Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Gemina
Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
expected publication date: October 2016
5/5 stars

Gemina is the second book in the projected three-book series,"the Illuminae Files".  It is the year 2575;   one mining company has destroyed the planet of a rival mining company, attacked the rescue ships, and has sent an audit team to destroy the one remaining group of people that may know what has been done: the Jump Station Heimdall.  Hanna, the station captain's spoiled daughter, and Nik, member of the notorious House of Knives crime family who supplies Hanna with recreational drugs, find themselves fighting for the lives of the entire station against a deadly, professional strike team.

Like Illuminae, Gemina is told in an nontraditional way, using surveillance footage summaries, instant message transcriptions, Hanna's journal, and more.  Again, Kaufman and Kristoff do an amazing job using this ambitious presentation.  It moves quickly, tugging the reader along a nonstop roller coaster. The story is moving, funny, and intense. There were times I gasped as new information was made available, and once I said out loud, "I didn't see THAT coming!".

As excellent as this book is, I don't recommend it to anyone who has not already read Illuminae.  Though the two stories feature different locations and characters, one must be familiar with the information gathered in Illuminae to appreciate Gemina.

This is an amazing book, and a worthy sequel to the first.  I give a universal recommendation to read Illuminae, and then to immediately put Gemina on pre-order!

I was given the ARC by Amazon Vine in exchange for an honest review.