ross91
Written on Aug 13, 2021
it had potential though.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a masterful epic science fiction novel from the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of the Inheritance Cycle, Christopher Paolini.
During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, xenobiologist Kira Navárez finds an alien relic that thrusts her into the wonders and nightmares of first contact. Epic space battles for the fate of humanity take her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and, in the process, transform not only her - but the entire course of history.
Praise for Christopher Paolini and his work:
'Christopher Paolini is a true rarity' - Washington Post
'An authentic work of great talent' - New York Times Book Review
'A breathtaking and unheard of success' - USA Today
'Christopher Paolini make[s] literary magic' - People
Limited to 750 copies and comes with a ribbon bookmark.
Reviews
it had potential though.
HekArtemis
Written on Nov 7, 2020
My main issues were the consistent "Alan" running through the whole 800 pages. And the end went a bit Silmarillion there which is an interesting choice for scifi that I don't think fit perfectly, despite the various dream sequences throughout.
Gregoravich was great, as were Runcible and Mr Fuzzypants. But the Entropists were the standout for me. I hope any future Fractalverse books feature some of them again. And to that, I do like the breadth of the world/universe building and the snippets of depth we get as well. I am definitely looking forward to more books in this universe.
Quirky Cat
Written on Aug 26, 2020
Can you believe it? Christopher Paolini is back, only this time he isn't diving back into the world of fantasy! Instead, he's taking a swing at science fiction. From the moment this book was announced, I knew that it was going to be one epic adventure.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is an epic and massive space opera. One that dives in headfirst into a universe full of aliens, advanced technology and so much more.
Once upon a time, Kira Navarez had a job she enjoyed, a man she loved, and a desire to settle down and make a life for herself. Then one day, everything changed. The sudden appearance of alien tech, followed immediately by aliens themselves, changed her world forever. As did it change the life of every other human out there.
This is the tale of first contact like you've never seen before.
“I am the spark in the center of the void. I am the widdershin scream that cleaves the night. I am your eschatological nightmare. I am the one and the word and the fullness of the light. Would you like to play a game? Y/N”
Warnings: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars brings with it a beautiful science fiction world, but it also has some heavier points and scenes as well. There are scenes depicting non-consensual medical procedures/torture, as well as a fair share of body horror. Consider yourself warned.
Holy cow. I can't believe that after all these years, Christopher Paolini is coming out with another book. More than that, it's a science fiction novel! I was so excited when I heard the news, and even more excited when I managed to get my hands on an early copy.
So, is it worth all the hype? Yes, a million times yes! This is arguably one of the most in-depth space operas I've read in a good long time. That probably shouldn't be such a shock, considering that To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a whopping eight hundred and eighty pages long. Yes, you read that right. This is a beast of a book.
Oddly enough, I think that's my one less than positive comment on the book. There are several points in this story that could have been the perfect stopping point. I can see it easily being two books, and having it be just as amazing.
Not that I'm really going to complain about getting two books for the price of one. I'm not that crazy. I'm especially not going to complain, because I really did enjoy Kira Naavarez's story, and every little detail (which there is a lot of) of it.
“She'd been through this before – Adra wasn't the first prospective colony the company had posted her to – and after seven years spent jetting around from one blasted rock to another and spending nearly half her time in cryo, Kira had begun to feel a serious need for...friends.”
It has been a long time since I picked up a novel I couldn't read over the course of one or two nights. Even if this book had been shorter, I don't think I could have done it. Christopher Paolini clearly did a ton of research when writing this book, and the end result is a seriously dense piece of work. Not just in page count, but in content as well. It's a book that makes you stop and think, on more than one occasion. So be sure to set aside a good amount of time for this beauty.
Having read Paolini's previous works, I can honestly tell you that I think I like his science fiction better. Mind you, that's coming from someone who liked his original works, so that statement is meant as a sincere compliment.
“Eat the path, or the path will eat you.”
I've been sitting here for the last five minutes, trying to think of what I want to say about this novel. Part of me wants to say I love it, and leave it at that. The other part of me wants to gush about it for the next five hours.
There's got to be a happy medium there, right? Let's say this: there is so much to love about To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. As a huge fan of space opera (something I had been craving recently as well), I can honestly tell you that this tale is pure perfection.
It dives deep into the world of speculative science fiction, and that isn't a bad thing. This is a tale that took an original idea, and pushed it to the farthest limits. It was not something I expected to see, but then again, given the author, maybe I should have seen that part coming?
The characters inside are wonderful. Kira is the leading lady, and she is as complex a character as they come. The supporting characters are every bit as complex and unique as she is, at times carrying the story for her.
There are subplots upon subplots, as first contact carries all of the characters onward in an adventure that they never could have expected or prepared for. It was a surprising journey at times. Sometimes it was hopeful, and other times heartbreaking. In that way, it felt very grounded.
In short, I truly loved every minute I spent reading To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. In fact, I won't be at all surprised to find myself reading it once again in the near future. No matter the time investment, it is worth it.
