This month Ariel and I decided to finish The Illuminae Files. Obsidio is the last book of this Young Adult SciFi series and as a conclusion, we were disappointed. In this post, we will share our thoughts on Obsidio, as well as the series as a whole. Most of this review has spoilers so please read with caution! Ariel’s comments and notes are in bold-italics. Let’s start off with the synopsis!
Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza–but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion? Meanwhile, Kady’s cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza’s ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys–an old flame from Asha’s past–reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken.
Content Notes: Violence, Gore, Mention of death of a family member, Murder of a child, Mass murder.
General Discussion
(whole book for Obsidio)
Obsidio is the last book in the Illumiae series. It introduced a whole new setting – Karenza IV – and the people there. As a last book, it had a huge task in front of it – getting all the people in one spot and tying all loose ends. I think it was a fair try but I did not get much out of it. The novelty of the format had worn off – something different remains different for only so long. Also, since Obsidio had to have everyone together, the character development for the newly introduced characters was not done well in my mind. We met Asha and Lindstrom because they had a role to play, not because they were the new protagonists. I wonder if there would have been a better way to do that. The resistance movement and what it was trying to achieve on Kerenza did not ground itself in my mind well.
Yeah, I totally agree, Kriti. As far as finales go, this one was a bit underwhelming. We had so much tension right off the start in books 1 and 2, and this one nothing seemed to even happen until 50% of the way through. By that point, I was questioning why anything about the book was important. The ending had a perfectly tied-up ending and it left me with a solid sense of “meh” that had me forgetting why I wanted to finish the book. Not only that, the motivations for BeiTech were flimsy at best, and the characters all had little to no agency.
I felt the same, both about the ending and Beitech’s motivations. I kind of already knew where this was going since this is YA, though it was more gory than most YA I have read. BeiTech and this whole cascade of events were not clearly explained and that might be a disadvantage in this format.
AIDAN’s “feelings” for Kady presented a creepy angle I did not want to go down. As a computing scientist, I know about the sheer amount of data that would be required to make an AI imitate love would not be something AIDAN would have access to as a war machine mastermind. The book gave us the opportunity to talk about self-aware AI and it becoming sentient but as a being that lacks empathy and has no issues whatsoever dishing people into space, the manifestation of love and desire did not line up. Code has logic. I do not see the logic in this. Maybe love is beyond biology but was that angle really needed?
Yeah AIDAN was a super weird component in book 3. In book 1 and 2 there was plot relevance, but in 3 AIDAN has a crisis over falling in love with Kady and the philosophical Trolly dilemma (kill 3 to save 1 or vice versa), and it made no sense whatsoever. What made for a doubly confusing element was Kady’s feelings towards AIDAN. I did not understand that either.
I thought about that too and maybe she was just thankful to have him as a very strong companion through the last couple months and valued the connection? You and I chatted about this – what would have been the point of this sort of an angle, you know?
My best guess at this is that this trilogy was attempting to emulate many other AI stories that follow a hypothetical trajectory for if a computer program gains sentience and by proxy, feelings. However, many sci-fi AIs still remain within their programming parameters to some extent. For example, in the movie Her, the AI is a companion robot, so her romantic feelings are programmed in. In the Murderbot series, the SecUnit (who is programmed to be hired by companies to complete contracted security assignments) learns feelings through exposure to media, but even so has a difficult time expressing feelings in a human way and is uncomfortable being the target of human emotions. Another example would be the tv show Westworld, where the robots develop their sentience through the repeated trauma and abuse at the hands of humans. So, all of those examples show a logical trajectory for the potential emotions and feelings for each of these programmed AIs through their original functions. However, AIDAN just suddenly goes from war machine to deeply emotional human, and it is not very believable.
And without having read and seen the books and movies you mention, that was exactly what I was getting at when I said there wasn’t enough data! And even with data, it would take a long time to become what AIDAN became.
And to believe that they could get rid of AIDAN after having it in multiple systems? Not how that works, especially if it’s self aware.
Yep. Honestly the inconsistencies surrounding AIDAN alone probably dropped the whole book a star.
And to recall that AIDAN was so much fun in Book 1 and we loved him it, haha.
Oh how the mighty have fallen!
Obsidio was definitely the darkest of the books and chaos ensued. Maybe that is why I didn’t feel as immersed. I was already not looking forward to being introduced to new characters and the slow start with next to nothing happening in the first 3 hours did not help. If I made a habit of DNFing more books, this would have been a DNF. I honestly don’t know what I hoped to get from this book, apart from finishing the series.
Totally agree. I think I probably would have DNF’d if it wasn’t the literal finale of a fairly solid book 1 and 2. I felt like I had gone so far, so I just might as well finish the story. Which is an unfortunate feeling to end on!
Yes. And now we can talk about the series as a whole, but first, a summary of our reading experience:
General Discussion
(whole series)
We loved book 1! I think it was your idea, Kriti, to present these books as a buddy read and I am so glad we did! One of the best things about this trilogy is the format. Having a unique format like the “found files” genre really makes for a theatrical and immersive read, especially when paired with the audiobook.
I agree. It was a fun experience indeed! And though I was not sure about the audiobook in the beginning, there wasn’t a better way to read it. Having both the physical and audio versions helps a lot in immersion. I also don’t think I would have enjoyed the series as much if we had not discussed it.
Hanna and Ella were definitely my favorite characters of the main 7 in the trilogy. They were by far the strongest elements of book 2. I loved Hannah’s art and Ella’s hacking skills. Having such different characters really makes for a solid main character cast.
Yes, I missed Hanna in Book 3 and Ella was a big favorite of mine. The cast was good in Book 1 and 2, though I think the boys sort of fizzled out in roles too in Book 3.
Agreed!
Concluding Thoughts
Overall, I think this trilogy is worth the read. The format is unique, the characters are fun and silly YA characters and they check off a good amount of tropes, but overall there’s a lot going for these books. I’ve seen a lot of people on Goodreads love Obsidio, so take our review with a grain of salt. We hope you enjoy the finale more than we did!
You can find our reviews of Illuminae and Gemina by clicking on their reading experience graphics below:
That’s all for our discussion for Obsidio and The Illumiae Files!
Interested in reading Obsidio and adding to our discussion? Find it on all retail stores. Here are the Amazon links for your convenience.
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
Or find it at your local library!
Book one was definitely the best, it’s amazing, book two was good but book three was just ok. Still the series as a whole is definitely worth a read.
Ariel and I agree! Thank you so much for taking the time to read our thoughts. 🙂