The only short story Hugo nominee that had to wait until the Hugo packet was released. Let it be noted that Baen, always a leader in trusting the reader with ebooks, included the entire Baen Big Book of Monsters in the Hugo packet, not just the nominated material.
Which makes it a shame that I can't like this story better. It's not terrible, but at no point does it really grab me. A samurai finds an awakened kaiju, the size of a mountain, and climbs it in order to find a way to kill it before it has destroyed the entire country. We get a great deal of Tell about the samurai's weapons, mystic significance, and his father's death, There's a bit of action involving some large, cat-like creatures, and then more Tell about why slicing up the creature's brain won't be sufficient. And then the mystic stuff helps bring us to an end.
It's not a rip-roaring good story, and the writing, the use of language, is more pretentious than elegant.
Not recommended.
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