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A review by rubeusbeaky
Illuminae by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman
5.0
An absolutely stellar - no pun intended XD - sci-fi horror romance... Yeah, that sounds like a peculiar mash-up, it really isn't. The fact that Kristoff and Kaufman could actually balance all the very real, very human, themes in this book is a testament to them as story-weavers. We are not worthy.
The story is about a devastating event in space, and is told as if it were a case file, through a series of documents including: emails, texts, transcripts of discussions between officers, personal diaries, summaries of surveillance footage, even the ship's A.I.'s log. I will admit, this is a very rare case where a physical book makes for better reading than an ebook. I began with a digital library copy, and couldn't get through the mechanics: The font was too small, the images took forever to load, and all the while you're trying to read around redactions and strike-throughs... But once I got my hands on a physical copy, the whole "files" mechanic felt more real, it was much easier to immerse myself, and read at my pace... I devoured the book in three days XD. It's an astounding piece of artistry, the way K&K convey cinematic developments - fighter pilots scrambling, ships exploding, a person bouncing along without gravity - with the size, and shade, and /curvature/ of the text! This book comes to life in a way few sci-fi novels do; it is mesmerizing.
The story is about a devastating event in space, and is told as if it were a case file, through a series of documents including: emails, texts, transcripts of discussions between officers, personal diaries, summaries of surveillance footage, even the ship's A.I.'s log. I will admit, this is a very rare case where a physical book makes for better reading than an ebook. I began with a digital library copy, and couldn't get through the mechanics: The font was too small, the images took forever to load, and all the while you're trying to read around redactions and strike-throughs... But once I got my hands on a physical copy, the whole "files" mechanic felt more real, it was much easier to immerse myself, and read at my pace... I devoured the book in three days XD. It's an astounding piece of artistry, the way K&K convey cinematic developments - fighter pilots scrambling, ships exploding, a person bouncing along without gravity - with the size, and shade, and /curvature/ of the text! This book comes to life in a way few sci-fi novels do; it is mesmerizing.