Hi there, readers! Time for one of those fun announcements I promised.
Spring has officially, spring, and that can mean only one thing… it’s Rondo time!
Every year, the prestigious Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards recognize and celebrate the very best of the previous year’s horror, monster, and sci-fi creations, ranging from films and TV episodes to books, Blu-rays, podcasts, magazines, writers, artists, horror hosts, and beyond. The Rondos are a big deal, made even more special by the fact that you – yes, you – get to decide all the winners with your votes.
The nominees for the 2026 Rondos were announced a few weeks ago, and I was immediately greeted by two special surprises:
- Godzilla got his own section this year, just for books celebrating 70 years of the King of the Monsters (plus a well-deserved appearance by Mothra).
- A book I contributed to was one of the nominees!
That’s right, folks… among such heavy hitters as Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski’s incredible Godzilla: The First 70 Years and Jeffrey Angles’ new translation of The Luminous Fairies and Mothra is Peter H. Brothers’ similarly fantastic Gojira 1954: A 70th Anniversary Retrospective, which includes (gasp!) an essay from yours truly!
The essay in question – entitled “Ambiguity in the Key of G: Gojira and the Horror of the Unknown” – explores how the 1954 film’s refusal to fully explain or rationalize Godzilla’s nature (from his destructive motivations to his murky origins) taps into a primal, unknowable fear, and how that terror stands as one of the film’s greatest – if often unsung – strengths. It’s an essay that’s received a lot of wonderful feedback from readers, and it’s meant a lot to see folks enjoy it so much.
It’s a tremendous privilege and honor to be counted as a Rondo-nominated writer for my contribution to this book, and it truly means the world. Congratulations to the many talented writers who supplied interviews and wrote essays, analyses, and retrospectives for this book, and my eternal gratitude to Peter H. Brothers for allowing me to be a small part of it.
Feel free to share the above photo around social media to help spread the word about the awards! And don’t forget: the Rondos are powered by your votes, and there are plenty of amazing kaiju books, articles, magazine covers, and more for you to choose from!
To vote, all you have to do is copy the Rondo ballot (found at the link below) into an email, choose your favorites in the categories you want to vote in (it doesn’t have to be all the categories), and email them to David Colton at taraco@aol.com no later than Friday night at midnight, May 1st, 2026.
Click here for the full ballot and more info on how to vote for your favorites!
Thank you all so much. Your support is one of the big reasons why I get to work on cool stuff like this, and I remain eternally grateful to you for continuing to believe in me.
I’ll be back soon with even more announcements (including info on a documentary I’m working on, more info about my book G-Cinema, G-Fest announcements, additional writing projects, the next GNP short story, and… more books?).
More to come! Until then, stay kind, stay safe, and stay grateful. I’m glad you’re here.
-Daniel
The Godzilla Novelization Project 