Illuminae

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Pittsfield Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / Science Fiction / Kaufman, Amie	4-week checkout	Due 05-24-2024

"The planet Kerenza is attacked, and Kady and Ezra find themselves on a space fleet fleeing the enemy, while their ship's artificial intelligence system and a deadly plague may be the end of them all"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Fantastic! submitted by purplekitty on June 15, 2018, 11:20pm This book was one of the most unique books I have ever read. Rather than unfolding purely via text, the plot is shown via a collection of "documents" ranging from pictures to recorded conversations. The identity of whoever has compiled all of these documents remains a secret throughout most of the book. This unusual style makes for a new and interesting reading experience. However, the style is not the greatest part of this book - that would unquestionably be the plot. There's plenty of action and suspense taking place in a vividly imagined science fiction and realm, and the vast majority of the characters reside firmly in the morally grey zone. This book is a fantastic read and oddly thought-provoking.

Gripping YA Sci-Fi Thriller submitted by Meginator on August 31, 2019, 11:21pm Content warning: this book contains brief, yet somewhat shocking, scenes of violence and gore.
This book is a fascinating mash-up of science fiction tropes (space battles, rogue AI, a plague) that delivers a mile-a-minute plot in an unique visual package; it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read. Told as a series of documents recovered from an interstellar fleet of spaceships fleeing an attack on an outlying planet, the book uses visual and linguistic cues to tell its story, offering a full range of perspectives on the events and allowing for innovative storytelling. The text-speak used in email and chat systems is pitch-perfect, and the sarcastic tone provides levity even as the ships’ situation deteriorates in the face of several cascading challenges. Some of the visual spreads are breathtaking, such as winding text tracing missiles’ paths as it describes their flight, characters’ names floating against the harsh black void of space, and a chaotic amalgamation of pilots’ radio communications in the heat of battle. Yet for all of its fast pacing and teenage angst, the book has true poetic beauty in parts, especially as a rogue artificial intelligence becomes self-aware. Beware, however: the novel has some moments of extreme splatterpunk violence that are somewhat unexpected given its general tone. Despite its length, I read the book in just a few days, and it offers some depth beyond its fast-paced thriller plot. Consider me pleasantly surprised by this one, and eager to read the sequels.

Unique, fast-paced pageturner submitted by Elizabethreads on August 3, 2020, 3:12pm There's so much happening in this book: space, romance, warring planets, and too-intelligent AI. Told through emails, voiceovers, narration, bulletins, and other odd paraphernalia, it's a unique and well-done spin space Western with a side of robots.