Book Review: All You Need Is Kill (a.k.a Edge of Tomorrow)

How many times has it happened that our mind ponders over a past unpleasant situation trying to figure out ways we could have handled it better? How many times did we feel we should have had a reset button to make it right? Like a video game. Sounds fun! Well that’s exactly what Private Kiriya, protagonist of “All you need is kill”, gets when he embarks on his solo battle. But here’s a catch: The situation that he gets to reset is his own death on a battle field fighting against a formidable enemy which has landed on earth from another planet.

The central concept of the book is like any other alien sci-fi story. The aliens called “mimics” are organisms that have tough endoskeleton and deadly weapons. They have been sent on earth by an intelligent race in the hopes of terraforming it to make it their habitat. To encounter this threat, humans have developed their own metal suits called as ‘Jackets’ that enhance the physical strength of the human inside it and allow heavy weaponry to be used in the battles without slowing them down. Private Kiriya is one such soldier who is in his early twenties. The story is told from the point of view of Kiriya and it starts with him being dropped into the war zone for his first battle ever. The situation soon turns bloody as mimics out play the humans and Kiriya is killed in action. Within moments Kiriya finds himself waking up in his bunk bed on his base, approximately one day prior to the supposed operation. Assuming he may have seen a bad dream, he relives the day, only to have a feeling of Deja Vu. He dies again in the battle, wakes up again in his bed. He soon figures out that he is caught in some time loop which he cannot exit and has to experience his excruciating death in each loop. Doesn’t sound that fun now!

The narration focuses on how he uses the looping to his own advantage. He improvises and hones his skills in one single day, playing it over and over, like a video game. But unable to exit the loop he sees no end to his ordeal. Until he meets a decorated war hero, an American named Rita Vrataski, who can also loop just like him and knows how to exit it. As they both form a team against the mimics, they soon realize that it is not that easy to win the war and exit the loop. But I will not spoil all the fun by telling you how the book ends.

The story is fast paced and laced with dark humor. Hiroshi Sakurazaka, the author of the book kept the proceedings interesting and the story short. Considering how a time loop story device is prone to be boring, he has done a commendable job. Two thumbs up! And yes, “Edge of Tomorrow” is based on this book.