In the past we discussed the comic adaptation of Jeremy Robinson’s novel Project Nemesis, this week we’re discussing the series as a whole. Lasting five books with one prequel novel Project Nemesis is a robust Kaiju novel series. The characters go on a huge journey and we are constantly introduced to a bigger cast of characters as the series progresses. For this article, we will be covering the five main novels, as the prequel novel does not feature the titular Nemesis.
The series starts out very simple and has a small cast. Really there are about 7 characters to wrap your head around in the first book.It’s a simple giant monster attack novel with a great cast and some interesting twists. Making Nemesis a godlike creature who has multiple forms and is guided by the soul of a murdered girl works well. Our lead character Jon Hudson is vastly unprepared for what he stumbles upon and is hungover for a big portion of the book early on. This makes his interactions with relatively straight-laced Sheriff Collins entertaining. It never outstays its welcome and has a good hook for a sequel by having antagonist Lance Gordon survive the attack on Boston. Compare this to the final book in the series where there are suddenly multiple alien races, multiple universes, and an alien invasion set to wipe out all planes of Earth instantaneously… however, let us not get too far ahead of ourselves.
The next two books in the series slowly introduce us to new elements and help to establish Katsu Endo as the films primarily anti-hero. Much like Jon Hudson now leads the paranormal branch of Homeland security, Endo works with tech corporation Zoomb to combat the growing Kaiju threat. The books also weave us into one of the main antagonists of the series Darpa, who were responsible for the events of the prequel novel Island 731. Their involvement is mostly behind the scenes and it serves to give us more supernatural characters to our team. Mainly a cat and human hybrid named Lilly who is a constant on Hudsons team from hereon. Hudson becomes more and more prepared to face the growing Kaiju threat and while you lose a bit of the desperation, you still get some damn good instances of Kaiju action. They lay on the direct references hard and fast in this series, always bringing up very specific moments in Godzilla history. The greatest Kaiju battle of the entire series occurs in Book 2, Project Maigo, where there is a five Kaiju brawl in Washington D.C. Kaiju gets impaled on famous monuments and you get a real sense of scale to the fight scenes. Project 731, on the other hand, features Nemesis who has become disconnected with humanity becoming more primal as she battles giant Gieger space bugs who destroy Vegas and Salt Lake City. 731 is where the series main plot throughline calcifies, we finally get a good sense of what Robinson is trying to say.
The main throughline of the series is all about family and how we choose our family. Nearly all of Project Nemesis‘s human cast have had terrible family upbringings. Whether they be an abusive ex-husband, murdered by their father only to come back to life as a giant monster who then spits you out leaving you to pick up the pieces, abusive parental figures, or all other manners of horrific situation Robinson wants to give people hope. These things may happen to you, there may be horrible people in the world, but not everyone is terrible. Hope remains and within that hope, you can create your own family. Family is there to help you depend on one another, to suffer through the storm together rather than alone. Even Anti-Hero and loner Katsu Endo eventually have to meld with Nemesis to co-exist together. No one in Project Nemesis achieves victory on their own.
The final books in the series bring about a new idea and theme. That of what it means to be human. We discover in Project Hyperion that Darpa is run by an alien race who is attempting to manipulate humans to fight alongside them in a war against a competing alien species. Darpa, who has only recently taken up that moniker to work alongside the American government has been shaping humankind since the beginning. The ideals of war were instilled in our species. Most of humanities greatest flaws were due to us being pawns in an alien war. This leads to the ideas of free will being explored thoroughly. The human race must decide its own fate. The ideals of you becoming more than you were originally made for is most openly displayed by the robot Hyperion. Hyperion is a robot created by the Atlanteans to protect and kill the original Nemesis. It requires a host that it bonds with to operate at peak efficiency. Unlike in Nemesis the relationship between host and robot is one of subservience. In the final book of the series Hyperion is given sentience by a cyborg from another dimension (yes the last book is bonkers) and as such he no longer needs a host to operate properly. Hyperion wants to live, deciding to fight alongside the monster it was built to destroy. Just because you were built for war doesn’t mean you have to fight for your creators. Hyperion becomes much more than a war machine as it chooses to make a final sacrifice for humanity to save those who had previously enslaved him. Jon Hudson himself chooses to make a similar sacrifice in the final battle, although both Hudson and Hyperion manage to get saved from their chosen fates.
A criticism that is easy to make with the Nemesis series is the fact that while stakes will always be high, no one ever really pays the ultimate price. Asides from a few minor characters, none of the major players die. In a series about the fate of humanity and the final battle for it, we often get a lot of character death. However in a lot of these stories the human death is pretty predictable and ultimately unsatisfying. In a way, it’s very easy to kill off the main character to inspire the ideals of another. In Project Nemesis, the women are the characters with the most power in their hands. Collins is stronger than Hudson in every way and Maigo/Lilly are the powerhouses of the team in later books. A lesser writer could have easily killed Collins off in the final battle to push forward the ‘mans’ story. Together we survive or together we die.
The Kaiju are the biggest draw for those reading this article. I assure you this series does not disappoint in that department. The Kaiju that appear all have fascinating designs, standing out from any more conventional Kaiju. They will often differ vastly in size and the final books add a human element to the giant monsters by having them be controlled by human hosts. The tiny Kaiju Scrion that Nemesis completely obliterates in the second book becomes absolutely deadly once in the hands of an experienced human combatant during the final battle. The Kaiju all feel very distinct, even though many of them are based on Nemesis’s original design. The battles themselves are detailed in extremely gory detail. Monsters will get ripped in half, have their heads completely bitten off, and they’ll be torn apart if the fight gets to it. For the first two books, all of the Kaiju have names inspired by mythology, but once the alien elements come out in full force we’re given some variation on that principal. Similarly, the colour scheme of the beasts will alter as the creatures get away from their Nemesis origins. Unlike in many long-running stories, Nemesis is never given surprising new powers. What you get in book one, is what you get in the final book. However adding Katsu Endo into Nemesis’s physiology does change the fighting style of the creature, she doesn’t suddenly have a mega beam to annihilate the final boss. In fact, there are no monster beams of any sort in the series. Kaiju fight tooth and nail instead. The closest we get to beam weapons occur when Nemesis takes her more angelic final form, concentrating sunlight to burn her enemies. This final form does not appear often, so, for the most part, it is physical. The Nemesis and Nemesis inspired Kaiju all to have yellow membranes which can cause massive explosions. These can occasionally be thrown which leads to some unique scenarios in later books.
The inherent complexity of later books should invalidate the series. It should be too much. However, somehow Robinson pulls it off. While listening or reading the series you’ll be struck by the inherent wackiness of it all. Somehow you are fully invested in this sentient robot who just dealt with the other world cyborg, a cyborg that spends most of his time-fighting robot zombies. The final book adds an intense array of new characters and dimensions. You’ll fall in love with all of them, finding yourself at the edge of your seat for their entire journey. Unfortunately, certain characters do occasionally fall in the background, never to be fully fleshed out. The 2nd book in the series has Jon Hudson permanently alter the personality of the President of the United States, turning him into a heroic leader as opposed to his true cowardly nature. For the rest of the series, you will get hints about the fact that the president is in Hudson’s pocket but you never deal with the full ramifications of his actions.
If you’re a Kaiju fan this series will hook you instantly. I flew through these books at record times via audible and I found myself with a big smile on my face the whole time. It is pulpy fun mixed with some very heartfelt moments. Project Nemesis is not without intellectual heft, so no matter your reasons for picking up the series you will leave happy. Jeremy Robinson proves himself a great storyteller, who has the ability to brilliants wrap up a complex narrative in a satisfactory way.
