Book #06 - Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
First, survive. Then tell the truth.
This is the *second* book this year that deals with a deadly virus pandemic. /o\ (Was this really necessary?) I listened to someone who said it was amazing, and the format sounded like it would be quick to read and I need to catch up a lot this year. When I realized it was a zombie apocalypse book, they said they'd forgotten about that part. /o\
I made it through the book anyway, and pretty quickly, too. Unfortunately, it probably doesn't count for the challenge, because it was bought after the beginning of this year. I forgot about that when I started it. /o\ But I'm not sure I will make the challenge this year anyway. *shrug*
Oh, well. Now for the content: the book is told from reports, logs, mails, and chat transcripts. I was very sceptical at first, because I am not usually a fan of epistolary. But it really works in this book. The emotional closeness comes across well enough from the chat transcripts, and the format in general is unusual and artsy. I liked it.
* I liked the AI, "Aidan". Of course, I always love AIs in stories, but this one really was crazy. It was pretty scary, and I totally understood the programmers' fears of turning it back on (which were well-founded, it turned out).
* The zombie virus ("Phobos") was an interesting new take on the old idea, and it worked really well for me.
* For some reason, I didn't really care much about the people who fell victim to it. Maybe it was because there were too many, or maybe that was where the format of the book failed me after all. I don't know. I think I should have felt for them, but I mostly just felt numb, because it was so clear that everyone was going to die eventually anyway, or so I thought.
* I liked Kady much more than Ezra. All the harping on about him being a stupid jock didn't help. Or that a big part of what we thought were his words in fact weren't. I did like that he had a reason not to want to leave Kerenza, and wasn't just unwilling to go anywhere with Kady. But overall, both of them were a bit too young for me to identify with.
* I loved the ship schematics!
* I loved the wormhole generator!
* I loved the way the AI's internal workings were shown. Its thought processes didn't feel unrealistic to me.
* I loved the captain of the Hypatia, and I was so sad and shocked when she died. Apart from Kady, she was my favorite character in the book. Which is really unusual for me, to fall for such a minor character.
* I'm not sure I liked the sterotypical fat hacker dude - I mean, I didn't like the character design. I liked his actions a lot. Going at the servers with an axe was very cool.
* The only thing that really bothered me: trying not to get infected while changing space suits by *holding your breath* is... very likely not going to work.
* I was very unimpressed that the main villain behind everything was Ezra's mom. I deal better with inhuman corporations than with crazy relatives.
* I thought the book was very suspenseful, and until the very end, I wasn't sure anyone was going to survive this whole mess. (They could have just extracted the digital information from the ruins of the ship.)
4 stars - Well plotted and suspenseful, and better than I expected from the format, in fact one of the stars is for the unusual format.
1 - 5 stars - The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2) by N. K. Jemisin [DW link & LJ link]
2 - 4 stars - The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3) by N. K. Jemisin [DW link & LJ link]
3 - 4 stars - Blackout (Newsflesh #3) by Mira Grant [DW link & LJ link]
4 - 5 stars - Sovereign (Nemesis #2) by April Daniels [DW link & LJ link]
5 - 4 stars - Moon over Soho (Rivers of London #2) by Ben Aaronovich [DW link & LJ link]
6 - 4 stars - Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff [DW link & LJ link]
x-posted from dw (comments:
)