Project Nemesis Review (Kaiju Action)

Title: Project Nemesis | Series: Nemesis #1 | Author: Jeremy Robinson | Publisher: Breakneck Media | Pub. Date: 2013-11-21 | Pages: 312 | Genre: Kaiju Sci-Fi Thriller | Language: English | Triggers: None | Source: Kindle Unlimited

Project Nemesis

Jon Hudson, lead investigator for the Department of Homeland Security’s Fusion Center-P, thinks his job is a joke. While other Fusion Centers focus on thwarting terrorist activity, Hudson’s division is tasked with handling paranormal threats to national security, of which there have been zero during his years at the DHS. When yet another Sasquatch sighting leads to a research facility disguised as an abandoned Nike missile site in the back woods of Maine, Hudson’s job becomes deadly serious.

Hudson and the local Sherriff, Ashley Collins, suddenly find themselves on the run from a ruthless ex-Special Forces security team, but the human threat is short-lived as something very much not-human destroys the facility and heads for civilization, leaving only a single clue behind–a name scrawled in blood: Nemesis. Working with his team at Fusion Center-P, Sherriff Collins and a surly helicopter pilot named Woodstock, Hudson pursues the creature known as Nemesis, attempts to uncover the corporate secrets behind its creation and accidental release and tries to comprehend why several clues lead to a murdered little girl named Maigo.

But as the body-count explodes, along with the monster’s size, it quickly becomes clear that nothing short of a full military response can slow Nemesis’s progress. Coordinating with every branch of the U.S. military, Hudson simultaneously searches for clues about Nemesis’s origins and motivations, and leads the counterattack that will hopefully stop the monster before it reaches Boston and its one million residents.

Project Nemesis Review

I avoided picking up Project Nemesis for quite a while because my previous experience with the author (Antarktos Rising) was horrible. However, it was late at night and I was facing a monster-sized anxiety attack over the next day, so I decided to read about an actual monster destroying things. It made perfect sense at that time, and indeed, it actually did manage to calm me down. So… yay for stompy, chompy things in books.

Generally when I start a review like this, talking about how I avoided a book, the next paragraph is me talking about how I absolutely loved the book. I’m aware of that trend in my reviews. I’m breaking it here though. Project Nemesis, whilst considerably better than Antarktos Rising, isn’t precisely noteworthy, though there are a couple of things I liked. Namely, that the female character kicked serious butt, and seeing her come in swinging made me grin with delight. Naturally she was curvy, and beautiful, and yadda-yadda-yadda, but still. Girl could throw a serious punch.  She was an excellent sidekick that saved the main character’s hide almost constantly. Yes, she’s a cliché character, but she’s a fun cliché character!

The main character himself is action-hero ridiculous. There is only a bit of a receding hairline to keep him from being completely typical. He’s pretty much completely unbelievable. Only the fact that he has to keep getting saved by the sidekick and treats his friends well keeps him from being eye-roll worthy. Still, it’s forgivable because Project Nemesis is essentially a Godzilla film in book form. You expect certain levels of stupidity that you can only forgive in this type of book.

The second thing worth talking about is the monster herself in Project Nemesis. Kaiju has its own subgenre, so Robinson’s monster is nothing new. (Neither are the circumstances surrounding the monster’s creation.) However, I liked his fusion of human and monster, and how the creature’s mental state played out in the chomping and stomping that happened.  The development of the creature’s form (and the form itself) was fantastic.

However, Robinson’s writing has a tendency to feel repetitious. This is most often witnessed when he talks about the ‘human looking eyes’ of the monster.  It shows itself in several situations in different ways in Project Nemesis. It’s not so bad as to be word for word (for the most part), but sections do lose their impact for it. Also, the viewpoints. Let me just rant on the viewpoints for a second. Switching between first person present tense and third person is just awkward. I don’t like first person present tense anyways, but sandwiching it with third person just makes the continual re-introduction feel like a slap in the face. Do one, not both. Ugh.

Overall, Project Nemesis was an entertaining read that got my attention almost immediately, and kept it for the entire book. It just lacked a sufficient amount of cheesy one-liners and sparkle to put into the “So bad it’s good” category of epicness. A fun read, but an easy one to forget about. I doubt I’ll continue with the series.