Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

 

I've been meaning to read The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff for years now. It's immensely popular among young adult fiction fans and it's science fiction, so I didn't really need any more reasons than those to check it out. I purchased all three books in the trilogy a few years ago and never got around to reading them. Accordingly, they were one of the first series I put on my Finally in 2022 list this year. I decided to finally give them a try this month, starting with the first book, Illuminae.

The plot of the novel follows two teenagers, Kady Grant and Ezra Mason, after their planet is attacked as part of a war between two rival mega-corporations. They both manage to evacuate the planet on two different ships, which are traveling as quickly as possible towards a rescue point. The attacking force is in hot pursuit of them, however, and is due to catch up to their ships before long. In addition to this ever-present threat, a mysterious pathogen has shown up on one of the ships and seems to be spreading and mutating quickly, with terrifying results, and, even worse, the AI of their lead ship seems to have gone dangerously haywire. 

Things rapidly deteriorate on the spacecrafts as they try to make their escapes. Leadership on both ships are hiding the details of what's going on from the refugees, but Kady is able to use her formidable hacking skills to dig through computer files to try and figure out what is going on. She communicates with Ezra through electronic messages, and they work together to investigate the situation from their different locations. It's a bit awkward between them at first, as they used to be in a serious romantic relationship and had just broken up before their planet was attacked. As they begin to talk again though, old feelings start rising to the surface and they realize how deeply they still care for each other. There's not much time for romance though, because what they uncover through their digging is chilling, and it leads on them on a dangerous mission to try and save everyone before it's too late.

This was a great read, and its unique narration style is what really made it stand out. It's told through a series of documents, chat logs, interviews, and other assorted bits and pieces of text. This leaves the reader to piece together everything into a narrative that makes sense, with a little help from notes attached to some of the documents by the mysterious group that compiled it all. The look of the pages was fantastic, with different fonts and page layouts being used all throughout the text to differentiate everything. In particular, the sections that were records of the AI's thoughts used very creative design choices, with text running in all directions and lines of computer code interrupting everything. It was a really nice visual presentation.

I also really enjoyed the pacing of the novel. Illuminae is definitely a plot-driven story, and things moved quickly. There were lots of intense action sequences and suspenseful moments peppered throughout, and Kaufman and Kristoff did a good job of explaining complicated scenes like space battles in a way that was clear and easy to understand. The story itself was very engaging too, with plot twists and big reveals that kept me reading. This was a 600 page book, but I moved through it quickly and stayed interested the whole time. Sure, a lot of the story included classic sci-fi tropes that I had seen a million times before, but the authors did a nice job crafting an original, compelling story with them. There was even a big, shocking twist at the end that I didn't see coming and really enjoyed. It was like a good episode of Star Trek, and I can't give a science fiction book a much better compliment than that. 

So obviously, I had a good time with this novel and I'm excited to read the next two in the series over the coming weeks. I think that whether people like this book or not will depend heavily on whether they enjoy the unique format. I was a fan, so this worked out well for me. I'm interested to see whether the next books will be just as good at this one, or if the epistolary format will wear thin with time. In any case though, Illuminae was  highly entertaining read and I'm glad I picked it for my Finally in 2022 Challenge. 

Challenge Tally

Finally in 2022 - Series Edition: 1/28

Total Books Read in 2022: 5