Godzilla 98’s Novelizations Made Me Hate Reading And Reignited An Addiction

By Daniel Laudato

Godzilla 98 Looking At His Pile Of Books

I am addicted to my phone, and like many people in my generation I’m trying to go back to a more analog version of doing things, disconnecting from the digital hellscape and the doom scrolling, filling those “moment’s in-between”, those little 5 minutes snip in your life where you would typically look at your phone. In line at the cafe, waiting to pick someone up, waiting for my next case at work. I want to take my life back and stop pacifying it by staring at my screen. Well my plan was going great I was reading at a pace I haven’t been in years and enjoying some great stories.

Then I remembered an interview of Marc Cerasin that was conducted by Joshua Reynolds of Toho Kingdom.

“The fact was that bookstores would not order Godzilla and the Lost Continent because they were stuck with crap books from that worthless movie, and they didn't understand the difference. I sat in the debut at Madison Square Garden watching it and I knew the 1998 Godzilla would kill the series, and it did.”

Now while I respect the work Marc Cerasin has done with Godzilla as a whole, I often disagree with his opinions and believe he can come across bitter these days. That’s when this idea popped into my head. I’m going to read one of those books that was stuck clogging bookstore shelves. This turned out to be a terrible idea.

While in the past I had defended Godzilla 98 as a mediocre kaiju movie and a terrible Godzilla movie, I was excited to read a novelization of this movie because there was the possibility that there could be added context to the story and enhance the story. Well let me tell you that this story did not need anything added to it. In fact adding to it made it exponentially worse and enhanced my disgust of all the characters.

The novelization is essentially a beat for beat retelling of the movie with all the added content just adding more internal dialogue for the characters, which makes you realize just how dumb and selfish everyone is in this story. There is not one likable person in this whole story, which is why it is such a terrible and bland story.

I ended up not wanting to finish this book but because I was trying to be good I forced myself to stick with it. This just lead me to putting off reading and go back to my phone. I spent over a month doom scrolling in an effort to avoid this book. Here I am trying to escape the horrors of the reality that we live in and find solace in reading and I end up trying to escape the horrors of this Godzilla story. Eventually I came back around and forced myself to sit down and finish the dragged out conclusion of Godzilla 98 in one day.

It was an awful, mentally debilitating experience that I would not wish on my worst enemy. It left me feeling hollow and empty and questioning if what I was doing was right. I had to find a new book to read and I settled on the original Godzilla 1954 Novel instead, and it has been a great mental reset for me, with interesting characters and story elements that differ from the original 1954 film.

In conclusion I would say heed Mr.Cerasin’s warning and stay clear of these “crap books from that worthless movie”

0/5 these books should be burned.

If you want to spend some time with a book you will enjoy I would recommend the Novelizations of Godzilla 54 and Godzilla Raids again. They are 2 short stories written by Shigeru Kayama that have been thoughtfully translated by Jeffery Angles.

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Reynolds, Joshua. “Interview: Marc Cerasini.” Toho Kingdom, 19 Sept. 2016, www.tohokingdom.com/interviews/marc_cerasini_10-2016.html. Accessed 11 Mar. 2026.