Nemesis, winged tilter of scales and lives, justice-spawned Goddess with sinister eyes! Thou bridlest evil men who roil in vain against thy Adamantine rein.”
– Hymn to Nemesis, Mesomdese of Crete
Literature is one of, if not THE oldest method of telling a story. Watch any movie or television show, and I bet you’ll find at least a few of them were adapted from the pages of a novel, not from the pages of a script. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the various works of Stephen King and his family, you name it. Since the first written accounts of humanity, stories have been told through countless generations about every kind of hero, God, and especially, monsters.
There’s something about monster stories that we love to reminisce about again and again. From the great fire-breathing dragons of Arthurian legend to the mishmash animals like the Griffor manticore, beasts inhabit and captivate our imaginations. However, there is one brand of monster we have been astonished and continue to be captivated by for all of time: the Kaiju. It means “strange beast” in Japanese, often depicting a giant creature rampaging through a city in Asia or the United States. With movies like Pacific Rim, Cloverfield, Rampage, Colossal, and the Hollywood Monsterverse, the term kaiju is now a widely used word in describing a giant monster. We all know about one particularly famous kaiju, the King himself, Godzilla, whom over the past nearly seventy years of his existence has wowed audiences across the world with his epic fights and goofy storylines.
But would you believe me when I say that there aren’t many books about Kaiju?
Don’t get me wrong, there are books out there about giant monsters. Godzilla has had his share of novels, including his original novella adaptations finally translated into English, but there are just about a handful in the “Kaiju Thriller” genre specifically. Outside of Godzilla-related mediums, it’s mostly relegated to a few comics and novels. But there was one book that paved the way for all the others, one book that set the example of how to write a kaiju novel, and would be praised by its fans as the ultimate mix between Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, Frankenstein Conquers the World, War of the Gargantuas, and Jaws!
I’m talking about Project Nemesis by Jeremy Robinson, of course!
Robinson is a prolific science fiction and thriller author who has written over a bazillion books over the span of over 30 years. Beginning his career as a comic book illustrator, he later shifted gears and became a writer. Jeremy started by doing screenplays and then novels, being featured in multiple anthology books such as Snafu, and even getting to work on Godzilla himself with issue one of Rage Across Time, published by IDW. He also published various books under different names like Jeremy Bishop and Jeremiah Knight, if you know where to look. If you read his bio on his website, Beware The Monsters, you’d find he would be someone you’d want to hang out with! Jeremy cites growing up with sci-fi classics such as Doctor Who, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, X-Men, and Godzilla. However, before 2012, he had never once thought about writing a kaiju novel until his frequent collaborator and editor, Kane Gilmour, suggested doing a novel in the same vein as Godzilla. Taking inspiration from Greek tragedies, he got to work drafting a complete book, hired on famed kaiju illustrator Matt Frank (who needs no introduction) to create the design of his titular kaiju and all the other monsters featured in the series, named her after the Greek and Roman goddess of vengeance and justice, and thus, Nemesis was born.
I remember hearing about the Nemesis Saga from a YouTube video by the Monstrosities channel and fell in love with the premise. This was the first time I’ve ever heard of published kaiju fiction and I was getting into reading at night since entering high school. I got all 4 books at the time, with the fifth one which was soon to be released at the time, to say I fell in love with these books would be an understatement. These books were just top-tier awesome in my young opinion, I had read plenty of books leading up to that, but at the time and for many years after, I would say these were some of my favorites growing up. I got my dad to read them and we would just talk about them for hours. It even prompted me to do my own blog-style post review on my Facebook, much to the chagrin of my friends and family.
For a time, Robinson became something of a favorite author, I bought a good chunk of his novels, from the “first” novel in the Unity series that never made it past the first book, to Island 731, the official prequel to Project Nemesis and whose characters and plot points mingle with the rest of the series. Some of them I’ve kept over the years, others I’ve had to give away to friends or used bookstores to make way for new books. Many of Robinson’s books are fantastic and I highly recommend them to any new readers looking for some out-of-this-world sci-fi.
Much has changed since then. I’m now an adult, almost ten years older than I was when I first read these books. I still regard them as recommended reads, but I’ve read other books by other authors who have made me laugh, cry, or had frustrated me to the point where I didn’t finish the book. A book that has 5 stars on Amazon could be a piece of crap, but a book that’s been torn apart by critics could be the best thing I’ve ever read. My expectations for a book have changed as with much in my personal life. But that twinge of nostalgia is still there in me, and with the reboot of Nemesis on the horizon (which I will forever call Shin Nemesis because I can), it’s time to dust off the old book and give it another look almost 10 years later. Has my opinion of the books improved or will I be an old cynic who will find nothing but flaws?
