"Remember when you interviewed, and you were asked what you thought about science fiction? ... 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."
Jamie is working for a food-delivery startup in New York City when the pandemic hits. Cue Jamie's demotion to deliverator (one of several nods to Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash) and Jamie struggling to make ends meet. Luckily, one of Jamie's clients is an old friend, and offers Jamie a job 'working with large animals'. The animals are indeed large; they do not inhabit the same Earth as Jamie; and their improbable biology is lovingly explored by Scalzi, who says in the Afterword that he thinks of this novel as a 'three minute pop song' to put a smile on the reader's face. I found it vastly enjoyable in a very geeky (or nerdy) way: plenty of genre references, a gleeful mashup of 'real' science and wild speculation, evil billionaires with selfish goals, and a diverse cast of, mostly, scientists. (Jamie, who's there to lift things, is the odd one out, having only a masters in science fiction.)
I was trying to work out what the actual plot reminded me of, and my conclusion is that it's a typical children's / YA adventure story: plucky kids -- or in this case newbies, the four most recently-recruited employees -- team up with a maverick pilot to save the world. But really this is a novel about friendship, and geekery, and pheremones, and what it says on the cover. (Oh, and the epic romance of Edward and Bella.) Vastly enjoyable, very funny -- mostly because of the dialogue -- and a great antidote to pandemic-related woes.
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