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The Sagely Fox

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(Illuminae 2) Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff Review

    Obsidio Review, 02/02/2021
“Hey, if hostile battleship takeovers were easy, everybody would do it.”
“The die is cast. But today we will shake the table upon which it lands.”

Obsidio Ebook CoverAmie Kaufman, AuthorJay Kristoff, AuthorObsidio Audiobook CoverOlivia Taylor Dudley, NarratorCarla Corvo & full cast.

(Illuminae 3) Obsidio by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

My thoughts about review spoilers, and ratings may be relevant before you venture below --- the spoiler line ---. Click the [Back] button there to return here if you take a look. Order now from your favorite bookstore. This is book three of a trilogy. There are spoilers in this review.

My Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars

Highly recommended 4.5 star science fiction novel. Obsidio is book three in the Illuminae series and here, at the end of the trilogy, we learn what Illuminae files are. But that's largely the conclusion of this book.

We start in a darker place. What started as a criminal hijacking of a criminal mining operation so far from the civilized galaxy that the nearest taco truck of a jump point station feels like it's a light year away - yet this bad actor company attacking another loose cannon company is now teetering on... not killing billions of people. No, not even trillions of people, but 2 entire universes. Billions of galaxies in each.

Generally:        --- the spoiler line ---
What? Two freaking UNIVERSES?

Yes, on a macro scale: This little SNAFU has developed some serious consequences. But this is a people story!

Our Sales blur (spoiler) tells us: Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza--but who knows what they'll find seven months after the invasion?

Meanwhile, Kady's cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza's ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys--an old flame from Asha's past--reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken.

My Notable Notes:
Kady of Illuminae "terrorist group" is testifying at the trial of the century from an 'unknown' location, but the question comes up about how Kady is testifying at all being stuck beyond (The Taco Truck) Jump Station Heimdall.

Hanna, Kady et al are also stuck in boogie land with Hypatia, the weapons "barge" Mao that infiltrated Jump Station Heimdall with the 'Bei Tech invasion force', and the Betty Boop... their only hope to get back to Kerenza mining operations, which they've learned is "occupied" by BeiTech soldiers who, after months, are only days from completing repairs to their (Super top secret, no company could build such a thing) jump barge? While the Bei Tech invading soldiers say "No, we won't leave you behind," to keep slaving the captured miners to manufacture the materials they need to repair their 'secret jump barge' -- they will kill all the Kerenza folks and disappear without a trace of ever being in the Kerenze system. Everyone at Kerenza knows it. Captives and soldiers alike.

Do you slave on to live a few more days?

I've truncated my massive notes list as I'm already three times longer than I intended to write.

Likes and Dislikes:
AIDAN. Remember H.A.L. 9000 of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)? Add 20 years of hyper-exponential tech growth, super-general-artificial-intelligence, and 'the singularity' in into the writer's imagination and you get AIDAN, The Artificial Intelligence Defense Analytics Network. Who is ‹error› not ‹error› entirely his self ‹error› itself. But has the brains to get our beloved Kady, Ezra, Hanna, Ezra and Nik, among thousands of others out of 987.6241 to 1 odds of dying, and worse. So put AIDAN on both, like, and dislike lists. It's psychopathic among other things.

What I found fascinating and which my daughter told me repeatedly was the audiobook is just as uniquely wonderful as the actual art they call books in this series.

The Technical:
Here I tell you I'm overqualified to critique the writing. But not on this trilogy. Seriously, the books are literally art. Picture books. The unique way they tell the story is remarkable. Think of the idea of The Blair Witch Project (1999), then improve on that concept by a factor AIDAN could not calculate, and that's the Illuminae books.
The writers, indeed everyone who worked on these books have literally blown me away.

It is as if I learned to critique a 14 inch black and white TV set from the 50s and they have set in front of me a 65 inch QLED 4K UHD HDR Smart TV.

I remember the 80s when phone computer tech's duties consisted largely of, "Did you turn it on?" "It's a rocker switch on the back of the big box." "Okay, will you check if it is plugged in?" "Great, glad I could help." Today, decades later where biometrics are a minor security adaptations, you can't find an actual email help link on the largest retail store in history's website. Point is this 'book' is beyond my skill set to critique.

Conclusion:
Where Kady starred in Illuminae, Hanna in Gemina, everyone from all the books land in Obsidio. It is a wild ride. Since it is entirely a character drive series of plot arcs, it is magical to see it conclude.

Read on: Jan 30, 2021
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Obsidio Audible Logo Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Author and Narrator links:

Epub - 539 pages. Audiobook - 13:02:00 total