Illuminae (The Illuminae Files, #1)

by Amie Kaufman

What app is this? Made up? Why the bar code? Question

Borrowed from CLP on 9/16/24 to read for the Amazing Book Club of Doom on 9/21/24. Favorable Kirkus review: Ambitious, heartbreaking, and out-of-this-world awesome. For 13 & up: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/amie-kaufman/illuminae/ Fandom wiki: https://illuminae-files.fandom.com/wiki/Unipedia https://illuminae-files.fandom.com/wiki/ILLUMINAE https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminae The deaths of so many civilians is horrible. I miss the more standard narrative format (even with post-modern features like shifting points of view) but this technique allows for some interesting perspectives that couldn’t be shown otherwise, like psych reports and interviews. HARD CHOICES: Are Syra and AIDAN good guys, or bad guys? Both AIDAN and Syra kill civilians. Syra decides to flush the survivors from the Alexander into space when one of them showed symptoms of the Phobos virus, and AIDAN orders the shooting down of the Copernicus with many civilians onboard to prevent the devastating spread of the Phobos virus, and also decides to release from quarantine those infected with the Phobos virus onboard the Alexander, infecting and killing many people, in retribution for being thwarted by humans. The Phobos virus carries a lot (too much) of the plot weight, motivating the destruction of the Copernicus, AIDAN’s retributive release of the quarantined on the Alexander, but it’s a cheap and blunt instrument, untethered from biology, it infects and kills, but before they die they also chase. “Get the word out” - reminds me of James Holden ‘s self-imposed mission in The Expanse Vocabulary: glacieosaur hermium Artificial Intelligence Defense Analytics Network (AIDAN) neurogramming staff spanner monkeys chipheads stellarcorp Codewyrm snaffled verse (= universe) real black (= actual outer space) interface leech

our fee already reflects Level Of Difficulty.

A report to the bad guy stellarcorp? Question

the Kerenza disaster

battlecarrier Alexander

science vessel Hypatia

Commentary from my team is marked by paper clip icons.

UTA

Haha

The Illuminae Group

Haha ewww

Haha

BeiTech dreadnought Lincoln?

There were a lot of explosions and a lot of dead people. Dead civilians who worked for a ████ing mining company. I mean, imagine you’re an interstellar corporation, right? You discover an illegal mining op run by one of your competitors. Do you (a) report it to the UTA and laugh as the fines roll in, or (b) jump in an attack fleet and X-out every man, woman, and child on the planet? What the hell was BeiTech thinking?

I’m seventeen—of

…Wait, what?

Haha

Your Honor.

Haha - thinks he’s in court.

the sky is full of Cyclone fighter ships. So I figured the cavalry must have arrived.

the Lincoln?

the refinery had ...

the glacier is cracking open and the sky is on fire, and I think I can see BeiTech ground troops in the distance.

Haha

Haha

They were putting carriers down on the ground and rolling out soldiers and all-terrain vehicles.

I am frequently underestimated.

Haha

Haha

Haha

Simile

hermium

Haha - the interviewer is either BeiTech or an idiot.

GENERAL DAVID TORRENCE

Colonel Eva Sanchez

Heimdall.

Artificial Intelligence Defense Analytics Network (AIDAN),

neurogramming staff.

the Lincoln),

Hypatia

Copernicus—are

we are bleeding badly and there are sharks in the water.

Simile metaphor double

Anyone showing C-grade ability or better is to be conscripted the day they hit eighteen.

spanner monkeys and chipheads.

Haha simile metaphor

Centrum tenenda.

Hold the center

a three-way throwdown between BeiTech, WUC, and UTA forces.

Reports that an unknown bioweapon was used on the settlement by BeiTech dreadnought Lincoln are unconfirmed.[14][15][16]

The black cloud reported by Kindze and

No ships in the Kerenza system were now capable of jump travel, meaning any assistance would be months away.

The Alexander launched its Cyclone-class fighter craft, with the BeiTech group launching its Warlock fighters in kind.

Ms. Grant is considerably more capable than her test results indicate.

Haha Mee too - for Kath. I’m the opposite.