Let’s find out and dig into Project Nemesis!
We start the novel with two prologues, a rarity for books to have.
The first prologue takes place five years in Alaska during a military training exercise. We meet Master Sargent Lenny Wilson and Corporal Endo Katsu, a Japanese soldier on loan from the JSDF in a foreign exchange program, taking part in a militarized version of hide and seek, using the heavy snow as cover. Wilson, as we find out, is something of a racist, constantly calling Endo “Ketchup” and going as far as calling the Japanese military a vassal army to the US. I’m not going to even begin to go into how wrong that is and just continue. They get caught by the other team and start heading higher into the mountain ridge until Endo falls into a hole. After a minute, Wilson goes down into the hole, where it leads them into a deep, dank, super freaking cold cave. But instead of finding Gollum and playing riddles in the dark, Endo lights up a flare, and to his and his partner’s shock and amazement, finds the skeletal remains of a kaiju.
We will later learn that this kaiju will be dubbed Nemesis Prime by our heroes, considered the sort of progenitor of the monster we’ll see soon. After this discovery and reporting it to the Pentagon, the two return to Prime’s tomb with General Lance Gordon who instructs them that any record and reports they’ve made have been wiped and they’ll be staying here for the next few years. Endo doesn’t have a problem with it, but Wilson takes issue with this and says he’ll be heading home in a few weeks. The General, wanting this under wraps, hands Endo his sidearm and kills Wilson for it, making them the only people who know of this.
The second prologue takes place a few weeks before, the first with the murder of a little girl, Maigo Tilly, in the penthouse suite of the Clarendon Bay Building in Boston. Officially, she was the unfortunate part of a murder-suicide by her mother who used her husband’s handgun. She lays on the kitchen floor, her Hello Kitty backpack covered in blood, as the light leaves her eyes. This single act of tragedy and betrayal has set off a chain reaction, a domino effect, which will cause thousands of deaths and mass destruction.
I must say the second prologue is really my favorite of the two. While the first sets up the kaiju aspects, the second echoes the Greek tragedy nature intended by the author, and really is the driving moment behind everything else in the book. Greek tragedies had always had that defining moment that kickstarts the events of the story like a domino effect. And as the Joker once said, it only takes one bad day to turn the sanest man to lunacy. I have to say this is Maigo’s bad day.
In the woods of Willowdale, Maine, we met our protagonist, Jon Hudson, an agent for Homeland Security’s Paranormal Division Fusion Center-P. A Fusion Center, for those who are unaware, is a government agency that shares information with other centers to prevent criminal activity and terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security was made in the wake of 911 to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, and one of those threats on the list is apparently the paranormal, particularly Bigfoot, which is the reason why Hudson is here. I could make a joke about the danger of Sasquatch to the US, but considering what happened in Max Brooks’ Devolution it’s a plausible scenario they might attack if provoked. You know what they say about Wookies and arms. Speaking of very hairy things, Hudson arrives at this cabin in the woods that belongs to the parents of one of his teammates, Ted Watson, who’s loaning it while he’s up there and he finds out a family of bears has taken up residence. Damn squatters!
After a kerfuffle with mama bear and babies, Hudson manages to scare them off with a gunshot after they wreck Betty up. Betty is his truck who he named after his ex-girlfriend. Anyway, after an evening of drinking most of his beer and getting crap-faced drunk, Hudson is rudely awakened by both the pounding on the door and the pounding in his head. As he opens the door, he meets our female protagonist, the gorgeous “strip-o-cop” (book’s words not mine) Sheriff Ashley Collins, who’s there to help with the Bigfoot sightings. She’s nice but like a lot of female cops is pretty stern and rough around the edges when we first meet them.
We cut over to a secret laboratory owned by the company BioLance, where Dr. Elliot had been unsuccessful in her experiments to grow and harvest organs and regenerate limbs using a form of cloning technology. Her research is funded by, of course, General Gordon. Gordon gives her a vial of clear liquid and says that it’s DNA, and that she’s required to grow an entire human being using said DNA in less than two days all on her own. She’s pretty baffled and tries to reason with him but Gordon wouldn’t hear of it. After injecting an embryo with the mysterious genetic material, the doctor and general are both shocked that the newly formed person has grown from a fetus to a seven-month-old in just a few hours. In more time, the clone quickly starts growing from childhood to adolescence before looking like an 18-year-old in no time.
