Remember Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales, edited by Robert Hood and Robin Pen? It was a much-lauded collection of 26 original giant monster stories — and the anthology ended up winning a Ditmar Award (Australian Hugo) for Best Collection in 2005. I know it’s been a few years now, but the book’s still around and has spawned two sequels — Daikaiju! 2: Revenge of the Giant Monsters and Daikaiju! 3: Giant Monsters vs the World. All were published by Agog! Press in Australia and in conjunction with Prime Books in the US, and are still available on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites, in soft and hardcover.
At the time of publication Daikaiju! was the first original anthology of Really Big Monster stories to appear and it proved a success with fans, even gaining a positive response from literary reviewers who wouldn’t be seen dead watching a giant monster movie.
Now, however, there are other giant monster anthologies appearing. Permuted Press has just released Monstrous: 20 Tales of Giant Creature Terror, edited by Ryan C. Thomas.
The only authors I know are in it are (impressively) Guy N. Smith of the Crabs! books fame, Steve Alten and Cody Goodfellow — the latter of whom was also in Daikaiju!
Well, you certainly can’t have too many giant monster stories, I reckon. I’ll be getting a copy.
But I hope readers won’t forget the Daikaiju! books in the process of plunging into this one.
Hi Robert, you saved me a note!
They’re sure to know about Daikaiju if they read my bio, and they’re sure to flip to it after my story in Monstrous, since it probably won’t make a lick of sense to anyone who hasn’t read Kungmin Horangi, since it’s a sequel (at least as much of a sequel as any Godzilla movie was to its predecessors.)
Ryan had never heard of Daikaiju, but he figured some drastic alternative to the endless hordes of zombie books was in order. The roster is all Yank horror writers, so the tone is much more lurid than your anthos, but I’m confident many who pick up Monstrous will follow the trail back to Daikaiju’s cyclopean outback lair…
And they’ll never be seen again.
Thanks again for doing those books, Robert (and please give me a good long heads up before you do another?)
Thanks,
Cody
Ohh, a sequel. Excellent! Thanks for the rap, Cody. It’s good to see more giant monsters out there and I look forward to getting a copy of “Monstrous”. The “Daikaiju!” books were a terrific project to have undertaken and I’m glad that the deal with Prime Books meant that they are all readily available. Being able to get them in hardcover was a bonus, too. Beautiful!
One of the best things about doing “Daikaiju!”, though, was getting to know a bunch of great folk worldwide who were enthusiasts of this stuff.