All You Need Is Kill

Groundhog Day meets war and scifi. What sounds like a real awesome story left me bored.

Although the story is fresh, and the small scifi elements really catched my interest, something about the execution bored me.

Somewhere after the middle I just didn't care anymore, and only pushed through to the end because it isn't very big.

Pros: great sense of perspective, deals cleverly with repeating days

Cons: starts in the middle of the action so it's harder to get a grasp of the situation

When Keiji Kiriya dies in his first battle with the alien Mimics he doesn't expect to wake up the previous morning as if those days were just a dream. He quickly realizes that time is repeating and decides to train hard and become a great Jacket jockey like Rita Vrataski, aka the Valkyrie, aka the Full Metal Bitch.

This novel was the basis for the film Edge of Tomorrow, which I thought was really well done. Sure, the ending didn't make much sense, but it was a fun film. The ending in the book is different, and does make sense.

You get point of view chapters from both Keiji and, later on, Rita, which help put you into the action and understand why those two act the way they do. They're interesting characters, with a lot of supporting characters around them that you get to know fairly well.

There's enough exposition to understand the armoured suits the soldiers wear (the Jackets) and the alien menace, but beyond that there are only snippets here and there about how the world has coped with the war and how Keiji and Rita ended up enlisting.

While a few days are heavily detailed, the majority are skipped outright, giving you a good impression of time passing and Keiji learning how to fight without becoming boring or repetitive.

It's an action packed story that's also a quick read at just under 200 pages.

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This book is the basis of the Tom Cruise Movie “Edge of Tomorrow” aka “Live.Die.Repeat.” Both the movie and book are when all is said and considered a novelized video game.

In the book, the hero is Keiji Kiriya, who is a raw recruit in the Japanese element of the United Defense Force (“UDF”). The Japanese are holding the line on the mainland against the alien “Mimics,” which are an alien species sent to “terraform” Earth into a condition that will support their creator's life, but which, alas, is also deadly to human beings. The Mimics are so tough that it takes several humans in an exo-skeleton “Jacket” - perhaps modeled on the suits Robert Heinlein imagined in “Starship Troopers” - to kill a single Mimic.

Except Mad Wargarita - Rita Vrataski - who kills hundreds at a time.

Keiji gets trapped in a time loop when he dies in his first battle. He quickly comes to realize he's in a time loop and vows to get better with each pass through the loop. Eventually, he comes to partner with Rita when she realizes he is going through the same experience she went through previously. From there it is a matter of dealing with the battle.

This book is fast, fun read. It is all action with no let up, although there is a some conflict with respect to his relationship with Rita. However, there is little depth of character; both Keiji and Rita live to play the game - to fight, kill, die and get better with each pass through the loop, constantly racking up points.

How does it compare to the movie? Pretty close, actually. The setting of the movie is in Europe, not Japan; Cruise is an American named William Cage, while Keiji gets the nickname of “Cage” when he joins US Special Ops, but the movie, like the book, is really about the experience of a video game player, perfecting his skills and increasing his points after each reset.

This book is a fast, fun read, but there is nothing special about it.