the first of Marc Cerasini's Godzilla
YA novels that I read back when they were first
released, GAWE was my first exposure to Cerasini's
powerful prose depictions of the legendary Japanese
daikaiju, and his genuinely engaging, technically
astute military action. I was hooked, despite the
more questionable plotting choices and shallow characters.
For Godzilla fans, and fans of Cerasini's work,
GAWE displays everything we've come to expect
from this series, although this third novel is arguably
the weakest of the entire set.
The story follows directly after the devastating
events from Godzilla
2000, and America is still reeling from
the catastrophe of the monster invasion that took
place within those pages. For the first time I've
encountered it, Cerasini actually explores the economic
realities that would result from titanic monster
invasion, and they aren't pretty. The United States
is desperate for hope, and journalistic superpower
INN's head, Myron Endicott, wants to give it to
them with an audacious new project in which the
top teen geniuses of the nation will be sent together
on a scientific expedition to Antarctica via a technologically
advanced blimp. However, this is a monster novel
after all, and things soon begin to fall apart when
an enormous, miles wide hole opens up in Antarctica
and bizarre gargantuan monsters begin emerging across
the world in an all-out war against humankind. As
destruction mounts and all seems lost, the fate
of the future lies in the hands of a small group
of scared teenagers as they venture deep into the
unknown.
Although it's not obvious from the plot description,
GAWE once again has an overbloated cast of
human characters, far too many to develop meaningfully.
Along with the returning arrogant journalists Nick
Gordon and Robin Halliday, there is also the gaggle
of genius teens (teeniuses?), Alaskan Peter Blackwater,
stud muffin Ned Landson, hacker Michael Sullivan,
and hotheaded computer-chip superstar Leena Sims.
Then there's Shelly Townsend, the teenage daughter
of the main engineer of the blimp, The Destiny
Explorer—naturally, her father gets separated
from her and she must take his authoritative position
aboard the dirigible. There's also teenagae Patrick
Brennan, who has entered the military masquerading
as his older brother Sean; he functions as the main
action hero of the tale. And, in a brief-yet-notable
role, there is the 19-year-old Craig Weedie, another
journalist, and the mysterious teenager Zoe Kemmering
who was lost and presumed dead in Antarctica. While
there are a number of supporting characters (mostly
military and scientists) who aren't pimple-crusted
hormonal youths, all of the important characters
in the novel are teenagers, with the exception of
Nick Gordon perhaps, although he doesn't have much
to do here other than officiate media events and
avoid airsickness. Cerasini, perhaps at the behest
of his editors, has made every excuse to craft all
of his characters so that their ages approximate
those of his intended readers—as if the teenage
species cannot relate to or abide a protagonist
older or younger than themselves. After a while,
the ludicrousness of the youthful parade becomes
hard to take, and the tale suffers somewhat from
the "adults are useless" school of YA
storytelling.
To Cerasini's credit, however, none of his characters
here are particularly annoying, and a number of
them would be genuinely sympathetic if they had
more space to be developed. Unfortunately, in a
book barely over 300 pages in length, with at least
six main protagonists to deal with as well as a
great many side characters and ten Toho monsters
making appearances, there simply isn't enough space
to build sufficient sympathy for anyone. Thus for
the most part the character arcs aren't very fulfilling;
by the end of the story, it's a little difficult
to care where the protags end up. Perhaps the strongest
character is that of Patrick Brennan, who goes through
the most turmoil, whose decision to enter the military
is difficult and perilous, and who is forced into
a commanding military position before he is ready
and must make the best of it. He may have made the
overall story stronger had he been more central,
but we don't get so lucky. Nevertheless, I liked
the admittedly underdeveloped characters Cerasini
developed—even the stuck-up Miss Sims and
her struggles with her fear of flying. I would have
liked to have gotten to know the timid computer
hacker better, or seen more of the personality of
the vapid hunk Ned, but the brevity of the novel
simply doesn't allow for it, and the story suffers
as a result.
Also exacerbating a trend begun in Godzilla
2000, Cerasini tries to cram in as many
monsters into the plot as possible, actually detracting
from the strength of the story. GAWE includes,
along with the eponymous radioactive dinosaur, Rodan,
Gigan, Manda, Hedorah, Megalon, Mothra, Anguirus,
Battra, and Biollante, as well as some Cerasini
original creatures in Antarctica. A number of the
monsters show up at convenient times and convenient
places just to cause trouble for the protagonists,
or smash up a few buildings before Godzilla or another
monster can conveniently fight them away. It's almost
like magic sometimes, and while the forgiving reader
can attempt to explain away these lucky circumstances
as the all-seeing manipulations of Mothra, the book
makes little suggestion that her power was so encompassing,
and thus leaves the plot replete with unlikely,
gratuitous, and unneeded monster encounters. Godzilla,
in fact, isn't even necessary for this story to
work; I didn't mention him in my plot summary because
his purposes in the novel could easily be written
out entirely, especially if some of the equally
unnecessary secondary monsters like Manda and Hedorah
were removed as well. Cerasini had a chance to justify
the attention paid to Rodan in Godzilla
2000 since the pterosaur had been completely
superfluous to that novel's plot, but here Rodan
barely even makes a cameo appearance, strangely
materializing out of nowhere in South America, and
then defending the Destiny Explorer from
Battra for no apparent reason at all. The climactic
action in Antarctica, wherein all the mysteries
are revealed, is particularly disappointing, albeit
for different reasons. The identity of the mastermind,
the reasons behind the apocalypse, and the methods
used to incur the global attacks are absolutely
asinine and poorly explained, even when considering
that this is a story about giant monsters.
Still, there are some fantastic sequences of destruction
and combat in GAWE, many of them focusing
on Gigan, who receives perhaps the most attention
and certainly causes the most devastation. Gigan
has a breathtaking entrance in Antarctica (predating
the bird-like cyborg's somewhat similar reappearance
at the South Pole in Godzilla:
Final Wars) and the tank battle in Russia
(in which the tank commander is named Borodin, perhaps
a reference to the name Borodon, which had been
given to Gigan in the American comic adaptation
of Godzilla
vs. Megalon) is particularly effective,
being my favorite military sequence in the entire
series. As we've come to expect, Cerasini's military
action is outstanding throughout, with fine attention
to the little details that count in a story like
this. Anguirus finally gets his long-awaited rematch
with the buzz saw fowl also, which is a delight
for the fans.
The best qualities of Marc Cerasini's Godzilla
novels are definitely here—the exciting action,
the fine understanding and descriptions of the monsters,
the clever homages to Godzilla films—at one
point, Cerasini even seems to refer to that same
year's Hollywood GODZILLA
(1998) by having a character say, "I guess
size does matter!" But, for whatever reason,
whether from problems in his own plot generation
or editorial control, the story is the messiest
and most absurd yet, hamstrung by cramming in far
too much of everything to the point that even Godzilla
could be skimmed off without a big impact on the
plot. That is a sizable problem for a novel with
Godzilla in the title, but Cerasini's third daikaiju
epic is still worth reading for dedicated fans who
value the things that Cerasini gets right—and
when Cerasini gets things right, he's smashing.
|