So who is the genetic donor? They couldn’t have just grown a person from nothing. The answer could only be seen as a twist of fate: Maigo Tilly.
Dr. Elliot explains how she has a contact at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which she’s also doing research for. After the gunshot, Maigo was rushed to the hospital and put on life support and assumably taken off at the request of her father, her only living relative. Unclear if her body was to be donated to science or not, what’s more BioLance got their hands on a sample of her DNA and thus used it to make a clone of her. Gordon is pleased with this especially after he learns that a bit of his DNA was put in the clone as well, revealing that he is going to use Maigo’s clone as an organ donor for his own weak heart, he has cardiomyopathy, a chronic heart disease. I’m sure this breaks more than a ton of genetic engineering laws but bad guys will be bad guys.
However as the clone matures, her last growth spurt developed a long-segmented tail and clawed feet. Whatever was in that vial of clear liquid is doing something with the genetic structure of the clone. Gordon could care less about it and orders the surgery to begin. Elliot removes the heart and transplants it to the general, who feels insanely powerful and vital. Nothing like a new heart to make a 50-year-old army General feel 30 years young. When asked what to do with the clone, who had seemingly died with the whole heart removal thing, General Gordon orders her to get rid of her. But as Dr. Elliot goes to the facilities morgue, the tail starts to rise from the slab and impales her through the heart xenomorph style.
Turns out Maigo isn’t quite as dead as we’ve been led to believe.
Back with Hudson and Collins, they go to the house of Mr. Johnson, a local man who had called Collins a few times previously about Sasquatch sightings. He explains last night he heard someone rummaging through his woods and saw something that walked bipedally. Hudson, saying he’s with Fish and Wildlife Services and not a paranormal investigation, tells him they will take a look around the area. They head into the woods and soon find a chain-link fence with razor wire and a rusted sign that states “US army, restricted area, no trespassing”. It could have been a Nike Site, which were military Air Force bases that were scattered across the Coasts to prevent another Pearl Harbor, but this is Maine we’re talking about and it’s way too far away from the nearest ocean. Suddenly the pair come face to face with a guy who is clearly too dressed for the weather and talking in a way that is so out of place in this part of the States.
They tell him they were investigating the bear sittings, playing the Fish and Wildlife Services card, but the clearly not an undercover soldier isn’t buying it so the pair leave. Only to find Mr. Johnson shot and killed by a sound suppressed weapon. Hudson and Collins find themselves in the middle of a chase, as the faux redneck brings his buddies and start shooting at them. After a tussle down a ledge and shooting some of them, our heroes see smoke billowing in the distance. They go over in the direction of the smoke and find some of the undercover soldiers eaten and torn to pieces. It’s obvious to Hudson it’s not a bear and it’s big, leaving large chunks of molting skin. As the two make it to the facility, the thing that has left a slew of bodies and destruction comes back and let me tell you she is still hungry. Hudson and Collins are chased once again, this time by a creature with glowing yellow membranes all over her. And yes, it is a “her”. Maigo’s clone, thanks to the kaiju DNA, has begun mutating into a monster forever known as Nemesis, as written in Greek on the wall next to the late Dr. Elliot in blood.
I’d like to take a moment and just gush over Nemesis’s whole design. As stated in the beginning, Matt Frank needs no introduction to the community, being one of, if not the, premier kaiju artists within our fandom. Being the artist for many of IDW’s Godzilla comics, including various covers and the Rulers of Earth run, as well as writing his own Gamera comic chronicling the final days of Atlantis (now considered canon by Kadokawa Films) and of course being a prolific artist who’s collaborated with Robinson and doing all of the kaiju art. With the long neck and adjoining membranes, Nemesis closely resembles Dinozaur from Ultraman Mebius, but more humanoid and to a certain extent limber with how lanky her arms and legs are, almost feline in appearance. Complete with a tail ending in a spiked trident and you got something that would be a perfect kaiju suit for an actor to wear (if not a bit too heavy it’d need the help of a crane). My only complaint with the design is a minor with Nemesis having a more humanoid face in her second form but it’s short lived and only for a few chapters. It’s supposed to be a transitional point for Nemesis from beauty to horrifying, but it’s not really for me.
Fun fact! In a few AMAs, Robinson has stated that Nemesis’s design was inspired by the Xenomorph from Alien. You can actually see the influences in the armor and tail without directly ripping the design completely off. It’s super cool and iconic in its own right. There is also a cover for the comic book miniseries that depicts this more clearly.
