For fans of Marie Lu comes the first book in an epic series that bends the sci-fi genre into a new dimension. “A truly beautiful novel that redefines the form.” —Victoria Aveyard, bestselling author of Red Queen This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded. The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations … The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than a speck at the edge of the universe. Now with enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to evacuate with a hostile warship in hot pursuit.
But their problems are just getting started. A plague has broken out and is mutating with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a web of data to find the truth, it’s clear the only person who can help her is the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.
Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, maps, files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.
“Prepare yourselves for Illuminae.” —EW.com
“[Y]ou’re not in for an ordinary novel experience. . . .” —Bustle.com
“A truly interactive experience. . . . A fantastically fun ride.” —MTV.com
★ “[O]ut-of-this-world awesome.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred
★ “…stylistically mesmerizing.” —Publishers Weekly, starred
★ “[A]n arresting visual experience.”—Booklist, starred
★ “[A] game-changer.” —Shelf Awareness, starred
“Brace yourself. You’re about to be immersed in a mindscape that you’ll never want to leave.” —Marie Lu, bestselling author of the Legend trilogy
“Genre: Undefinable. Novel: Unforgettable.” —Kami Garcia, bestselling coauthor of Beautiful Creatures & author of Unbreakable
“An exuberant mix of space opera, romance, zombies, hackers, and political thrills.” —Scott Westerfeld, bestselling author of Zeroes and Uglies
“Stunningly creative. Smart, funny, and romantic.” —Veronica Rossi, bestselling author of Under the Never Sky
“This is one of those rare books that will truly keep your heart pounding.” —Beth Revis, bestselling author of Across the Universe
“This book is xxxxing awesome.”
—Laini Taylor, bestselling author of Daughter of Smoke and Bone
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I would describe Illuminae as a YA sci-fi thriller. It is so gorgeously designed that you MUST read this in hardcover, not ebook. (I was expecting it to be a sci-fi romance, but be warned, the romance is very minor.)
It’s an action-packed story beginning with the destruction of a planet. Kady (a totally awesome hacker and such a badass) escapes on a spaceship. Add in an insane Artificial Intelligence piloting the ship and a deadly plague and you’re in for a wild ride!
This was a gripping page-turner and I enjoyed it so much that I immediately picked up the sequel.
Illuminae is a sci-fi novel like no other. The year is 2575, and there is an attack on Kady and Ezra’s home planet. They flee for their lives on board a rescue ship, but their troubles are just starting as diseases break out, rogue ships come for them, and their own relationship troubles come back to haunt them.
Told through a series of maps, letters, documents, and IMS, Illuminae is a breeze to read, despite its intimidating size and length. This is truly a YA novel that is unlike anything else I’ve read, and I can’t believe it took me this long to get to!
I tend to find that books written in letters leave me wanting to know more about the characters. It’s usually hard to convey a whole person through just letters, IMs, etc., but this was again an exception. By the end of the book, I felt like I knew Kady and Ezra, and found myself rooting for them all the way through.
After finishing this, I immediately grabbed the sequel, Gemina, and I’m already looking forward to the third installment hopefully this year. Even if you’re not usually a fan of sci-fi or YA, this one is worth trying out!
This book is unique and incredible. Highly recommended!
With an ambitious project like this, one might fear that content would suffer for form. However, I found this not to be the case at all. The narrative was immersive, the characters lovable, and the book is jam-packed with all my favorite Space Opera tropes. I recommend picking this one in hardback, as the ebook can at times be difficult to read.
I finished this book in less than a week. It was not a book that I would normally gravitate towards but I’m so glad I did. It’s a very unique read but i really recommend this book. Don’t know how to explain it besides “wow”. Already ordered the sequel. Hopefully it tops this book.
This novel is a masterpiece of media. The story is told through chat logs and interviews. It’s worth reading on a full screen or in a physical copy to get the full aspect of all the pages, because you want to read every single word and see every single detail. I look forward to the companion/sequel!
