All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Synopsis:
There’s one thing worse than dying. It’s coming back to do it again and again…
When the alien Mimics invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out-of-place: the female soldier known as the Bitch of War. Is the Bitch the key to Keiji’s escape, or to his final death?
Review:
DIE IN BATTLE, REBORN IN VICTORY.
All You Need Is Kill is a Japanese light science fiction novel by Author Hiroshi Sakurazaka, and the basis for the new movie Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.
Keiji Kiriya is a greenhorn – a fresh recruit in the Japanese military. He’s trained to operate a machine called a Jacket; a suit of armor that’s designed to enhance a soldier’s capability on the battlefield. He’s never seen battle before, but is slated to be deployed on Kotoiushi Island to fight the dangerous alien species that had invaded their world twenty years prior known as the Mimics. When the fight starts Keiji finds he’s no match for the enemy and is mowed down rather quickly. But, through a tragic twist of fate, Keiji is reborn the day before the battle and is once again slated to die in battle again and again.
Every time he goes through one of these ‘loops’ – as he calls them – he learns to fight better. With each loop comes another experience in battle. By his 158th loop, Keiji is a certified killing machine. The greenhorn he had been the proverbial day before is no more. And when Rita “The Full Metal Bitch” Vrataski approaches him with the knowledge of his loops, the two form an unstoppable team against the Mimics.
As an homage to video game respawning, All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka is a Grade A science fiction story that is as unique as it is epic. I could not put this book down once I picked it up, and whenever I had to step away all I could think about was what would happen next. By the time I finished reading I was in awe that such an amazing book had remained under my radar for so long without me noticing. This is easily my favorite science fiction novel of all time, and I definitely plan to read this 159 times more.
Five out of Five stars!