Back to the story, our heroes are being chanced across the BioLance facility before they make it into the Morgue and hide in a corpse cooler. Sure hope someone cleaned those before Hudson and Collins hopped into them. Nemesis follows them and sniffs around, looking for them. After a while she gives up, probably mistaking their smell as same as the corpses in the base, and eventually leaves entirely. Hudson and Collins explore the place and make no mistake it’s just trashed; bodies half eaten, scarring up the walls, this place needs a lot of tender love and care after the rampage its seen. Hudson calls Watson and Cooper in their HQ in Beverly, and I got to say these two will go through so much in these books but in a positive way. Their relationship will grow over time to the point that their own son will be involved but that’s for another time. He sends them the pictures of the blood stained name and translates it as Nemesis in Greek, and quickly realize this is a threat that could put thousands in harm’s way, meaning the monster hunt has escalated from Bigfoot to kaiju.
Anyway, Hudson orders the two to get in contact with every authority in Maine, the local P.D. within a thirty mile radius, state police, national guard, you name it bring everyone short of the armed forces as they could, going so far as to tell them to lie. I’m not sure he could do that but given the situation a little fib wouldn’t hurt. Just as Hudson asks for a helicopter a gun is placed to the back of his head and told to turn slowly. The guy pointing the gun is of course Katsu Endo, who tells them they are quite resourceful for Fish and Wildlife Services and a town Sheriff. As they explain they had been searching for Chewbacca’s wayward cousin and how their personnel have been said cousin, getting calls for months, they introduce themselves properly as government officials.
Endo lowers his weapon and is quite cooperative until General Gordon enters the picture (they had been in hiding from Nemesis during her initial rampage) and starts mumbling about how he can feel Nemesis pulling him south, seemingly delusional. That cooperation from Endo is quickly thrown out the window when his boss tells them to kill them. Collins and Endo start shooting at each other while the latter makes for the stairway heading to the roof. Hudson and Gordon get into it but punching the old general is like punching concrete and he’s launched back with a single punch. Never underestimate the elderly, kid. The two follow them up to the roof where Endo triggers explosions just as his and Gordon’s helicopter lifts off and leaves. As the building explodes and crumbles underneath them, a second helicopter saves them just in the nick of time. Get used to this “nick-of-time” parts, they happen a lot of the time in this book. Not complaining here but it can be annoying for some people.
We meet our mystery pilot, a fellow named Woodstock. I love Woodstock. He’s that veteran type character who is always cool to hang out with. He’s also brought a machine gun mounted in the door, so he’s always prepared. Searching for a kaiju is an oddly hard task in itself. The forest is way too thick in this to search on the ground so they do a perimeter sweep. Hudson, meanwhile, converses with Watson on any information he had on what Gordon was saying and the facility. According to his search, Lance Gordon is retired and has been consulting for a private sector called Zoomb, who dabble in space research, deep-sea exploration, and weapons development particularly for robotics and bio-tech. The biotech in particular is where BioLance comes from, who uses the Nike Site as a laboratory for their search.
This is where I have to comment about the whole BioLance situation. This is pretty much the beginning and end for them in this continuity. They do come back a little but not in a substantial form if memory serves me correctly. Which is kind of disappointing for me because I particularly love the themes of bioengineering in science fiction, of having genetically engineered monstrosities or a clone army. Just imagine the possibilities for something like this, especially seeing how the DNA of Nemesis Prime is so potent it completely changes a person’s appearance and physiology. They kind of do that in Project 731, but not really and that’s for another time. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, mind you, and I’m not complaining, the story Robinson has told is phenomenal and I’ll praise him for his creativity. In fact it’s probably better that he didn’t go this route, to prevent it from becoming predictable.
Back to the story. Jon asks Watson about Maigo, whom Gordon was talking about, and says he only found the meaning of the word, “lost child” in Japanese. He tells him to get the FBI on BioLance’s office in Boston and step on any toes I’d he has too just as Collins tells him she’s found something.
They spot what looks to be a charred area of knocked over trees. Woodstock sets down in a nearby clearing and Hudson and Collins go to investigate the site of a charred skeleton of someone flash cooked in place pointing a melted gun at something high above her. We had a few chapters previous that showed Nemesis’s rampage across the forests of Maine, one of which was of a couple going camping and who subsequently spotted a bear running in the opposite direction. The boyfriend was skewered in half and the girlfriend, pissed and horrified, takes out the hunting rifle and…well you can guess what happened.
