All You Need Is Kill

Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Jul 2009 · Sold by VIZ Media LLC

About this ebook

When the alien Mimics invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor called a Jacket and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to be reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On his 158th iteration, he gets a message from a mysterious ally--the female soldier known as the Full Metal Bitch. Is she the key to Keiji's escape or his final death?

Now a major motion picture starring Tom Cruise!

-- VIZ Media

Ratings and reviews

This is the English adaptation of a Japanese light novel. While many people will say it is like Groundhog Day like story, something to note that this is a little less about that comedy wise... it has a bit of harsh language, so not really a good idea to give to younger audiences, but still a good read.

Good: It starts off very intense, very good fight descriptions. Also a bit of self-help philosophies. Bad: The protagonists interaction with women is clichéd and clumsily written almost cringey... Great book overall

This is a really bizarre premise but it actually works. The narrative pacing alternates between only two speeds, really fast action and superb battle scenes, and very slow yet descriptive sections. Maybe this is a particularily Japanese style of writing. More annoying is the sudden pov shift in one chapter to Rita. This didn't feel necessary to the story, and distracted from the rest of the Keiji first person pov, and I'm not sure what it added. Ideally I'd like to give this amazing and highly original short novel 4 1/2 stars, but since there's no option I gave it 5..

About the author

Hiroshi Sakurazaka was born in Tokyo in 1970. After a career in information technology, he published his first novel, Modern Magic Made Simple (Yoku wakaru gendai mahou), in 2003 with Super Dash Bunko, a popular young adult light novel imprint. There are now seven volumes in the series, and it was adapted as a manga in 2008 and as a television anime series in 2009. Sakurazaka published All You Need Is Kill with Super Dash Bunko in 2004 and with it earned his first Seiun Award nomination for best of the year honors in Japanese science fiction. His 2004 short story "Saitama Chainsaw Massacre" won the 16th SF Magazine Reader's Award. In 2009, All You Need Is Kill was the launch title for Haikasoru, a unique imprint dedicated to publishing the most compelling contemporary Japanese science fiction and fantasy for English-speaking audiences. New York Times best-selling author John Scalzi declared All You Need Is Kill to be a novel that "reads fast, kicks ass, and keeps on coming," and it has proven to be one of Haikasoru's most popular titles. Sakurazaka's other novels include Characters (cowritten with Hiroki Azuma) and Slum Online, which was published in English by Haikasoru in 2010. In 2010, Sakurazaka started an experimental digital magazine, AiR, with Junji Hotta. He remains one of Japan's most energetic writers of both light novels and adult science fiction.