Hiroshi Sakurazaka

I heard about a movie based on this first, which was described to me as a kind of science fiction military version of Groundhog's Day, then about the book. I figured "What the heck -- having Tom Cruise in a movie shouldn't ruin the book."

I finished it in one sitting. I cared about the main character, I thought the premise was very well conceived (and, despite some superficial similarity, it wasn't much like Groundhog's Day at all), and the narrative tone was both engaging and evocative. The show more pacing was brisk. The ending was good, with a twist that makes so much sense it looks inevitable in hindsight (even as it might make you feel just a little sad for the protagonist). It's a really good military scifi story, but the real value of it for me wasn't either the military or the scifi. It's just a great read that I really enjoyed. Of course, military scifi tends to be that way, in my experience; maybe that subgenre just attracts good writers. Judging by how the military aspects of it feel, I suspect the author has read a lot of military science fiction and/or fantasy, and done a bit of research on what it's like to actually be in the military, even if I doubt (without having looked up anything about the author) he was ever in the military himself -- which would make the effort a pretty brave attempt to strike a note of authenticity without having lived in that environment.

If you're the kind of reader who complains that a book is "too dark" if people have unpleasant "on-screen" deaths that have a very personal effect on a first-person protagonist, avoid this book. It's gritty that way, and it doesn't deserve your poor ratings and reviews. The title should be a hint.

If you're the kind of reader who complains about strong language in a book, don't read this book (or any other military fiction worth its salt). All You Need Is Kill, like the actual military, is full of profanities, and doesn't deserve your poor ratings and reviews.

If you're the kind of reader who thinks "genre fiction" is beneath you because of some unreasonable belief that "unrealistic" elements of a genre make it impossible to tell a good story, provide a good character study, or otherwise act as a vehicle for some great writing, stay the hell away from this book. It doesn't deserve your pretentious, irrational biases mucking up its ratings and reviews.

I'm sure the Hollywood flick won't be anywhere near as good as the novel. show less

I liked it. I usually find time travel irritating. However, the groundhog-day time loop that capture the protagonist was interesting and avoided most of the problems with time travel. It also does a good job of keeping the aperture small. Sakurazaka doesn't do much world building, but he doesn't have to because its a character driven tory and the action occurs on a pretty small patch.

I also really like short novels and this one is lean and engaging throughout.

I saw the movie Edge of Tomorrow this past summer, which was based on this book. The movie was fucking awesome, so I absolutely had to read this book. The book didn't have quite the Hollywood happy ending as the movie, but it did have an ending that made a bit more sense.

Often times, when I read a book after seeing the movie, I quit reading halfway through, because fuck, I know what's going to happen. Why bother? Well, with this book, I had no fucking clue what was going to happen, because show more it was that much different from the movie. I mean, the basic ideas are the same. Guy kills an alien which puts him in a time loop, so every time he dies, he comes back to life at the same point in time, like Groundhog Day. But there were so many differences in the details, that it was still a compelling page turner.

This book is about a war with invading aliens. And about a man who doesn't want to have anything to do with the war. But he is thrust into it, by his superiors. He knows that going into battle would be a death sentence, because he isn't a fucking soldier, goddamnit. He's a fucking paper-pusher. He doesn't know how to fight.

He is sent into battle, anyway. Because to the marines, he is just cannon fodder. He's just another expendable body to throw at the aliens. Somehow, he survives the battle, after executing a bomb, that he was sure would kill him, and the attacking alien. But it turns out, that it didn't actually kill him. Instead, it sent him into a time loop. He's back at the base, being introduced to the Sergeant, once again.

So, he ends up going into battle, over and over. Dying, over and over. Until he meets a woman who trains him to fight. She trains him to use the time loop, to stop the alien invasion.

I can't recommend this book enough. And the movie. The movie was great, even with that psycho weirdo Tom Cruise. Both the book, and the movie are non-stop action. Compelling, and not predictable, at all. There. I'm done with the ball washing. I can only drool so much, goddamnit. show less

I prefer to read books before they're adapted into films. I don't mind it the other way around. But reading the book first gives me a chance to establish the character in my head before seeing it on screen. When I started seeing previews for the film Edge of Tomorrow and discovered that it was based on this book, I made sure to snap it up ASAP. The premise sounded very interesting and I wanted to be sure to read the source material before Tom Cruise got too far into my head. I'm glad I did, show more because he's almost the exact opposite of the twenty-something Asian protagonist of the novel. On the other hand, he's so different that it would be difficult for anyone to mistake his world-weary fifty-something American character for the same guy. It will be interesting to see what bits the filmmakers kept and what they completely reinvented.

The premise is simple. As the film poster puts it: Live. Die. Repeat. This is basically Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers. Keiji Kiriya is a fresh recruit in a war against alien invaders. He's thrown into battle, barely prepared, and comes to a pretty quick end. But then he wakes up and is pretty sure it was only a dream. Except he re-lives the events of the dream in startling detail until the sense of deja vu is overwhelming and only explanation is that it wasn't a dream. He's actually stuck in some sort of time loop.

Since this is translated into English from Japanese, it's difficult to know how much of the terse writing style comes from the original author and how much from the translator. I'm sure it's a bit of both. It fits the story and keeps the reader turning pages. It's very readable and I never felt lost. Description and introspection is applied appropriately. War is gritty, messy and painful. Soldiers are real people. Backstory is skillfully woven into unfolding events. The story keeps moving. I'm sure the word count puts this more into novella territory than novel, but there is plenty of character and story to make this a novel.

I really liked this book. It's well worth reading before Tom Cruise gets into your head. show less