By Frances Atkinson
Co-written by Melbourne authors Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, Iluminae: The Illuminae Files-1 blasted onto the YA scene in 2015 and was instantly embraced, not only by readers around the world, and the #LoveOzYA community, but also by Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment.
For readers, it's been almost a year between books, but in terms of plot, Gemina: The Illuminae Files-2 picks up five minutes after Illuminae ended. Book one began with Kady and Ezra, two teens still smarting from a recent break-up, who flee their home planet when a mining corporation – BeiTech – decides to reduce it to dust.
Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, who have co-written Gemina: The Illuminae Files #2.Credit: Christopher Tovo
What followed was an intense, rapid-fire, dystopian thriller set in 2575, a bookish pinata stuffed with teen-snark, devastating death toll, zombie-like viruses, epic battles, a manipulative AI, along with countless, but no less engaging moments of character-driven dramas and a network of thoughtfully-explored relationships.
Gemina unfolds on Jump Station Heimdall where Hanna, the commander's daughter and Nik, a reluctant gang member, find themselves battling an attack from a relentlessly sadistic BeiTech assault team, while an Alien-esque creature slithers along air vents, picking off the vulnerable.
Gemina: The Illuminae Files #2, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.
Although the shift between books is seamless, a chunk of Gemina focuses on new characters, but hard-core fans already understand two important things: while AIDEN, the complex AI character, infinitely more interesting than 2001's HAL, cannot be trusted (or can he?), Kaufmann and Kristoff can.
A big part of the success of Gemina (already a New York Times bestseller) and Illuminae is due to the characters – the female protagonists in particular are powerful, independent, funny, and smart. You get the feeling that Kaufman and Kristoff know each one from blood type to shoe size and that intimacy translates beautifully onto the page.
Even the bit-players are diverse, nuanced, and despite the dystopian setting, entirely credible. As the world around them becomes more violent and chaotic, the more fragile they become, and the more deeply you care.
Just like Illuminae, Gemina is packed with documents, emails, schematics, lists, transcripts, IMs, medical reports, diary entries, interviews and more, and includes illustrations by bestselling US author Marie Lu.
There are times when the text mirrors the action on the page; to read certain parts of the book, you have to physically turn it 360 degrees when the spacecraft does a barrel role. There is also a plethora of historical and pop-culture references and influences, from pop songs, Battlestar Galactica, Norse mythology, Die Hard (Hans Gruber fans will be richly rewarded), Andy Weir's The Martian, to Sun Tzu's The Art of War.
The world building and detail in both books are outstanding. You just know Kaufman and Kristoff have a room somewhere – covered in more sticky-notes than a psycho's basement – where everything from worm-holes to theories about outer reaches of the universe are mapped out in detail.
This alone makes Gemina a trip worth taking.