Giant Monster Is A Smashing Good Time
Sometimes a good book comes along that laid low on the publicity front. For whatever reason, usually money, these publications don’t receive a great deal of advertising flare and as a result, take on stealth-like characteristics on store shelves. These tend to rely solely on word of mouth, and if the word is mum, there is the unfortunate occurrence that a good story can fall into obscurity. Just before Christmas, I passed on one such hardcover called Giant Monster. The title made no bones about its content as the cover featured a massive footprint with the bloodied, crushed remains of some poor soul. My hands already full with more than I wanted to spend, I passed on this curiousity-arousing book, but had the sense to pick it up on a recent return visit.
As you’ve probably guessed, Giant Monster is not a new release, but by golly this story is just too darn good not to talk about. Brought to us from BOOM! Studios, Giant Monster features some vividly gritty artwork by Nat Jones and a basic yet entertaining story by Steve Niles. Some of you may be familiar with arguably his most popular work, the vampire fright fest known as 30 Days of Night. You can pretty much guess from the title what Giant Monster is about, but there’s a little more to it…okay, not much but that’s what makes this book work, courtesy of Jones and Niles. The story follows space shuttle commander Don Maggert in his departure from an international space station back down to earth. Now Don’s been successful in his career but his marriage leaves something to be desired. Poor guy. Things are about to get a whole lot worse for the astronaut.
After a crash landing in the salty abyss, our giant monster surfaces and the rest is just ‘tears everything to hell’ history. Think of Godzilla but faster and with a lot more blood. The book is a fun, gory read with the anti-hero bashing cities and dining on their citizens. Not car, nor boat, nor plane is safe from this angry red behemoth though the military will try their all to bring down the beast. Strikingly violent, action-packed and even a little tongue-in-cheek at times, Giant Monster is certainly a worthy buy that had this writer reading its pages with anxious delight.
Order Giant Monster today!
From the cover alone, this looks like an interesting read! 🙂
I’m big Steve Niles fan even though he tends to be very hit and miss, still happy to see him get some love. In my opinion “City of Others” and “Wake the Dead” are his best.