As if on cue, Nemesis comes charging out of the tree line like that Carnotaurus from Disney’s Dinosaur. They run like hell into the helicopter, and Collins gets to work using that big o’ machine gun, hitting one of the yellow membranes along her neck and causing an explosion out of nowhere. We’ll get back to this. With the crew a little shaken up, they land the helicopter (which was also damaged in the blast) and they drive off to the nearest town to the south, Ashton, which is having a huge farmers parade. They land at the Sheriff’s Station where they drive Collins’ car, a mustang, which is a fairly nice model considering her job in Podunk country. When Hudson pressed her about her skills and the car, she quickly shoots him down and they drive like nuts.
But it’s too late, as the town is completely destroyed and the citizens in Nemesis’s stomach. Save for a lone survivor, a little girl. Also, Nemesis is in the town snacking on the remnants of the townspeople.
Hudson jumps to the rescue, running through the carnage left behind by the looming Nemesis. It seems she’s gotten a lot bigger since they say her in the lab, probably thanks in part to her rapid growth and metabolism, though Hudson thinks it adding the biomass of each of its meals. Good thinking and given what this thing is its logical. They get into Collins’ car and pull a full 90 miles per hour, losing a fender in the jaws of death.
Meanwhile with Gordon and Endo (yeah, I forgot to mention all of the books are mostly in first person, namely Hudson’s, but sometimes switches to third person whenever we’re following someone else. It’s a curious, if a little tricky, method of storytelling but I’m game!) arriving in Boston at the BioLance headquarters. They’re followed by the FBI before leading them into the underground parking lot and Gordon pushes the card door, throwing it at them with ease, as Endo fights the rest. As his henchman deals with them, Gordon takes a gun and threatens an agent, asking who requested to bring the General in. Said agent, while begging for his life, says he only got a letter, P, for Fusion Center-P. Gordon kills him like an a-hole, much to Endo’s shock, who oddly enough starts developing a conscience in spite of going along with him for most of this crazy ride.
We soon start seeing that played out as Gordon goes through the HQ and killing everyone, even the receptionist who was just doing her job. Endo says that he’s not opposed to killing but he doesn’t do it indiscriminately like his boss, who’s just tossing people around with his bare hands. They crash into the office of the CEO of BioLance, a fella named Paul Stanton, who is understandably scared out of his mind as Gordon tears his door down. He shows off his new strength thanks to the heart, demanding to tell him what they know about the fossil of Nemesis Prime. Paul confirms the fact that they suspect that Prime is from outer space and that they found mummified human corpses in her stomach, suggesting she ate humans exclusively. Just as Gordon is about to shoot the man for no reason Endo says enough is enough and puts the gun to his ex-boss’s head.
Before he could shoot him, General Gordon leaps from the window and lands on top of a car, completely unscathed. Except his skin is showing signs of change, resembling Nemesis’s armor. And for his troubles, the guy whose car he landed on gets his face punched in by Gordon. If you haven’t guessed by now, Gordon is a dick. Endo then swears his loyalty to the CEO.
Back over to our heroes, they deliver the frightened girl, Joy, her name is, to her softball coach who was in the process of gathering people in his bunker. Woodstock comes back after his distraction, luring Nemesis away from the Mustang before she continues southwards. They head out, landing in front of a huge roadblock highway with at least a hundred national guard soldiers and FBI armed to the teeth. As Hudson and Collins get off the helicopter, now christened Helicopter-Betty, we meet the director for Boston’s branch of DHS, Rod Cugliari, a guy as dickish as his name suggests and he is pissed off something fierce. Rod thinks it’s a bad PR move to mobilize half of the law enforcement in the area, saying it’s one of the biggest assemblies of emergency personnel since 911. Hudson tries to explain this is a paranormal threat that only Fusion Center-P has Authority in, and shocked that his heavy-duty units aren’t here because Rod the fool thought it wasn’t necessary. Their spat is interrupted by an agent who has satellite images from the attack on Ashton.
As Hudson tries to tell Rod to put on that logic cap of his and evacuate the people in the next town over, they pickup the smell of vinegar, the aroma Nemesis seems to give off. Everyone has their smell, I guess. They use the satellite images on their position. Seeing nothing, they turn on the infrared and spot an enormous red dot right next to them. Like a lion hunting deer, Nemesis springs to action, now with her less human face if you are going by the comic. With Rod running for the hills like a craving coward, Hudson takes command of the small army and tells them to shoot at her legs. However her armor is way too strong for bullets. She quickly makes work of them, thrashing around, sending trucks flying and people being killed one after another. Collins would have been one of those casualties if not for Hudson saving her at the last minute.
That last minute saved them from Captain Dumbass McGee as he shoots at one of the membranes, rupturing it and causing an explosion.
