In 1996,
Random House, an American publishing company based
in New York, began to publish, with permission from
Toho Studios, several series of novels based on
the Godzilla series. The company would assign the
novels to different authors for the many different
age groups. In the case of teenagers and above (which
can be considered the main customers of Random House's
Godzilla series), Marc Cerasini, a lifelong fan
of Godzilla and experienced with writing about techno-thrillers
would work on five planed novels.
The first one arrived on bookshelves in 1996 under
the title Godzilla
Returns with a second novel called Godzilla
2000 in 1997. In 1998, Cerasini would publish
two novels in the book series in 1998 with Godzilla
at World's End arriving in the spring and
the fourth book of the series Godzilla vs. the
Robot Monsters hitting bookshelves in July.
Godzilla vs. the Robot Monsters opens alongside
that of Godzilla
at World's End for the first two chapters
then skips to three years later. In the intervening
time-period between the two novels, the nations
of the world have developed huge robots to take
on directly Godzilla and the other kaiju that roamed
the Earth. The robots are none other than Mechagodzilla
(created through a joint American and Japanese project
and piloted by a man who is surprisingly enough
a paraplegic) and Mogeura (created by Russia).
Unknown to all three countries, the damaged body
of King Ghidorah has fallen into the hands of a
fearsome Mongolian warlord. Using advanced technology
acquired by his underlings and the connection that
a mysterious girl has with the three-headed space
monster, the Mongolian warlord transformers King
Ghidorah into Mecha-King Ghidorah.
While the number of monsters in this particular
book is fewer than in the previous novel, there
is still a large group present. Alongside the monsters
already mentioned, Rodan, Anguirus, and Baragon
also join in the carnage unleashed on humanity.
Though the plot is a nicely crafted one as always
by Cerasini, it seems a bit weak in comparison to
his previous three novels. The carnage that Baragon
and, to a lesser extent, Anguirus create takes up
a good portion of the book and Rodan doesn't
really do much in this novel at all. As for Godzilla,
when you read the novel, he barely seems present
at all (he only appears in four scenes, both major
and un-important ones). Despite that, he does a
mostly excellent job as always in creating battle
scenes between humanity and the kaiju. Several battles
in the novel deserve notification like other major
conflicts in the book series. The first one is when
Anguirus tears up Moscow before Mogeura confronts
the beast. The second one is Mecha-King Ghidorah
tearing through the aerial and ground forces of
the world. Finally there is the battle in Tokyo
where Godzilla and Mechagodzilla fight side-by side
against Mecha-King Ghidorah (Mogeura also participates,
but its loyalties eventually turn suspect during
the battle).
As in the previous three novels, Cerasini puts
in a mix of old characters alongside new ones in
this story. While the interaction of the characters
is fine in most cases, there are interactions that
seem odd and feel out of place in a Godzilla novel,
particularly when dealing with Baragon and its victims.
After the novel's conclusion, there is a
small section of the book that lists information
about the monsters that appear in the novel. This
information is somewhat similar to what was found
on the Random House book The
Official Godzilla Compendium.
As always, the book has excellent cover-art done
by Bob Eggleton and for each chapter, there is the
designated symbol of each Toho monster in the book
so as to indicate that the particular monster will
play an important role in the chapter.
Surprisingly this would be the last novel produced
before Random House lost the license to writing
novels about the Godzilla series. As a result, this
would be the final book in the series. Despite its
problems, Godzilla vs. the Robot Monsters
is a nice spot as any to end the book series.
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