Illuminae is the first installment in co-authors: Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s young adult, science fiction series titled The Illuminae Files. Ever since reading the Starbound series, I’ve been following Ms. Kaufman and this novel has been on my TBR since it was first announced. I have to admit I’ve never read Mr. Kristoff before but based on my enjoyment of the writing in this book, I’ll be adding some of his titles very soon!
Illuminae was a wild ride with a good amount of twists and turns. The suspense was high and got stronger as the book progressed until it had me completely crazy by the end. The tone of this story is dark but I loved it. It is told through a variety of methods and perspectives and as every event comes to pass, the pending doom gets more and more palpable. But the characters bring a lot of humor as they cope with the devastation and even during the darkest moments, I found my mood lighten soon afterwards.
The Illuminae Files is another series I plan to loyally follow. It was fast-paced and I felt incredibly engaged throughout. The paper/e-book version offers the reader visuals which you obviously don’t experience via audio so take all these factors into consideration before deciding how you want to experience Illuminae. Either way, you’re a winner. Your brain and emotions will explode with the adrenaline rush that comes along with an engaging new read. Enjoy!
I really loved the book. I particularily liked his original way of writing the story. It feels more realistic when you read the book as if you are reading a police record or a top secret folder. The plot is also amazing and unpredictable. I really recommend this book and the other books of the triology Illuminae.Illuminae, Gemina and Obsidio
Wow. Just. . . wow. It’s been a while since I’ve read such a good book. This is kind of like a star-wars sentient-artificial-intelligence company-corruption zombie-apocalypse hybrid, and it’s GOOD. I couldn’t put it down. It’s unique and full of action, and you’re in for quite a ride. . .
Best read in paper format
This book was truly unique not only the story but also the format of the book.
To be honest, going into this book I was a little worried if it would be hard to follow the book because of the format the book was written in. The entire book is in emails, IMs, reports and other crazy pages and pictures of the ship.
For that reason I was worried it would be a little hard to follow but it was super easy to follow and it made for a fantastic reading experience.
I loved everything about this book the story that kept you guessing and biting your nails. The endless twist and turns of the story. The characters that were super realistic,( well the human ones 😉 )
There is really not much to say, because I really don’t want to spoil it for anyone but it really is a great book that will take you on a thrilling and often emotional journey like no other book has done.
I enjoyed Kady and she truly is a hero in my book, she is real and kept going to the last second where others would have given up a long time ago. Loved Ezra. Just something about him that made me smile and of course Kady.
Aiden is bat a&& crazy but I enjoyed it every minute of it.
I enjoyed all the events happening in the book it kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire book. Every time you catch on something new and shocking happens.
If you have not read this book and looking for a new interesting dystopian- future book, I highly recommended this series. I also hears great things about the audio-book if you listen to them.
Overall, great thrilling, shocking and heartbreaking read with a unique format and I rate it a full 5
This was awesome! I was slightly reluctant at first, expecting a dry science-report-type read, but it didn’t feel like that once I got started. The characters had plenty of “voice,” and the storyline kept me going. The format was incredibly unique; the fact that the presentation kept changing made the reading of it fresh and interesting. I thought at times the romance seemed a bit over the top, but the thread of Kady and Ezra’s relationship totally glued the story together.
Sometimes I lost track of who the characters were by just their names—it’s harder to fix them in my mind when they aren’t described in a narrative and I can’t “see” them—so I had to flip back through the pages to try to find out. On that note, be sure to read a paperback or a hardback; I can’t see how this book would work well as an ebook, especially the cool double-page spreads. It got a little gory sometimes, and while I appreciated that some of the swearing was blanked out, there still were some innuendo-type banter and swearing left in: warning to those who prefer not to read those things. Nice twisty surprises, and I loved AIDAN the computer. The humor throughout was great!
