Illuminae, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, is the first book of a young adult series titled The Illuminae Files. The story is set in the year 2575 and most of it takes place in space. The two main characters are Kady Grant and Ezra Mason. Kady, a seventeen-year-old girl with dyed pink hair, who is also a secret hacker, is aboard the spaceship Hypatia. Ezra, who is Kady’s ex-boyfriend, is also seventeen, enjoys playing a sport called geeball, and travels on the spaceship Alexander. The reason that Kady and Ezra are on two spaceships is that a corporation called BeiTech attacked their planet, Kerenza IV. Another important character is AIDAN, an AI (artificial intelligence) who runs the Alexander. The story takes off when refugees from a ship called Copernicus, who are infected with a manmade virus created by BeiTech, try to board the Alexander. This virus was designed to attack the part of the brain that controls fear, and to make the infected people very scared. But because the virus has mutated, people who get sick turn into psychopathic murderers. To make things even worse, AIDAN, the AI, has also gone insane. Releasing the infected refugees into the Alexander and watching the ensuing bloodshed, AIDAN thinks, “Am I not merciful?” Kady and Ezra switch places as first-person narrators for most of the story, in more-or-less alternating chapters called files. Occasionally, a file is inserted from a random character’s point of view. Later, AIDAN’s perspective comes to replace Ezra’s—for reasons that I can’t explain without spoiling a major plot point. One thing that makes Illuminae different from most other books I have read is the formatting, which is both unique and beautiful. When AIDAN comes under attack and begins to glitch, this is shown in an ingenious fashion by random capital letters appearing in AIDAN’s sentences. Curse words are blacked out. Text is interpolated with diagrams, lists, hand-written annotations, and all sorts of schematics. Just by removing my hardcover’s dust jacket, I found so many easter eggs and hidden surprises underneath. Even though Illuminae is a horror sci-fi story, there is quite a bit of humor too, even in the serious parts. At one point, when Ezra sends a drunken text to Kady, it sounds like a drunken teen, complete with horrible punctuation, grammar, and capitalization. I also liked that when Ezra texts his friend James, it seems like a conversation between two immature teens. The characters’ personalities are rich and varied. Some people are silly, some are loving, and AIDAN specifically is sophisticated and poetic, even in its thoughts: “If I breathed, I would sigh. I would scream. I would cry.” This particular phrase appears twice in the book, two “chapters” apart. The second time I read it, it gave me chills. Reading Illuminae I had the strange sense of watching an AI gain human emotions when it used to have none, and develop empathy without being reprogrammed. I was glued to the story, but I felt I was a bit young for the gory parts and graphic descriptions of murder. I would recommend this book for readers thirteen and up. Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Ember, 2017. Buy the book here and help support Stone Soup in the process!
horror
Stone Soup Author Interview: Shelby Miller
Stone Soup contributor and 20-21 intern Anya Geist, 14, talks with Stone Soup newcomer Shelby Miller, 11, about the inspiration she gets from her author grandfather, writing scary stories, and the lovely privacy of writing in her own room. 0:16 – How were you introduced to Stone Soup? 0:32 – Do you subscribe to Stone Soup? 0:39 – What have you submitted to Stone Soup? 0:45 – How did it feel to submit something? 0:55 – What was the poem you submitted about and what inspired you to write it? 1:18 – What did you like about the Writing Workshop? 1:29 – What was it like to join the Writing Workshop partway through the summer? 1:52 – Do you have any favorite books or authors you get inspiration from? 2:14 – Do you like writing scary stories? 2:24 – Do you draw on your own life for your writing? 2:42 – What is your favorite thing to write about? 2:50 – How do you make your stories scary? 3:11 – What inspired you to write scary stories? 3:30 – Do you ever scare yourself when you’re writing a scary story? 3:44 – What is your favorite thing about writing? 4:06 – What kind of character do you tend to create when writing a scary story? 4:40 – Do you have a favorite place to write? 5:14 – Is there anything else you want to say? 5:27 – Do you have any writing advice for your peers? 6:06 – What do you like about reading Stone Soup? 6:26 – If you could tell somebody about Stone Soup, what would you say?
