#niklas malikov

[alystar00]

Niklas: I am invoking the “no judgements” clause of our relationship

Hanna: Oh my god, what did you do this time?

#illuminae files #gemina #obsidio #Niklas malikov #hanna donnelly

[booksteacupandreviews]

𝗚𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮 (𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗹𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗹𝗲𝘀 #2) 𝗯𝘆 𝗔𝗺𝗶𝗲 𝗞𝗮𝘂𝗳𝗺𝗮𝗻, 𝗝𝗮𝘆 𝗞𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗳𝗳 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Gemina revolves around main characters Hanna Donnelly- Heimdall station master’s daughter- and Niklas Malikov, a member of House of Knives gang, drug supplier on Heimdall- trying to save their lives and those on Heimdall from invasion by BiTech team. The story is about survival, courage, love, friendship, trust, betrayal, invasion, space warfare, and slimy alien creatures. This is immersive, mind-blowingly brilliant and super fast paced science-fiction, the best sequel I ever read and… you should just read this. Check out 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 in this book 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗶𝗰. Some of my 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀 from this book - “Patience and Silence had one beautiful daughter. And her name was Vengeance.” “I am often told I defy expectations.” “When you fight monster, be careful you don’t become the monster.” “You might get only one shot. So shoot. You know who said that?” The rifle clatters to the bloody floor. “Hanna FUCKING Donnelly. That’s who.” 𝗤𝗢𝗧𝗗 - *Which is your favorite space opera or futuristic novel?* .... [Hashtags] #Gemina #IlluminaeFiles #AmieKaufman #JayKristoff #ScienceFiction #SciFi #YA #YAbook #YAseries #YAreader #YASciFi #Bookreview #SciFireader #futuristicnovel #booksetinspace #SpaceOpera #Spacewar #bestsequel #serieslovers #BookTeacupandReviews #Bookstagram #Bookbloggerofig #Indianbookstagram #readersofig #bookishcommunity #Booklovers #igbooks #Bestscifi #bookishphotography https://www.instagram.com/p/CdcsHntrEOR/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#2 #gemina #illuminaefiles #amiekaufman #jaykristoff #sciencefiction #scifi #ya #yabook #yaseries #yareader #yascifi #bookreview #scifireader #futuristicnovel #booksetinspace #spaceopera #spacewar #bestsequel #serieslovers #bookteacupandreviews #bookstagram #bookbloggerofig #indianbookstagram #readersofig #bookishcommunity #booklovers #igbooks #bestscifi #bookishphotography

[in-cara-gible]

every single day i say a prayer of thanks for nik's parachute

#nik malikov #niklas malikov #ezra mason #the illuminae files #illuminae #gemina #obsidio #memento #amie kaufman #jay kristoff

[nikov]

— THE ILLUMINAE FILES: THE EIGHT SEVEN    “Good luck, everyone. Good luck to us all.     And may we meet again on distant shores.     Some place fine and far from here.” 

#mine:illuminae #year:2020 #the illuminae files #tif #illuminae #gemina #obsidio #amie kaufman #jay kristoff #Kady grant #Ezra mason #nik malikov #niklas malikov #Ella malikov #hanna donnelly #asha grant #rhys lindstrom #aiden #I miss this crew

[incorrectilluminaequotes]

Hanna: take off your shirt now!

Nik: well, well, well, someone is eager to see me naked

Hanna: you were stabbed!!

#illuminae #jay kristoff #the illuminae files #amie kaufman #gemina #hanna donnelly #niklas malikov #nik malikov #nik x hanna

[raand0m]

She pulls a small notebook from her outer pocket.

(Nik) “That the famous journal? Going to show me what’s inside?”

(Hanna) “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

WEATHER BOOOoY!

(Omg, sorry. I had to!)

#i know i did this before with The Hawthorne Legacy #and now with... #GEMINA #illuminae files #but i can't resist! #I will forever read it like him #WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW WEATHER BOY #Niklas Malikov #Hanna Donnelly #jay kristoff #amie kaufman #marie lu

[janivewe]

Do I love AIDAN?

