Edge of Tomorrow aka All You Need is Kill

We picked up a English trade paperback translation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel being marketed under the title of the film Edge of Tomorrow.  

I reviewed the film Edge of Tomorrow aka Live. Die. Repeat some time ago, and now that I've read the book I thought I'd take the time to muse about both, and their relationship to my novel Bad Dog.  

As I said, the similarities between Bad Dog and the film Edge of Tomorrow are all surface level stuff, with the MacGuffin driving the plot being entirely different.  Alien tachyon technology versus my idea of a holographic multiverse.

For the purposes of this review I shall refer to novel by its original title – All You Need is Kill.

The book is quite short, running in at around 50,000 words, and I managed to read it over the course of Sunday morning.  While there are many small differences between the film and the book, which depending on one's tastes either adds or distracts from the story, in general the plot is the same.  

I thought the translation was very well done, and I'm really nit-picking when I say I noticed a couple of things that I would have used different words for – namely clip for magazine, especially as the word magazine was used a few line later for instance.  The ending of the book is differs from the movie, and this makes it worth reading if you want to see how the author originally intended the story to end. 

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading All You Need is Kill, it reminded me of science fiction that I read back in the seventies and eighties.  Plot driven action that runs with an idea.  

So if you are into military SF with power armour then this book should hit the spot.

This week I've finished the first out loud read through of Strike Dog and rewrite.

I feel a bit burned out after five days of solid work editing 100,314 words, with 1,072 words trimmed in the process.  I've made some notes about things that I need to go back too.  Mostly to do with duplication of background information.  I plan to do another out loud read through next week, which hopefully will go a lot faster second time round.

So that's it for another week.  See you all on the bounce.