The Craziest Space Opera You’ll Read All Year
Illuminae is the first book in The Illuminae Files, which is a young adult space opera series. It was first published on October 20, 2015. October 20th also happens to be the date when I first started writing this review. I’m celebrating Illuminae’s fourth anniversary by writing a review for it. I’m definitely late to the party, but this book is worth the wait.
Action-Packed from Start to Finish
The plot takes absolutely no time to start up. It’s pretty much guns blazing from the first page. The story begins in 2575, on the illegally mined planet of Kerenza. Don’t get too attached to it, because it’s under attack by a rival corporation known as BeiTech.
The novel’s main characters, Kady Grant and Ezra Mason, escape the assault thanks to three ships that respond to Kerenza’s distress call. Even though they escaped, they’re not free. The BeiTech’s battleship, the Lincoln, is in hot pursuit. They want to eliminate any survivors of the attack so that they don’t live to tell the tale.
This essentially creates the book version of the scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi where the Resistance’s ship is slowly being pursued by the First Order. Except much better.
While the ships struggle to get the survivors to safety, they’re dealing with far more than just BeiTech’s annoying persistence. A series of internal conflicts break out on the ships, threatening to destroy them from the inside.
A Lesson in Murphy’s Law
Murphy’s Law is the idea that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Illuminae lives and breathes that concept. No book has kept me on the edge of my seat like this one. Every page brought new developments as well as new complications for the main characters. It was terrible for them, but it was so dang exciting for me.
Speaking of pages, the book’s story is delivered in a unique format. The story’s lore states that you’re reading illegally-obtained files that are being used to spread the truth of BeiTech’s crimes. Therefore, each page is made up of emails, messages, schematics, reports, and the list goes on. If I was asked to describe the book in one word, it’d be “creative.”
Just Look at This!
These pages are describing a dogfight in space. It conveys just how chaotic the scene is without ever describing it as such. You’re not supposed to understand what exactly is going on, just that it’s complete madness and everyone is dying.
Pretty cool, right?
It’s Got Plenty of “Character”
Even though the book has two main characters, it doesn’t just stick to their points of view. Illuminae isn’t afraid to venture out and take you to where the plot/action is unfolding, which means adopting the POV of random characters who you didn’t even know existed. Sometimes, they’ll only exist for that one section of the story before one of the 20,000 antagonistic elements takes them out.
One of the best characters would happen to be the morally-ambiguous AI known as AIDAN. AIDAN is supposed to help run one of the ships that are carrying the survivors, and it takes its job way too seriously. I’m not saying that it’s too serious and can’t crack a joke, I’m saying that it’ll turn on the good guys in a heartbeat if it means protecting its cargo.
This is great because there are several moments where AIDAN just straight up commits horrible crimes, but there are just as many scenes where AIDAN saves the day. Several scenes toward the end hint that even AIDAN doesn’t understand what it is.
I love morally gray characters because they take the story into their own hands. They do whatever they want whenever they want. It’s so much fun to watch them do that too. Suffice to say, AIDAN was one of my favorite characters. It was definitely the most memorable one.
Illuminae is an Exciting Read but That Doesn’t Make It an Easy One
Illuminae doesn’t succeed at everything. If you read it, you might wonder why certain scenes or certain characters exist because they’re not all that important in the long run. The story also takes one heck of a twist halfway through that transforms it into another genre altogether. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but man, I had no idea how to feel about it at first.
The biggest issue with Illuminae is that it’s a bit too creative. Don’t expect to “get it” on a first-time read through. Certain pages are difficult to read, and some story developments are a bit out there. One twist near the end is literally just the book playing tug of war with your brain. On that note, the story isn’t keen on holding your hand. It’d sooner shoot it and demand that you patch yourself up.
It’s Wack but in a Good Way
Overall, I loved Illuminae. It was entertaining not just as a story, but as an experience. It inspired me so much because I was reading it while I wrote the third book in The Explorer series. I saw Illuminae as the dictionary definition of creativity, and it really pushed me to write scenes that I would have been too afraid to write otherwise.
Illuminae has two authors: Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. I hope that they continue to co-write books because I’d definitely recommend this one. It’s just so enjoyable and its flaws are easily solved by a second reading.
I give Illuminae 4 out of 5 stars.
Thank you for reading my Illuminae review. You can purchase the book here, which I’d highly recommend. There are two more books in the series: Gemina and Obsidio. I’ll consider reviewing those in the future. Let me know if you’d like that in the comments below.
My name is Kesten E. Harris. I wrote the YA book series known as The Explorer, and I’m working on a YA fantasy series as well. You can find The Explorer Complete Series Box Set here, and my post about it here. Click here to see all of my other links, including Twitter and Facebook.