Illuminae: The Illuminae Files Book One (Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff, A&U)

Illuminae is the first book in ‘The Illuminae Files’, told in the format of a secret dossier of audio transcripts, message logs and other electronic documents. It tells the story of three refugee spaceships fleeing a secret intergalactic invasion conducted by a mega-corporation. Teenage hacker Kady and her ex-boyfriend Ezra made it to the ships, but there might be greater threats on board than the pursuing battleship attempting to silence them all. The fleet commanders insist everything is under control, but Kady is determined to uncover the truth for the sake of everybody’s survival. The format of Illuminae is interesting, but also tiresome to read at times, especially the large sections of white-on-black computer logs with text that sometimes spills in all directions and requires you to squint or tilt the book. There are a lot of classic sci-fi tropes that will be familiar to fans of the genre, including a dangerously unstable ship AI and the murderous zombie victims of a drug that was intended to pacify. The tropes are played straight, without much innovation beyond the format, but the story is well paced and the tension stays high throughout. Illuminae will appeal to middle to upper high-school fans of Battlestar Galactica-style chilling military sci-fi.

Jarrah Moore is a primary literacy editor at Cengage Learning Australia