Check out more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks
Kate (Blogging with Dragons)
Written on Aug 17, 2020
DNF 40%
Having read all of The Inheritance Cycle series, I was curious if I would like Christopher Paolini’s writing better since he was an adult and several years have passed since he wrote these novels. Plus, I was intrigued by the synopsis of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which sounded like an epic sci-fi story with a badass female protagonist named Kira. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get through this novel. Reading it was a struggle as there were tons of pacing issues, very shallow character development, lots of telling and not showing, strange metaphors, and it suffered from the classic case of a male author not knowing how to write a female. As with The Inheritance Cycle, I also never felt any tension while reading the few what-should-have-been climactic parts of the novels.
I was determined to finish this novel, but I found at around 40% of the way though the galley, I simply could not go on. It took me 8 days of forced, painful reading to get even that far. Though The Inheritance Cycle had the benefit of dragons, which is obviously more to my taste, I found that the allure of the science fiction elements of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was not enough to get me to finish reading the novel. I found that the novel really didn’t add anything new to the science fiction genre. In fact, the beginning of the novel seemed almost exactly like the movie Prometheus, but more poorly executed. Kira, a xenobiologist is part of the League and of a team that thoroughly researches planets to see if they are habitable for future colonization for humans. Right before she’s about to leave, she researches a strange grouping of rocks, and climbs into a mysterious looking crack of the same unknown material, only to fall right into a dome-like room clearly created by aliens.
"Her apprehension deepened. It really was the nightmare scenario. They'd finally made contact with another sentient species, but the species was hostile and able to fly circles around any human ship, even the unmanned ones."
Kira is knocked unconscious, forgetting everything that happened to her. The readers remember that the last thing she saw was a black dust swarming her, and choking her. When she wakes, she is covered in an alien suit, and accidentally murders every single one of her teammates with it, including her fiancee, Alan. Kira is picked up by a military ship, and tortured, before they are attacked by an alien race referred to as Jellies--perhaps the most non-threatening name for aliens ever--which destroys their ship. Frustratingly, though she gets in an escape shuttle, Kira wants to save the other survivors who tortured her, in a frustratingly goody-goody move. She has literally no dimension other than to hate how she looks now that she’s bald and covered in an alien suit. She doesn’t give much consideration, except a passing thought not to think about it, to the fact that she murdered the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with and to whom she just got engaged. No PTSD, no guilt motivating her every action, or anything remotely realistic--she has virtually no issues compartmentalizing all the people she murdered and the alien war she started. Laughably, Kira suggests someone else sees a psychiatrist, but never stops to think that she should need one.
"Just like with--She ground the heels of her hands against her temples and shook her head. Don't think about it. Even if she'd played a role in first contact, blaming herself for the war wouldn't help. That way lay madness."
Kira’s picked up by yet another ship, where she lies about the circumstances of the suit she’s wearing, and the fact that she killed practically everyone on her first ship. She stabs and impales a refugee of the ship who breaks her nose and is instantly forgiven. None of it makes any sense. The crew of the ship, the Walfish, is full of Archetypes rather than actual characters with dimension. There’s the tried-and-true tough captain who takes questionable jobs to put fuel in the ship and money on the table--there’s a buff former marine passenger named Sparrow--think Private Vasquez from Aliens--there's also a ship mind that is supposed to be a Jarvis-like figure and that we are repeatedly told is eccentric--and a bunch of other forgettable plot devices, er, crew members that are ripped from better science fiction media. There's also a pet pig and cat on the ship, and the whole thing feels like a desperate attempt to create a rag tag group of people that will be much beloved, like Firefly, but I simply could not care less about a single person or animal in To Sleep in a Sea of Stars.
"Everyone messes up. How you deal with it is what determines who you are."
The constant ship jumping through space, torture, and alien spacesuit may sound somewhat exciting, but really nothing of note happens in this book except in the very beginning. Sure there may be some fights with aliens, but there’s no tension. You know Kira and her alien suit--apparently called The Soft Blade, of all things--will overcome everything and everyone will immediately move on with no lasting repercussions. Get badly injured in a fight with Jellies? Regrow your organs and limbs with stuff printed from a 3D Printer. Most of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is spent flying around on different space ships and deciding where to go next, with Kira convinced she is the only one who can save humanity, while incessantly lamenting that she has to wear the suit, even though it constantly saves her life. She’s shallow and completely unlikable and what men love to refer to as a Mary Sue. I had to laugh when the novel started referring to Kira as the "fury of the stars," as all she ever does is murder people and internally and incessantly complain about every little thing that's happened to her. What's worse is this is the method that the reader finds out about everything in To Sleep in a Sea of Stars--we are told, and not shown, through Kira's internal venting.
"No one--not even the Soft Blade--ought to be to be able to dictate what she could do with her body. If she wanted to get a tatto or become fat or have a kid or do anything else, then she damn well ought to have that freedom. Without that opportunity, she was nothing more than a slave."