Unlike many Kaiju who use some form of breath attack, Nemesis is unique in that she doesn’t really possess that ability. Her membranes are filled with a highly combustible liquid that, when comes into contact with air, causes a huge explosion. I think it’s a cool attack, if anything it harkens to her Xenomorph inspiration’s acid for blood while not taking exact reference makes it original enough. To quote Parker from that movie: it’s got a wonderful defense mechanism. You dare don’t kill it.
After getting picked up by Woodstock, Hudson and Collins are taken to the Crow’s Nest, Fusion Center-P’s base of operations in Beverly, Massachusetts. Hudson, who was hurt pretty badly, was out for the last two hours and boy oh boy has a lot happened. Heading downstairs, he sees the team gathered around a news report of Nemesis attacking Portland, Main with thousands dead and more missing. She has since disappeared into the ocean. Our heroes are naturally concerned and have everyone on high alert for the kaiju. Watson goes on to tell Hudson about who Nemesis really is, the late Maigo Tilly which we already know but it turns out the DNA linking the two have somehow hybridized with the alien DNA taking president. It turns out there are two people living in Nemesis’s head, one of the avenging goddess who exclusively ate people and sought retribution on anyone, the other of a little girl who wants vengeance for her death, seeking out any wrong including, in one scene, attacking a party boat because a guy couldn’t take a hint that the lady, he was hitting on wasn’t interested. Who, trying to escape the carnage, was eaten herself.
In fact, in the legend and it’s the same in this situation, Nemesis will go after wrong doers while protecting the innocent. But even then the innocent are liable for any wrong doing they’ve committed in the past or simply allowing said wrong doing to happen in the first place. It’s a kind of original sin type deal. We’re all on the chopping block. And that ain’t the crazier thing.
It turns out this monster has something of a human soul, feeling remorse for the people she’s killed and eaten. It’s a constant tug of war and she’s often at odds with herself. Now this is where things kind of get a bit head scratching, at least for me. I’m willing to go along with most Science Fiction plots where they border on ludicrous, in this example the fact DNA has memory. Technically this is not Maigo, or more specifically not the Maigo who died a week ago. This is her clone. In most media, say in Star Wars the Clone Wars, the clones didn’t have the personality, behavior, or memories of their template/progenitor Jango Fett, and all of them had individual personalities. But here and as the books progress, we see this Maigo having the memories and personality of her “mother.” It’s really nothing to complain about, in fact I think it’s cool, so I’ll just say it could be a combination of the Prime DNA and a form of genetic memory, which is a real thing.
Back to the plot, as Watson tells Hudson about the training exercise Gordon and Endo were last seen at in the military records, they get a call about a sighting at a beach. Hudson, Collins, and Woodstock go to investigate it off of West Beach and find two things: a whale carcass with an enormous bite taken out of it and the husk of Nemesis. She is not dead, she’s just molting as she grows. As Hudson takes pictures, Collins pulls out her gun and shoots at the thing, remarking how the skin is like Kevlar. I mean that’s one way to test out a theory.
As the morning comes, Hudson stays up all night for any leads on the monster’s whereabouts. Watson and Cooper show them what they’ve found satellite images of the Alaska dig site, where they have been excavating Nemesis Prime’s remains and transporting them to a super-secret location.
Again, as I’ve stated earlier, it’s a bit disappointing we never get to see the use of Prime’s DNA in any meaningful capacity. But, given what happens in the next books, it may have been for the best. We’ll never know.
Collins, who decided to sleep, comes into the room, and gets the morning call from her, and subsequently the whole crew’s, life. Nemesis, now standing at her max height of 320 feet or 97 meters, rises from the harbor of Beverly and begins her assault on the town. But this isn’t some mindless attack, she’s clearly looking for someone or something, her targets being specifically rich condos. Hudson gets Coop to call the Navy and Air Force, he sees that the jig is up and hops into Helicopter Betty. But as they shoot and dodge her attacks, Nemesis feels a force tugging her away from Beverely and towards the sea, exactly when Gordon, who is still in Boston and mutating, feels the same force drawing him to the Clarendon High Rise building…the same place Maigo was murdered. Back at the ranch, the military arrives and in typical Toku movie fashion starts shooting at Nemesis, who is instantly pissed off. The problem is the area is still heavily populated and has no time to evacuate. Hudson, not being an idiot, tells the commanding officer to hold his fire when a ballistic missile hits one of Nemesis’s membranes and, you guessed it, blows up. The blast is nothing to scoff at, coupled with the yield of a missile, and everything in the area (save for our heroes) are cooked to a crisp. Nemesis recovers and heads back into the sea, but not before she destroys a submarine. She doesn’t eat any of the sailors, the pull becoming even more overwhelming.
