Greetings, G-Fans!!
BIG news today! But first, there hangeth a tale to tell…
Roughly 8 million years ago, the GNP held a poll on the project’s Twitter page, asking fans to help select the next Godzilla film to be tackled as a novelization. The winner of that poll was Masaaki Tezuka’s 2002 entry in the franchise, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, known in Japan as Godzilla X Mechagodzilla. It wasn’t a surprising choice; this film is beloved by many fans, and for good reason. Stunning effects, great characters, Showa tributes galore, the awesomeness that is Kiryu… the list goes on and on. When it won the poll, I was excited for a number of reasons, one of the biggest being the chance to finally start working on a Godzilla novelization outside of the Showa series! The first entry of the “Kiryu Saga” seemed as good a place as any to start, and so I set to work on planning how to start the adaptation.
What followed were several months of setbacks in both the development of this novelization and in my personal life that prevented me from getting the first chapter completed in ANY kind of timely fashion. While progress was certainly made on other GNP endeavors (such as the Timelines, blogs, and that new Matango short story), work on the Mechagodzilla novel ground to a halt. For some reason, an appropriate perspective on the events of the film’s dramatic opening sequence eluded me, and the entire Prologue to the novel was rewritten several times over the course of multiple months of development.
Finally, a week or so into the new year, I began to experiment with an idea that would allow me to tell the story in a unique and (hopefully) enjoyable way. With new direction, I returned to the Prologue to craft a final draft that, at long last, came together the way I wanted.
Hey, better late than never, right?
As so, I now FINALLY present the completed Prologue to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla: The Unofficial Novelization, for all to read and, with any luck, enjoy. With a clear vision of how to proceed with the narrative, I now feel confident in continuing the adaptation from here, so it shouldn’t be TOO long before the next chapter is ready to share. I hope…
With that out of the way, I’d like to once again thank you all for your continued support of the project. As the GNP nears its first anniversary, its pretty amazing to look back and see how much has been accomplished. There’s still a long road ahead for this endeavor, but its a road I couldn’t be more thrilled to be traveling. I hope you’ll all continue to come along for the ride.
Lots of exciting things are cooking behind the scenes here at GNP HQ, so expect more updates soon! More new books, chapters, blogs, and Timeline updates are coming your way in the near future, along with a few surprises that I hope you’ll enjoy once they are ready to be revealed! Until then, I hope your 2019 is off to a great start. This will definitely be a year to remember for Godzilla fans, that’s for certain.
Happy reading!
The Godzilla Novelization Project 