Edge of Tomorrow (Hiroshi Sakurazaka)

Edge of Tomorrow
Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Haikasoru
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**+ (Bad/Okay)

DESCRIPTION: Once, humans assumed they were the only intelligent life in the galaxy. Now, with the invasion of the Mimics, they know better. An alien terraforming technology that hijacked deep sea life forms, the hivelike entities have been slowly and inexorably spreading their toxic-to-humans waste, poisoning native Earth life to pave the way for the coming of their masters. Humans struggle to resist, but somehow the Mimics keep adapting and coming back stronger than ever. If somebody can't figure out how to break the cycle of defeats, the world is doomed.
Keiji Kiriya was a green recruit, a "jacket jockey" in the battle armor that at least gives soldiers a fighting chance against the incredibly resilient Mimics, when he went into his first battle - and died. Only he finds himself back in his bunk, 30 hours before the fatal blow, reliving a span of time he remembers almost perfectly.
Another death, another reset. And again... and again...
Has his mind cracked under pressure? Is it some sort of elaborate hallucination? Or has Keiji inadvertently stumbled into a secret known to only one other soldier - the nigh-unstoppable American fighter Rita, known informally as the Full Metal Bitch, who has more kills to her name than entire national armies?
This book was previously released under the title All You Need is Kill.

REVIEW: With a character, ostensibly a heroine and love interest, called the "Full Metal Bitch", one might have an inkling of why this popular Japanese sci-fi story - inspiration for a Tom Cruise film (whose title was used for this re-issue) - got its low rating from me. Try as it might to explore interesting concepts of possible time loops and alien invaders, it just cannot seem to help itself from falling back on the worst race, national, gender, and overall genre cliches, with flat, overreacting characters delivering clunky dialog and often wandering into tangents when time is of the essence (because even in a potentially endless time loop, sometimes you really do need to shut up and get on with what needs to be done or said before everything inevitably goes wrong again). Early on, I found the idea - a cross between the hell of potential extinction-level war and alien invaders with the "Groundhog Day" of a time loop only remembered by one man - intriguing, and was willing to ride along with a main character who wasn't exactly original or deep but was at least serviceable. Then I got to Rita, the crimson-armored, axe-wielding embodiment of all manner of cringeworthy stereotypes and overall sexual objectification, and it became abundantly clear that this book was written for a particular target audience that I was very, very much not. The story clunks along after that, wallowing in some disturbing fetishes, before ending up at a conclusion I guessed pretty much from the start (not a happy or satisfactory guess, but more a guess based on flat predictability). If I ever have to relive the loop of time where I downloaded this title to try, hopefully I'll remember enough to choose more carefully.

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