I love AIDAN

#aidan #kady x aidan #kady and aidan #illuminae #the illuminae files #gemina #obsidio #illuminae files #kady and ezra #ezra and kady #kady x ezra #kady grant #nik and hanna #nik x hanna #hanna donnelly #niklas malikov #asha and rhys #asha x rhys #rhys and asha #asha grant #rhys lindsrom #ella malikova #the illuminae team #ya #ya couple #yabook #ya books #ai #artificialintelligence #scifi books

[kavinskhhy]

Art by @arz28art

#illuminae files #illuminae #gemina #obsidio #kady grant #ezra mason #hanna donnelly #niklas malikov #asha grant #rhys lindstorm #aidan #kerenza iv #jay kristoff and amy kaufman #jay kristoff #amy kaufman #fan art

[nevena190]

Illuminae files

Kady Grant

Hanna Donnelly

Niklas Malikov

Ezra Mason

#ezra mason #niklas malikov #hanna donnelly #kady grant #kady x ezra #obsidio #gemina #illuminae files #book aesthetics #illuminae files aesthetics #moodboard #character aesthetics #illuminae #bookaholic #booknerd #bookworm

[theilluminaephiles]

Nik [transcribing the security camera footage]: Will they or won't they? Sexual tension.

Hanna: Nik, it makes the team uncomfortable when you talk about us like we're characters in a show you're watching.

#the illuminae files #incorrect illuminae quotes #illuminae files #illuminae #gemina #obsidio #obsidio spoilers #spoilers #niklas malikov #nik malikov #hanna donnelly #tif #incorrect quotes #source: unknown #mine

[heronpoxed]

So Im reading Obsidio and JAYZUS I’m living for Ezra and Nik’s friendship🥺

#obsidio #niklas malikov #ezra mason #nik malikov #illuminae #the illuminae files #gemina #hanna donnelly #kady grant #ella malikova #asha grant #rhys lindstrom

[alystar00]

Police officer: You are under arrest for having four passengers on one motorcycle.

Ella: Wait, four?

Kady: Oh God

Hanna: Dammit

Ezra: Nik fell off!

#illuminae files saga #illuminae files #illuminae #Gemina #Obsidio #ella malikova #Ella #niklas malikov #Nik #Niklas #Ezra mason #Ezra #Kady grant #Kady #hanna donnelly #Hanna

[seaweedbrainswisegirl]

"You deserve every star in the galaxy."

I have decided to color Gemina but ended up coloring all of the Illuminae Files.

I regret nothing. I love them!!!!

#illuminae #gemina #obsidio #amie kaufman #jay kristoff #kady grant #ezra mason #niklas malikov #hanna donnely #illuminae files #bookstagram #bookart #art #galaxy #bookstack #books

[in-cara-gible]

UR TELLING ME THAT WAS NIK?????

#i feel like i have to reread the entire series #now that I have this information #no this is so funny #and did ella and kady do the gemina transcripts???? #idk these books are wild #the illuminae files #illuminae #gemina #obsidio #memento #nik malikov #niklas malikov #dom najov

[the-apocryphal-one]

Illuminae, Writing Styles, and Some Final Thoughts

 Disclaimer: This is not meant as an insult either author! They both put out an amazing series and I love it. I just wanted to make an observation that may or may not be wrong and offer my thoughts on how I’d have preferred some things be handled.

I shouldn’t have to say unmarked spoilers before the cut, but you never know.

---------

So last week I discovered this series and loved it to bits. Naturally, I went to check out what else the authors have written, together and independently, because I can’t get enough of having my heart dragged across a cheese grater. While I was looking through Jay Kristoff’s website, one thing caught my eye:

“He does not believe in happy endings.”

And suddenly, things clicked. I sometimes felt there was a sense of disconnect in Illuminae, and this is why. It’s their two styles clashing. Now, I haven’t read anything else from them yet, but on his website, Kristoff admits LifeL1k3 and the Aurora Style are dark--and Nevernight and Empire of the Vampire are darker. I don’t think it’s presumptuous to say that he likes writing heavy material, or that the darker parts of Illuminae are from him.

Looking at Amie Kaufman’s books, they’re lighter in comparison. Epic adventures and romances, which are in no way inferior to dark stories. Notably, The Starbound Trilogy has a basic structure that’s a spitting image of Illuminae’s. A trilogy, with each book following a different set of protagonists, but still tying together into an overarching plot. The protagonists from the previous books will appear, and the new ones will hook up with each other. And I was like ‘oh, so that part of Illuminae was her’.

This ‘interwoven’ style worked wonderfully in the first two books, but by the third...by the third, I didn’t care about the new protagonists. I felt I could predict how it would go: they would hate each other, they would be thrown together by circumstance, they would almost die, they would actually be alive, they would live happily ever after. Why get invested? Especially when I have much less time to connect with them than the previous four (six counting AIDAN and Ella)? And beat for beat, I was right.

Speaking of, AIDAN had to be all Kristoff. He said AIDAN was his favorite character to write and he’s very different in tone from the rest of the cast, so I’d bet he handled him. It also explains why his ‘enemies to friends to ???’ with Kady stands out compared to the other relationships; it builds over three books instead of being wrapped up in one.