Writing Workshop #26: Horror
An update from our twenty-sixth Writing Workshop! A summary of the workshop held on Saturday October 24, plus some of the output published below This week our founder William Rubel and Stone Soup contributor and Writing Workshop member Liam Hancock, 13, led a workshop designed to get everyone ready for Halloween–on horror writing. We talked about the differences between the merely scary and the truly horrifying, and discovered that our members are uncannily good at writing fiction that can keep us all up at night! Read on below for some chilling examples (and you would be well advised to read them on a sunny morning, not immediately before bed…). The Writing Challenge: Write a terrifying piece of horror fiction! The Participants: Nami, Charlotte, Madeline, Margaret, Anya, Emily, Lina, Samantha, Janani, Lucy, Tilly, Gia, Olivia, Jonathan, Enni, Juniper, Charlotte, Rithesh, Ma’ayan, Nova, Liam, Lena, Maddie, Tegan, Ava, Hera, Lena, Nico, Peri, Elbert Ava Angeles, 12Chicago, IL The Dream Ava Angeles, 12 It started out as a regular day. The sun was shining and a cool breeze was blowing. It was a perfect day for a spring festival. But this would not last. I remember—for some reason—that there were tables, round tables, with tablecloths that draped over their sides, standing there in the green grass. For another unknown reason, there were also white plates, napkins, and glasses set upon the snow-white tablecloth. It was like a restaurant, but outdoors. As we set up the last of the chairs, people began to arrive. They found their seats. It was a picture-perfect setting. I remember going into the building. It had a canopy in front, with a single step leading up to the door. Inside this particular building, there were mats—long, colorful tumbling mats—lining the walls and the floor. I played with the rest of the children on these mats, hopping and jumping, knowing that the mats were there to cushion our fall. But we didn’t get to play on them for very long. Suddenly, clouds rolled in, and it began to rain lightly. I watched the adults take the tables and chairs into the building, while sitting on the single step below the door. Some people began to leave, seeing that the festival was cancelled. I remained on the step, watching the rain gather into puddles around the canopy. Then, I suddenly heard crying. It wasn’t a baby crying, but a child, desperately crying, as if crying was its last hope. I turned my head to the right, where the sound was coming from, and felt shivers come over me. There—in front of another building with many gigantic steps—was a younger version of myself. Its face was blurred and distorted, and I could not tell whether it was where the crying sound was coming from. I saw its clothes clearly—it was wearing a gold coat that my mother had bought for me, as well as a light blue pair of pants. Its hair was in ponytails—my usual childhood hairstyle, with blue bows at the roots. It looked normal—like me—but something was wrong. As I stared at it, frozen, terror struck me. The uncanny feeling of staring at your own, younger self, but knowing that it wasn’t your own, younger self washed over me like a wave. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it, and my mouth opened to form three words—“Who—are you?” My horrified whisper must have been heard, because the creature shook its head slowly. As I realized that I wasn’t going to get an answer, feeling came into my legs, and I ran, ran away from the mysterious, uncanny creature that I thought I once was. The mats inside the building were gone, replaced by a wide marble stairway that I dashed down, not feeling the tips of my toes touching the marble, just running, running, running— I woke up, staring at the plaster ceiling. It was just a dream, I reassured myself, just a dream… As I lifted myself up from the bed, I came face-to-face with that same creature from my dream, standing just a few inches away from the side. As I froze with petrified horror, the creature’s mouth broke into a maniacal grin, and it said, in a high-pitched, chilling voice, “Who are you?” The House Lena D., 12 I was going on a hike in the forest by myself. The skies darkened. Rain clouds appeared. Wild rain poured down. I had to turn back, but it was too dark. I wasn’t afraid. How could I be afraid? The dark deep forest. Nothing scary. Just dirt and trees. Then I saw it. There it was. A house. I walked towards it. I knocked on the door. But nobody answered. I waited and waited. Nothing. I had to find shelter. Fast. I shivered. It was so cold. I opened the door. CRRRREAAKKKK! I entered, my hands shaking wildly. The floorboards moved. “Huh?” I gasped. Rats skittered across the floor. “Whew, those were just rats, of course, this is not haunted,” I said, nervously. I stepped on the stairs. CREAK! CREAK! CREAK! I opened a door. It was a bedroom. It looked like it belonged to a girl from long ago. There was a broken bed. It had stuffed animals on it and a pillow that was ripped. One of the stuffed animals looked right at me. I looked away. How odd, I thought. It’s probably not looking at me. Stuffed animals don’t move anyway. I heard some walking. I turned around. The stuffed animal fell off the bed. That’s weird, I thought. It was in the middle of the bed, not hanging off. How could it fall off? I looked away again. The stuffed animal moved towards me on the floor. It smiled at me. Not a happy smile, a scary one. I shrieked. I grabbed my flashlight to defend myself from it. “Back off!” I shouted at it. The stuffed animal’s thread came off. Stuffing was spilling all over. Yet, it was still walking. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I
