įractal Noise, a prequel set in 2234, was published on May 16, 2023.Ĭontains examples of the following tropes: The official Fractalverse website can be found here. You can read excerpts from the first eight chapters here. With Earth and its colonies threatened, Kira may be humankind's only hope. While on a seemingly routine research mission on an uncolonized world in 2257, xenobiologist Kira Navárez discovers an alien relic that will dramatically change both her own life and the course of galactic history. Notably, it's Paolini's first novel not set in the universe of the Inheritance Cycle and his first novel aimed at adults. 3.25 stars.To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a science fiction novel by Christopher Paolini. (And yes, it’s a really long novel, but I think that the battle scenes went on longer…maybe parts of those should have been cut out as opposed to all of the aforementioned content.)Īll in all, a well-thought-out sci-fi that suffered from too much borrowing in the first half, but rocketed to a tense and gripping second half. Apparently Paolini spent years researching the science behind some of this novel’s aspects, and it’s clearly evident in every word. The research made the world feel fully fleshed out, and while it did have moments of sounding jargon-y, it didn’t take away from my enjoyment. The dialogue had a similar quality to it–not quite authentic, but not so bad that it made the characters feel/sound cardboard.Ī lot of the reviews I’ve skimmed through have complained about some of how drawn out the scientific aspects of the novel were, but they didn’t bother me at all in fact, they had the opposite effect on me. (Whoops, did I just rhyme? Would ya look at that…) Sometimes it had the effect of making a scene appropriately tense, but it occasionally erased some of the emotion in the character interactions. This is my first exposure to Paolini’s writing, and it was…hit or miss for me? It tended to be quite choppy and terse, which was both a blessing and a curse. Reminds me a bit of a Kaufman/Kristoff type of AI–a slightly more unstable Magellan, or a far more calmed down and sane AIDAN? You decide! But on that subject…is it weird that my favorite character was a ship AI? I LOVED Gregorovich–he was the most fascinating out of all of them for me, and I loved the psychological aspect that Paolini explored with his character. The romance between Kira and Falconi definitely felt like an afterthought and didn’t add anything to the story, but all of the other interactions between the characters were alright. There’s a pretty diverse cast as well, so kudos to Paolini for that as well. I liked Itari a lot, even though they had a fairly small role.Īs far as the characters go, I didn’t get super attached to any of them, but they all had at least a decent amount of personality and development. Their design, all of the little intricacies of their culture and society were so well thought out, and I had such a blast getting to know all of the ins and outs of them. My favorite aspect of the novel was absolutely the Jellies/Wrannui (wait, did I spell that right?). (Hey, I’m a woman of simple tastes.)įrom there, Paolini’s originality and fast-paced plot truly shone through, making for a tense and riveting sci-fi. Whether or not that was influenced by the quote from David Bowie’s “Blackstar” at the beginning of Part 3 is up for debate. There’s several little threads that felt veeeeeeeery similar to said films…įor me, the second half saved the novel, really. Paolini’s clearly drawn quite a lot of inspiration from the mythos of Ridley Scott and James Cameron–and I don’t blame him–but it really isn’t subtle. (I may have missed a few, but these are the ones that most prominently stood out for me.)
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