Ignoring how I feel about the relationships themselves, I think it would have been better if Asha and Rhys got the third book all to themselves and the climax was a fourth. I’d have missed the cast I was familiar with and been excited by any small mentions/cameos, like in Gemina, but I wouldn’t have felt impatient whenever the newcomers were on screen. Kady, Ezra, AIDAN, Hanna, Nik, and Ella just had so much going on and I cared about them way more than the newbies. I think trying to have the climax and introduce new players at the same time was to Asha and Rhys’s detriment.

So onto my other big criticism with Obsidio: it’s ending.

To be blunt: I think it was out of place. Not the part about BeiTech getting their just desserts, the part where all the protagonists come out alive and all their relationships work out.

(This excludes AIDAN again; he gets stuck drifting in the network watching the love of his life be happy without him. But, deciding that he should just stay away feels like a culmination of his character arc: emotionally destroying, but fitting.)

Obsidio opens with Hanna saying “not all of us made it off Kerenza IV”. When the author makes the decision to have that be in the opening, they create expectations in the reader. So when everyone makes it off Kerenza IV...the reader feels cheated. I love happy endings, but they need to feel earned, not granted as a cop-out. There are too many fake-outs for the leads in the series, and after a while, they stopped working, because I stopped expecting them to stick. And I think Obsidio’s ending was Kaufman’s input, too--because Kristoff “does not believe in happy endings”.

I feel like if Kristoff had been the sole author of Illuminae, Ezra would have stayed dead after the first book, Rhys would have betrayed Asha for real and died, Kady and AIDAN would still end up as they were in canon, and Nik and Hanna would survive but their romance wouldn’t.

...Of course, if Kristoff was the sole author of Illuminae, we might not have gotten the other five characters (or at least, not the way we did, with them as main characters). And losing Nik, Hanna, and Ella would be a tragedy.

That said, the first two are still things I think should have happened. 

Like, my thinking Ezra should have stayed dead has nothing to do with him as a character or shipping preferences. I like Ezra. He’s a big sweetie. A good guy. I thought he and Kady had genuine chemistry, probably the most out of all the love stories—Asha and Rhys haven’t seen each other in years, and Nik and Hanna have known each other for a couple of days (though granted, that is mentioned).

I digress. Ezra really charmed me. And to learn that AIDAN had been impersonating him for half the book and he was actually dead? Was heart-breaking. I was speechless. Blown away. Killing off the YA love interest is one thing, but killing him off and having the antagonist pretend to be him is another entirely. I’d never seen it before. So for him to suddenly be alive at the end of Illuminae, in a way that wasn’t really foreshadowed…it lessened the impact. He didn’t have much to do in Gemina and struggled to compete with the other seven main characters for screentime in Obsidio, which didn’t help things. So yeah, I would rather he stay dead (sorry Ezra).

Rhys and Asha, I’ve already covered as “I don’t care because I know how your story will go and reading it takes me away from the characters I do care about”. Asha’s sisterly/motherly relationship with Katya was far better in my opinion. Her relationship with Rhys ending in blood and betrayal would have been the one thing to make it interesting to me. Barring that, again, they would have benefited from more time they didn’t have to share with the established characters.

Nik and Hanna are in this realm of ‘cute enough’. It makes me happy they worked out, but I wouldn’t be sad if they broke up. It would have been a price I’d paid to get a more tonally-appropriate ending. What I really would have been upset about was if the trio of them and Ella as platonic, ass-kicking buddies was destroyed.

I said I’m pretty happy with where AIDAN and Kady ended up, as a pair and as individuals, and that’s true. That said, I still want to see Kady hunt down his digital ass and drag it back as the culmination of her half of the relationship. There was a distinct lack of closure on that part.

(I guess there’s a chance Kady and AIDAN would have died at the end of Illuminae as well, with just Kristoff in charge, but the last two books would have needed serious rewrites. Actually, the entire premise would need to be rewritten since Kady’s the one gathering those data files. So they probably would have survived, nvm.)

tl;dr--the best relationships were platonic and the best romance was the one that never took off, because the endings for the actual romances were jarring with the series overall, and that’s a byproduct of having two authors with different styles.

#the illuminae files #jay kristoff #amie kaufman #review #analysis #my thoughts #long post #very long #kady grant #ezra mason #AIDAN #hanna donnelly #niklas malikov #ella malikova #asha grant #rhys lindstrom

[incorrectilluminaequotes]

Kady: do you remember what Nik told us yesterday?

Ezra: that it didn’t count as stripping if no one pays you?

Kady: he did said that, but no

#Illuminae #the illuminae files #jay kristoff #amie kaufman #kady grant #gemina #illuminae #ezra mason #niklas malikov #nik malikov