Hudson and the gang watch over the now-ruined city of Beverly until they get a heads up on Gordon popping up and holding a hostage on the roof of the Clarendon Building. Hudson puts two and two together and hops back into Helicopter Betty in a fancy prototype suit just as Nemesis resurfaces in Boston. Unfortunately, it’s just her and not fighting King Ghidorah, Rodan, and Mothra in a torrential rainstorm caused by the space dragon.
Her rampage begins just as the President goes “screw it!” and sends every military asset they have to Nemesis. As she swats helicopters like flies, pieces of her skin start flaking off and she goes through the buildings like tissue paper. Hudson, in his new prototype suit, jumps out of the helicopter and glides on built-in fins like a flying squirrel. He laments how instead of enjoying a nice lazy drive in Truck Betty, he’s maneuvering buildings as a kaiju rampages through town. He gets to the Clarendon Building and kicks Gordon, who’s giving me mad Greedling vibes with the trench coat and clawed hands now darkened, scared in his face. Gordon offers him a chance to leave but Hudson refuses. Meanwhile, Collins arrives at the building with some pretty powerful guns and runs into Endo. He doesn’t shoot her and instead joins her. Why? Because he’s not doing this for Gordon. In fact this whole time he’s been devoted to Nemesis, a kaiju like the ones from the movies he watched as a kid. He has sworn fealty to Stanton for the sole purpose to learn everything about Nemesis because of his youth. Yup, he’s a kaiju groupie.
I’ll get into that later.
The two meet up with Hudson who’s just getting tossed around by Gordon, now becoming more monstrous as the actual monster gets closer and closer. Funny enough, Nemesis gets so pissed off at how many buildings are in her way she punctures one of the membranes on her chest and blows up a path only to get a falling building on top of her in the process. One of those days, am I right? Meanwhile, the trio are still on the ropes until Collins pulls out a .50 caliber handgun and shoots his eye out, Hudson takes the gun and it does enough damage to Gordon where he falls off the side of the build and creates a huge creator. And it’s here we finally meet Maigo’s murderer. In my original review all those years ago, I neglected to reveal his identity. Now I see it as quite redundant seeing as I’ve pretty much spoiled everything else up to this point so I might as well go right ahead.
Maigo’s killer is her father, Alexander Tilly, a Boston Elite. He had suspected his wife was cheating on him and concocted a plan to kill his wife and frame it as a murder until little Maigo came home early and became collateral. All the death and destruction were caused by this greedy man who killed his wife and daughter (sometimes stepdaughter but it’s not clear at times) for almost no reason other than she was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.
As he’s pleading for his life and Nemesis is literally on top of them, Hudson tells Collins and Endo, who had disappeared, to get to the chopper. He holds Alexander Tilly to the ledge and calls for Nemesis, only to remember that wasn’t her real name. Her name is Maigo, the Lost Child. Her attention grabbed; Nemesis sheds her armor for her final form. A pure white creature with ten crystalline wings that reflects pure sunlight into deadly beams of energy. Those beams vaporize her father and strafe across the city for miles, almost hitting the helicopter and Hudson who is now gliding for her life. However, this final form of Nemesis’ trades defense for offense, necessitating her to return back into the ocean as the military starts firing at her.
A month has passed since the battle of Boston, with an estimated 13 thousand people having lost their lives in the attacks. However, through some unknown means a tremendous decrease in crime has been reported, with people thinking if they play nice Nemesis won’t return. Gee, I sure hope a deranged cult doesn’t spring up in the ruins of Boston and start sacrificing people in Nemesis’s name! Wouldn’t that be crazy!
Collins had left her job as the sheriff and joined up with Fusion Center-P full-time, even forming a romantic bond with Hudson as they tag Bigfoot at last. Nothing says romantic like shooting a Sasquatch in the behind. Meanwhile, in Alaska, two Investigators had arrived at the dig site for Nemesis Prime, only to be killed and eaten by a now Nemesis-ified Gordon…and five Nemesis-like creatures or to be more accurate, her siblings.
The novel ends with Nemesis sleeping at the bottom of the ocean, dreaming of a little girl and her mother in better times while feeling the heart-breaking suffering of humanity, promising her return!
