2015 Campbell Nominee | Murder World: Kaiju Dawn by Jason Cordova and Eric S. Brown

I hope Murder World: Kaiju Dawn is the worst that Jason Cordova and Eric S. Brown write, because if this is their best, and Cordova is up for the Campbell Award for best new writer, science fiction is seriously hurting for good new authors.

Honestly. I read it because Cordova was nominated for the Campbell Award, but if this is a good representation of Cordova as an author, then I cringe to imagine what his other stories are like. I can only surmise that this is not a good representation…and hope that he has better stuff out there.

Murder World: Kaiju Dawn opens on an a spaceship captain who is something of a scallywag, but lacking all of the amusing characteristics that make scallywags entertaining and endearing. He’s just disgusting, self-interested, and rude. I never quite figured out why I should like him. He isn’t attractive, evidently capable, or even honorable. There’s just no reason to like him. Or believe that anyone would follow him. Heck, I kept expecting his first officer to just knock him off and take over the ship and the job.

The plot left a lot to be desired, too. Talk about predictable…or cliché? Yeah, cliché. And boring. I quit early. Life is just too short.

Look, this is the first thing of Jason’s I’ve looked at, and it felt like a first attempt, a first draft. I’m not sure if the editor published it by accident or if there’s a market out there for kaiju heavy plots (a clue: there is, but even that market deserves a better plot, a likeable (or at least capable) protagonist, and fewer clichés. I’ll give Cordova a second chance, but I’m not sure I can give him a vote for the Campbell this time around. Maybe next year.

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Title: Murder World: Kaiju Dawn
Author: Cordova, Jason and Eric S. Brown
Genre: Science fiction
Publisher: Severed Press
Release Date: May 28, 2014
Format: ebook
Pages: 164

Captain Vincente Huerta and the crew of the Fancy have been hired to retrieve a valuable item from a downed research vessel at the edge of the enemy’s space.
It was going to be an easy payday.
But what Captain Huerta and the men, women and alien under his command didn’t know was that they were being sent to the most dangerous planet in the galaxy.
Something large, ancient and most assuredly evil resides on the planet of Gorgon IV. Something so terrifying that man could barely fathom it with his puny mind. Captain Huerta must use every trick in the book, and possibly write an entirely new one, if he wants to escape Murder World.