ILLUMINAE is a fun and creative adventure. Submitted in dossier form, the file is filled with various reports. The story follows Kady and Ezra as they survive an attack on their planet and run from a hostile war ship.
The book is fantastically designed so I recommend that you read the print version if you have a choice. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the book on my kindle. The characters are fantastic and the universe had a Firefly feel.
A+ rating. OMG, this book was utterly fantastic. 600 pages that I literally could not put down. The story is creative, and riveting, and surprising. OMG, the twists and turns and jolts just kept coming, but in the very best way. This book was fabulous!!
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!!!
And now I need books #2 and #3 to get here…NOW!! (the pain of not having a local bookstore…sob)
I don’t even know where to start with this review. The story is told in the form of emails, text messages, memos, surveillance camera summaries and AIDAN’s communications. It’s an interesting ride through space that some readers may find hard to follow. If you do happen to read it, look at the dates before each entry and try to remember them. That was where I got a bit confused.
Kady and Ezra are great characters. Ezra is actually a bit silly at times. He is a lot more laid back then Kady is and seems to keep her grounded during everything even though he is on a different ship. Ezra has been thrown into a job that he seems to enjoy while Kady does whatever she wants. She’s actually a really smart girl.
AIDAN reminds me a bit of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. He does come around though and the reader realizes that he’s really not the bad guy. He has a reason for everything he does, even if it was for revenge, a feeling you wouldn’t think he’d be able to acknowledge.
This book had me glued to from start to finish. So much so that when I completed it I moved right on to book 2.
Breathtaking, fast-paced, interactive, and incredibly cinematic, Illuminae definitely grabs your attention and doesn’t let go.
I loved the set up of the novel, and the ending definitely left me wanting more. The plot, though, is a little less compelling. I feel the star-crossed lovers, the Phobos zombies, the AI developing feelings, are all your basic science-fiction tropes that I’ve seen in a dozen different space stories.
I also got tired of reading the bad grammar IM messages—and they go on and on and on. I felt like I had downloaded the “Text Stories” app and was reading a story through text messages, which just isn’t my preferred format for novels. I do like prose and descriptions and direct pathways to the character’s minds (my favorite parts were the ones in Aiden’s head and Kady’s journal entries, if you see what I mean).
That said, reading through the files I felt like a detective. I’ll definitely be grabbing the next book!
Sagely Fox Review
(Illuminae 1) Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Audiobook Narrator: Full Cast
Titles and author links – where you may purchase the book listed below.
This is a rating primarily of the audiobook although I did read along in much of the ebook…. which isn’t exactly easy. It’s a visually challenging book.
My Rating:
Highly recommended 5 star science fiction thriller novel. I believe if there were a writer’s class strictly for “in media res” it would show this book. Kady is breaking up with Ezra, period! She’s escaping school so as to not see him… except the school, well the whole planet is under attack from space, and things are blowing up, and it’s an illegal space mining thing more like a planet that is largely ice, as I recall.
Generally:
Just try to keep up. Things are happening fast. You don’t know anything, everything is confusing but it’s okay… you’ve been there. If you’re young you’ll recognize it, if your family has fought, you’ll recognize it, I made notes about “the fog of war” as it kind of struck me deep and personal at some points.
Thing is, when life does this, and I think it does this to everyone, there’s just forward. If that is not what is happening with you when “that” happens or if you don’t very quickly decide that’s what you are going to be doing right about now… you’re out of the game. In a book like this, or in ‘the fog of war’ you’re likely dead.
No joke, survival rate is real low when real life sh.t starts getting tornado/hurricane/earthquake/volcano/war like REAL.
Anything slightly less than death at your doorstep, you’ll likely muddle through it. But reading this book, you’ll recognize it even if it wasn’t absolutely deadly. It would have felt that way for way too long, even if it only lasted seconds.