Project Nemesis is a fun read! Full of thrills and wanton destruction, this is the book many Kaiju Thrillers are compared with and for good reason. This feels like a kaiju book made for fans and by a fan who, like many giant monster lovers, grew up watching all the best and often goofy Godzilla, Gamera and others like it. Throughout the review I struggle to find anything wrong with this book, probably due to my own personal nostalgia. There are no major spelling errors aside from the odd missing quotation or a missing letter, but nothing too extreme which should be expected from Robinson’s experience in writing fantastic science fiction. The only real problem is the characters, the human ones, being somewhat black and white; the good guys are good because they are good, the bad guys are bad because they are bad. That’s probably the most tokusatsu thing about this book aside from the monster herself.
Gordon is the biggest example of this. He’s evil with no shades of gray and slowly becomes more monstrous in both his actions and appearance as the story progresses. I’ve always loved villains regardless of this so I don’t mind it, but I would have liked a more fleshed out reason for why he’s like this, specifically what gave him the idea to mix human and kaiju DNA together. According to the conversation with Paul Stanton, it wasn’t like he was told this would work or forced to blend the DNA together, he had a bad heart and needed a reason to live and here we are. Still, for what it’s worth, he was still entertaining to follow and see him delve deeper into madness.
Endo is a wildcard for many readers for his wavering loyalties and skills as an assassin. There are times you imagine him like a Hitman, just walking through security with gun-fu and not being hurt. However, this is where he’ll make or break your impression of him in his loyalty to Nemesis. At times, his motivations are driven purely by his admiration for Nemesis, who reminds him of all the giant monster movies he used to watch. And to be fair, if I were in his place seeing a real-life giant monster rampaging across the country, I’d be the same. This would be the equivalent of a kid waking up at Christmas and getting everything I had asked Santa for, minus the urban destruction and death toll in the thousands. However, he’s less Newt from Pacific Rim, who would gush at seeing rare Kaiju remains, and more subdued. For being associated with a nutjob and being enamored with a monster, he’s not without a conscience as mentioned when Gordon was on a rampage at Zoomb HQ. It’s almost like he has a Bushido kind of code of honor. And while he doesn’t necessarily join the good guys immediately, he’s no longer an enemy, thankfully because he would probably kick everyone’s ass.
If I’m being honest, if there was one character that I hope makes a return in the new reboot novel besides Nemesis, Katsu Endo would have to be it.
As for our heroes at Fusion Center-P, they’re alright. I wouldn’t say they’re bad protagonists, in fact they’re some of Robinson’s best cast of characters from his many books. Hudson in particular is considered a favorite in the fan base. It’s hard not to see why, he’s a good protagonist to follow and I like his personality and his dry wit. There are times when he’s about to die, literally in the jaws of death, and remarks how he was supposed to be looking for Bigfoot and he’s being chased by a thing bred in a mad science experiment. I like how while he is jokey he’s not a complete goofball and will happily take initiative to save lives like ordering that stand or ending the destruction by offering Mr. Tilly over to Nemesis. He’s definitely at his best with Collins, who serves as his second in command of all of the various things that happen in the future. I like Collins, she’s tough, no nonsense and is the only one who can stand toe to toe with Endo for the most part. This was due in part to her ex-husband who was, in her words, psychotic. She became a Sheriff so she wouldn’t go through that ordeal again while helping other people in similar situations. Normally I’m not a fan of this tough girl with a sad backstory trope, but this doesn’t affect Collins as much as you’d think, and in her own words, she’s faced a giant man-eating monster and lived. Her ex is nothing compared to this.
The rest of the cast are cool. Watson and Cooper have always been a cute couple as well as informative Investigators and of course Woodstock is always willing to go with anything no matter how crazy the situation is. But as the Saga continues and the cast gets bigger, they won’t be in the spotlight for much longer.
However the real star of the show is Nemesis, who has the most round of development in the story. I don’t think I need to repeat just how awesome she is, from her story to her design and powers. You really sympathize with the pair’s plight, Maigo with her anger towards the man who killed her and Nemesis being a monstrosity born into a new time and feeling the intense surge of rage of injustice around the world. But this is not the end for either of them.
Project Nemesis was a resounding success that put Robinson on the map for Kaiju fans, arguably one of his most successful books he’s written. At the time of this writing, Nemesis will be returning not just in the pages of a new book but also being adapted for a Sony television show with Chad Stahelski as director and executive producer. As the likes of Godzilla, Gamera, King Kong, Ultraman, Kamen Rider and many more kaiju and tokusatsu enter from one Era to the next, so too does Nemesis. She’s set to exit her Heisei debut and enter the new Reiwa Era at full roaring volume.
See you Space Cowboy!
