Gemina Review

Gemina

By Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Gemina is the second book in the Illuminae trilogy. Click here to read my review of the first book, Illuminae.

Moving to a space station at the edge of the galaxy was always going to be the death of Hanna’s social life. Nobody said it might actually get her killed.

The sci-fi saga that began with the breakout bestseller Illuminaecontinues on board the Jump Station Heimdall, where two new characters will confront the next wave of the BeiTech assault.

Hanna is the station captain’s pampered daughter; Nik the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. But while the pair are struggling with the realities of life aboard the galaxy’s most boring space station, little do they know that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall, carrying news of the Kerenza invasion.

When an elite BeiTech strike team invades the station, Hanna and Nik are thrown together to defend their home. But alien predators are picking off the station residents one by one, and a malfunction in the station’s wormhole means the space-time continuum might be ripped in two before dinner. Soon Hanna and Nik aren’t just fighting for their own survival; the fate of everyone on the Hypatia—and possibly the known universe—is in their hands.

But relax. They’ve totally got this. They hope.

Once again told through a compelling dossier of emails, IMs, classified files, transcripts, and schematics, Gemina raises the stakes of the Illuminae Files, hurling readers into an enthralling new story that will leave them breathless.

Summary from Goodreads.

After reading the first book in this series, Illuminae, I feel like the only way was down. Illuminae was such a groundbreaking book in my opinion for it use of reports, emails, transcripts and schematics to name a few, that I feel like anything now written in this style will not use it as effectively as it originally was.

Gemina is not a direct sequel to Illuminae in a sense. Yes it does follow on, but we have a whole new set of characters, and new problems. It was nice to see Kaufman and Kristoff not becoming reliant upon our knowledge of previous characters (although the do play a major role in a discreet way) and daring to try to get us attached to a new set of characters. For me, it did not entirely work. I did care about the characters but the just didn’t seem human enough if that makes sense.

I loved Hanna, her and her father are very similar to myself and my father (not that I live in a space station that controls a wormhole, though that would be quite awesome). I found that I was able to relate to how she saw things and I completely understood her thought process as she went though, and it would be very similar to mine (although I would not be as badass as her unfortunately).

The use of the emails, instant messages, schematic etc. we not as affective as they were in Illuminae. That being said, I did still enjoy the use of them all. It did seem like Gemina had a heavier plot that required more transcripts of what was happening and use of instant messages and emails; but I personally love the more artistic ways that some of the pages take, like the sentence following the paths of where they have travelled and the hit list in Gemina.

If you have read Illuminae, then this not-sequel-sequel will be enjoyable, but I do recommend reading that first as some of the motivations within Gemina come directly from the plot of Illuminae.

4/5

Have you read Gemina? Do you agree with my review? Let me know your opinion in the comments below!

Check it out on Goodreads here.

Purchase it on Amazon here.