Thing about this book, there isn’t an “I’ll stop here – spot”. I actually knew that when I stopped for rest from chores. I intentionally bookmarked the book, the page, the minute, everything. Then I went on listening. Good thing I marked it. It was over when I woke up, and right about the time I marked it was when I lost consciousness.
My Notable Notes:
I can’t do it. There’s a reason I quit writing. There are over 500 words I probably wouldn’t repeat to a shrink, but would have happily published decades ago.
Likes and Dislikes: (Possible spoilers).
All likes. Seriously, there are always things you hate because you hate that period. But this book, to me is happening on so many different levels emotionally, it’s like saying you hate mean people. That’s life and there’s nothing in this book that seemed trivial about anything.
As for the book. It was brilliant. And for the record, it could have ended in a dozen places and that would have been fine. I knew there were sequels before I started so you know it as well. My point actually is that it could have easily ended without sequels. Oh, how we love our sequels though, no?
Here’s a like for that one special person. I’ve read the Gateway saga 3-4 times. It’s not my favorite of all time series, I just like it for a 100 reasons. This one struck me deep for dozens of reasons and while it isn’t Gateway or Gateway-like, I will re-read it.
The Technical:
The left over segment of my critiquing manuscript days. Amie and Jay had the best help in the world. Rare a book comes out like this one where you know it is over, and you realize you’re breathing again. I’ll be happy just to recommend it.
Conclusion
For most folks this will just be a really good book. Before half the book I felt like I lived about every character in it, more than once, making the right decisions, making the wrong decisions, knowing I was right, knowing I was wrong, knowing I was powerless but still had to keep on doing what I knew was not working. Knowing who could fix everything and why they couldn’t, wouldn’t, or shouldn’t. Knowing I had to ask and that I couldn’t ask. Worst of all, knowing I had to decide — and I would not be paying the price for that decision but someone else was going to pay dearly.
It’s a fun and exciting book to read. On the seat of the chair, hanging on the whole time. I think it is much deeper. I knew a Mrs. Hogan once. She said, there’s many layers and various different depths in most books. I’ve read a medium size library of books, I may have stopped at any moment and likely guessed how it would end. I promise, this time, I would have been wrong, but I would have been close enough.
Read on: January 17, & 19, 2020
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Author and Narrator links:
Amie Kaufman (Author),
Jay Kristoff (Author),
Olivia Taylor Dudley (Narrator),
Lincoln Hoppe (Narrator),
Johnathan McClain (Narrator),
Kimberly Farr (Narrator),
Donnabella Mortel (Narrator),
Matthew Frow (Narrator),
Ryan Gesell (Narrator),
Beata Pozniak (Narrator),
Jolene Kim (Narrator) etc.
This was a book that caught my eye immediately when I saw it in someone’s Waiting on Wednesday blog post and then my need to read it only grew as I read a few trusted blogger’s reviews. I love Young Adult Sci-Fi, but the fact that this one was written more in epistolary format grabbed my curiosity and it was inevitable that I would read it. (Thank you to an angelic SIL who had a reader gal’s back)
And wow, I am still processing. I came to the startling conclusion early on that one can indeed become emotionally invested in a book even if its told from bits and pieces like transcripts, messages, memos, surveillance videos, etc. This story had impact right away. It was exciting, intriguing, twisting, horrifying, and all around amazing.
The story opens in the future on a planet far away from earth when seventeen year old, Katy gets a front row seat to the destruction of her mining colony home by a rival mining company before the evacuation by government ships who happen to be in the area on maneuvers. Three ships take in the mining colony refugees- a mining freighter, a science vessel, and a state of the art government battle carrier. Katy is a refugee on the science vessel and tells the government interviewer her story of being at school, upset after breaking up with her boyfriend, Ezra, and then observing the attack and invasion by the other mining corporation troops and vessels. Katy and Ezra watch everything getting destroyed and a noxious black gas released over the mine itself. They are separated from their families even though they try to get to them. It is catastrophic.
