All You Need is Kill

I am not a fan of military science fiction, nor do I think that video games provide a particularly good template for plotting a story. That said, I enjoyed everything about Hiroshi Sakurazaka's military sf novel All You Need is Kill with its story that plays out very much like a video game. Or it would if video games had interesting characters capable of sophisticated self-reflection and enjoyably complex interactions.

All You Need is Kill is now best known as the basis for the blockbuster film Edge of Tomorrow. I haven't seen the film, although I hear it is good. It will of course be flashier than the book, but what I anticipate missing most is the necessary character adjustments. The wit and resourcefulness of Sakurazaka's twenty-year-old raw recruit to the Japanese defense force will have to be shoehorned into whatever character is created for a middle-aged Tom Cruise. Those are the breaks. Emily Blunt, on the other hand, seems like the perfect choice for the character known in the novel as the Full Metal Bitch.

The novel sets up and resolves its elaborate time-loop premise in a nimble 200 pages. It takes the author all of about four or five pages to fill in the complex backstory of the devastating alien invasion our hero's struggle to combat, and the action is non-stop. Sakurazaka also creates a believable army camp atmosphere and develops minor characters that are more than cannon fodder. This is a perfect afternoon or evening read.

And maybe I lack the proper cultural references or just blinked, but I have no idea what the title means. That's one change Hollywood definitely got right.