Gojiro

A New Age saga about a boy and his obscurely linked monster going to Hollywood to make an eschatological film, unravel the secrets of the post-nuclear universe, and put everything in order again. The bombing of Hiroshima that left young Yukio ("Yuke the Nuke") Komodo in a nine-year coma also magnified the lizard Gojiro ("Bridger of Gaps, Linker of Lines, Nexus of Beam and Bunch, Defender of the Evolloo") to monstrous size, creating an indissoluble bond between Komodo and "my own true friend" that neither of them quite understands, though it's obviously rooted in the Triple Rings, a mysterious pattern blazoned on Komodo's chest. Flash-forward to the present, when the pair is summoned by a letter from Sheila Brooks to Hollywood to take part in Gojiro vs Joseph Prometheus Brooks in the galley of Decision, a film that will reexamine the case of Sheila's father, the mart responsible for the Bomb. But as presiding spirit Budd Hazard and all true zardpards already know, the invitation isn't really what it seems; neither is the film, nor is Sheila, nor is her father (who's resurrected just in time to merge with Gojiro in a climactic moment - actually 0.0247 second - of Reprimordialization). The cosmos and everything turn out fine, you'll be relieved to know. Painstakingly wonky first-novelist Jacobson, who seems to be aiming for a comic epic on the order of V., has turned out a brashly knowing comic-book epic instead. Douglas Adams fans take note. (Kirkus Reviews)