But the danger has only just begun because one of the rival corporations’ warships is hunting them and their battle ship took damages to its wormhole drive and artificial intelligence unit, AIDAN, that won’t allow it to move quickly. The Alexander must protect both the other vessels even while working repairs that will take too long. And if that isn’t enough, a plague is discovered on board the freighter because it houses the refugees that came from the mine that was bombed by that black gas.
Things are drastic so the general conscripts mining colonists who show any aptitude in the areas the military needs help. Ezra is trained as a fighter pilot. Katy is a brilliant hacker, but manages to avoid the conscription. She is concerned about how the military is keeping the civilian population in the dark. Ezra lost his dad and Kady is on her own too. She realizes her anger at Ezra serves no purpose now and they begin reconciliation.
As they work to escape the other warship, horrific events occur to leave Kady living in a nightmare. People are dying and everyone left is in a fight for their lives. Kady’s brilliance, fierce courage, and determination are all she has left to do what she can to help save lives, but she pays a dear cost to make it so.
Alright, this ended up being a late year read that will go on my unputdownable pile. As I pointed out earlier, I was amazed at how connected I felt with a story told in such a unique format. I took the advice of the other reviewers and got this in paper copy because of how it made some of the creative page formatting easier to read and the illustrations easier to peruse, too. There were pages where the words swirled around against a space background as it gave radio transmissions of fighters and the times that drawings made with words were easier to see that way.
The story was Kady’s, but many people including Ezra, AIDAN, other refugees and personnel took turns getting their point of view. Kady has a smart young girl’s arrogance, but she matures with each new hardship she faces. Ezra comes across as simple to read until his full background becomes known. Other characters are introduced to Kady and Ezra through their new community on the ships and it was neat how their personalities showed through even things like memos. I think the character that most intrigued me was AIDAN and I can’t even say why without offering spoilers. I loved watching Kady overcome so much and Ezra was easy to love, but AIDAN wrenched a lot of consideration and emotion from me.
This is no easy book. There is so much loss and I cried a couple times. There are no guarantees and the life is hard. I wanted Kady to have her happy ending, but I wanted it for everyone I came to know in this struggling group. But there are twists on twists and so many fall along the way. The ending was breathtaking and magnificent. It was the type of last 25% that leaves the reader immediately diving back and rereading sections and going back to the earlier sections to see how new twists changed everything they thought. I am whimpering a little at how long I must wait to see what happens next.
So, yep, this is a definite recommend to YA Sci-fi Romance fans. I don’t think I would put it in the hands of younger teens because of the violence, but older teens and adults will find it a riveting and unique read.
This is one of the most creatively written books I have ever read. I do not have a single negative thing to say about.
Is courage the absence of fear or the power to push through it?
Author:Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff
Series: The Illuminae Files
Rating: 5/5
I wasn’t expecting to like this book, in fact I was sure I was gonna hate it.
Don’t get me wrong I love sci fi and the whole starwars meets star trek had me intrigued.
But I’ve never read a book that wasn’t in prose, so I was doubtful.
This book was a big surprise it managed to intrigued me from the get go. I didn’t realized I was so emotional invested until I found myself trying to read every word on the graphics cause I needed to know everyone was ok and where they where.
Illuminae is the most unique book I’ve read ever, Its genius, the dossier format was sublime.
This book is action packed and fast paced, there’s no breathing room other than those 7 minutes of bliss when Ez and Kady interact.
This book has it all, mass murder, a crazy villain, spaceships, a plague, hackers, blood and gore, shocking twists and that ending, I never imagined an ending like that.
I felt every emotion there is, I loved it, hated it, I got angry and quite excited about what was going on and after crying all my feelings out I loved it even more.
There was no putting this book down, I read at work, at night at red lights. I couldn’t stay away and I need the next book as desperately as I need my next breath.
Illuminae is a master piece that will be talked about for years and years to come.
This book is truly out of this world pun intended. It’s a most read for any scifi fans out there.