The actual point in this novel that finally got me to say “no more” was when I hit the really low point where the classic male author writing a female character became indigestible. The first cringe-inducing experience was when Kira decides to “explore” where the alien suit covers her body and the author tells the reader that she has to stop herself from masturbating due to the weird sensations of the suit--and this occurs right after she escaped torture and you know, murdering her fiancee. Doesn’t really seem like the time to be in the mood. But I thought maybe it was a fluke, so I kept reading. Near the 39% mark in To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, Kira starts experiencing pains in her abdomen. We are told by the author that the suit has turned her periods back on, even though she had them turned off years ago, because it thought that there was something wrong with a woman having control over her own body. But it’s great because the author tells us she doesn’t have to deal with pesky bleeding because the suit covers her vagina fully! And if that’s not bad enough, he then goes on to detail to the reader how she can never have sex again, because she’d have to exert the willpower to pull the suit back from her genitals, and then if she lost control, it might cut off the man’s genitals. I literally could not believe what I was reading and how I was reading it.
Why did the author think that any of this was something he should just tell the reader in a TMI info dump? Kira is run through tons of experiments and torture by doctors who want to learn the secret of The Soft Blade. But none of these factors were discovered during these experiments, and the author just has Kira tell the reader. Instead of Kira, I don’t know, maybe wanting to have a baby with her stupidly bland fiancee Alan, who she “made love” with more than once before she murdered him, and revealing that she might not be able to give birth to her dead fiancee’s child due to the suit covering or any kind of somewhat logical plot, we just get dumped this strange information through the narrator, who I already couldn’t stand. I was appalled by how desperate the story was to have Kira be a virginal messiah/martyr figure even though she was murdering people left and right and finally quit reading To Sleep in a Sea of Stars at this point.
"Kira hated that expression: Homeworld. Technically it was correct, but it just felt oppressive to her,as if they were all supposed to bow down and defer to those lucky enough to still on Earth. It wasn't her homeland. Weyland was."
There just wasn’t anything that interested me enough to keep going. Sure, it was kind of cool that the Jellies used scent as a language, but Kira just knows this because of her suit. There's no mystery or tension as she tries to figure out communicating with her nose. Likewise, the world-building was pretty much an afterthought. We know that affluent humans live on Earth and colonized Venus and are expanding outward in colonization efforts run by the galaxy League, which controls mostly everything. There are some people who choose to worship numbers, others who are great lab researchers and are super weird and call everyone “prisoner.” We know Kira worships a god named Thule, but we never learn anything about it--she just constantly takes this figure’s name in vain. Likewise, Kira grew up on the planet Weyland, but we never learn anything of note that sets the planet apart from other colonies, except that her family still lives there. I would've been interested in seeing how Kira’s upbringing was different from ours or what her education was like, or what a normal life was like in a colony, but nothing like that is ever alluded to, at least in the 40% of the novel I read.
What's more, is To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is peppered with strange metaphors like “her voice [was] as hard and as rough as broken stone,” that took me right out of the boring story and made me think things like--how hard was the stone really if it broke? Another one that struck me as weird was "without the xeno, she'd be all the more vulnerable, a shell-less turtle waving its legs in the air, exposed before it's enemies." It's so bizarrely specific and out of place in a science fiction novel to refer to turtles, especially when the narrator didn't grow up on Earth, the home planet of turtles. You’d think in a space story filled with attacking aliens, I’d be more interested in this war than with oddly chosen metaphors, but nope. Sadly, nothing about the writing is on par with other heavyweight contemporaries of the genre. And that fact that To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is marketed as a “space opera” is laughable to the extreme.
The one attempt at romance, between that of Kira and Alan--who was as bland as the name Alan in a science fiction novel that spans the universe--was so vanilla and basic. Alan is never fleshed out at all, except as the perfect guy for her, who was also nerdy and seemed to anticipate her every want and need. When he proposed to her, she instantly responded “Yes, a thousand times, yes.” Not only does literally no one talk this unnaturally in real life, it’s repulsively and saccharinely trite and unoriginal. The rest of the dialogue was similarly artificial. I will give the author kudos for trying to add diversity to his story by including a lesbian romance between the Walfish's crew members, but with the caveat that it was a pre-established relationship that wasn’t elaborated on at all and was kind of just thrown into the novel for giggles or to fill the diversity quota.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was just not for me. I couldn’t get past it’s portrayal of the female protagonist, lack of tension, the pacing issues, very little character development, lackluster dialogue, and strange metaphors with an insufferable heroine. I think the only people who will enjoy To Sleep in a Sea of Stars are going to be superfans of either Christopher Paolini, or people who indiscriminately adore any and all science fiction novels.
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tweetybugshouse
Written on Aug 12, 2020
This novel took the author almost a decade to deliver and it shows in all the intricate details. I really loved how he poured a lot of research and time into showing that he has so much more to offer beyond the inheritance cycle. Their been a trend for young adult authors to move out that genre and write adult novels and i sad to say i not sure it the best move for them. In this case i think it totally was, mostly cause he took the opinions of those first earlier readers and made it better, he saw where they were coming from and instead of turning in some half baked idea he went back to the drawing board and delivered an epic story. Don’t let the amount of pages put you off, if anything let them draw you in to an adventure that spans if i remember right ten months of space adventure. I promise you come out on the other side missing it and looking for your next great adventure.