Science fiction doesn’t have to be big or even outwardly clever to be effective. A lot of what I enjoy involves original or elegantly neat ideas that give the “I never thought of that…” reaction but sometimes a simple concept does the job in its own way, although this simplicity turns out to be deceptive. Even when I gave Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s All You Need Is Kill a modest three out of five stars rating on Goodreads I wasn’t suggesting that it was a mediore effort, nor was I implying that I didn’t enjoy it.

As a matter of fact it’s a fast-paced, immersive and highly readable account of a futuristic battle waged by humanity against an alien invader, and on that alone I recommend it. The nature of the narrative – that of a soldier trapped in a time loop of his last day on the front line, and his attempts to understand and hopefully escape from that situation – makes it a challenge for the writer to keep the repetitive proceedings engaging, but Sakurazaka succeeds admirably. In that sense it feels a lot like some unholy combination of Groundhog Day and Starship Troopers.