To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
Ratings216
Average rating3.6
I have heard such good things about this book. But to be honest I thought it was utter garbage. It could have been 300 pages and at the same time, it should have been 3 separate books. Either way, this 880-page monstrosity isn't the right way.
Getting through it was immensely difficult. The characters are not interesting, all of them are boring especially the main character. Only the ship-mind is likeable and seems interesting and 3 dimensional. So much happened to them but none of them really changed or developed in any meaningful way, without intervention from some unknowable alien god creature anyway.
So much happened and at the time nothing at all happened. There wasn't any overall goal the party was clearly headed toward which also made it hard to keep me excited for the next chapters.
And let's not forget the ending where she just apparently gains ineffable and unexplained powers and knowledge that she uses to give all her friends gifts and then goes to chase after the just murdered alien gods Horcruxes. The ending was honestly stupid and made no sense for the story whatsoever. What an excruciating journey with the most meaningless conclusion of all time.
A scifi story that has nothing to say, blown up to about 900 pages to repeat the same things over and over and over again. Paolini does not trust you to follow anything without spoonfeeding you the explanation and reasoning behind every single action the characters take.
It starts out as relatively hard scifi with some aliens, but quickly deteriorates into a fantasy quest of good vs evil.
There are quite a few good character moments here and there, but the writing is so transparent that I never thought “hey, what a great moment with these characters”, but “hey, Paolini used writing trick number 26 again” instead.
Thank you @Netgalley for the advanced readers' edition of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Chris Paolini! Here is my honest review....
I am aghast that I have to wait till September to finish this read. I hadn't realized when I placed the request with NetGalley that it was for the first 25% of the book! OOOOOOOO but that 25% was damn near perfection! I was completely surprised at just how INTO this book I was (am). It has everything I look for in a SciFi book, intrigue, humanity, internal struggle, realism. I couldn't put it down, and when my kindle hit 100% and I realized the story was nowhere near over I was mortified, as a matter of fact, I'm still shook!
So anyway, if you like books with a reluctant heroine forced into tough situations that has a heart of gold, if you like your Scifi with epic journeys through the stars and distant inhabitable planets, and if you like your journey to include sentient armor and an advanced race of squid-like aliens trying to steal it... Well then you've met your match.
Hovered long over 4 or 3 stars on this one. It won the GR SciFi category for 2020 but this did not blow me out of the water. Paolini gets the nudge to four out of sheer hard work put into it (especially the Science appendix that demonstrates diligence to cover what is not his background, which was the “hat tip” moment I got for non-historians like Follet attempting Historical Novels)
the 3 star part is that it is hardly an original topic, nor plot., but it was a fun ride and I do, again, give a nod for him deciding to keep it all in one book instead of splitting it into two.
I had heard mixed reviews on this and was pleasantly surprised as I have not read Eragon and have never really wanted to.
This is a scifi story if you couldnt tell by the title and coverl ol, the 1st one I believe Paolini has written and set in what has been termed the fractalverse.
What I liked: the tech in these books had a interesting twist on the idea of warp drive an use of cyrogenic sleep and human mind brain interfaces. So all your classic scifi tech from ship minds to bio implants.
The ship minds created a interesting and honestly fun character to interact with gregory the wallfish ship mind.
I did not find this book big on character development, this is not to say it had none, there certainly was some character development but i found that this was more a plot driven book which in and of itself is not a bad thing just my feelings on the how the book is written. i would say a 60/40 split between character development and plot with plot being 60%
The softblade xeno i really like how that brough our main character Kira, into there journey to becoming something truly unique and new. this being the trigger for the greater conflict within this story overall and also playing a key role in the ending leaving this open to more fractal verse books in the future which i would be open to reading.
This book really has a found family trope which TBH Is one of my favorite tropes and worked well in this story
What I didnt like, the soft blade seems too powerful in a few ways to, virtualling making its user/wearer/partner etc.. virtually invinceable which at some scenes felt that there is no way anyone could have survived that a re-write on said scenes to be more survivable or rather less unsurvivable imho would have made it better.
not sure how i feel about the idea of the aliens in this book communicating by scent, while its not impossible, and aliens certainly will and likely do communicate via means that would be foreign to us, for narrative purposes i feel like it would just work better for these aliens to have a spoken language, maybe a nitpick but i just think from a narrative perspective it just works better.
overall a good read and i look forward furture reads in the fractalverse
Originally posted at www.youtube.com.
I don't know how to rate this. The beginning was 5 stars, no question. And then, it turned into some sort of Mary Sue fanfiction, when Kira became a Goddess. I can't give the end even 2 stars. It was such a disappointment.
DNF@26%
I wanted to get through the year without a DNF, but nooooo. This book has no soul, really struggled to make a connection to anything and the thought of plodding though another 600 odd pages fills me with deep feelings of sadness and misery.
Don't look away though, some people love it, just not for me.
I read this book because a friend recommended it to me, even though I am not super into si-fy. I am so glad she did recommend this book, because I absolutely loved it! The world-building, characters, and technology described throughout was incredibly detailed and very interesting. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is completely unlike anything I've ever read, and it has earned a spot in my favorites!
(Ari, you're the best for recommending this book!)
In Portuguese this book is divided into two volumes, which I just realised today. The second part was only released not long ago, and in between reading the first part and the second one was a couple of years which made me sort of forget parts of the first book I could still not recall whilst reading the second part - or a recap of the first one. I loved the first part but felt that the second one sort of slowed down my interest and was not as engaged. Still a lovely read, not my favourite kind of writing - read Leviathan Wakes prior to reading the second part of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and loved the writing much more - but it's a fun story with fun characters, even though a bit one dimensional at times. The ending left me sort of hanging and I didn't love it, but who knows what else the writer will bring on Kira's adventures in the future?
I loved the cast of this book. Gregorovich, Sparrow, Atari, all of them. That being said, this book was easily 400 pages too long. Kira was a slow hero. Learning about the “soft blade/seed” and what it was, could have been done in half the amount of words and still held the same meaning. I'm not a huge fan of heroes that act more on guilt than for justice or revenge, but I liked this book a lot. The writing wasn't poor or anything, but I wasn't excited to continue to pick this book up because the sheer number of pages left every time. I feel like for an epic novel, I shouldn't be able to sum up the entire story in 5 minutes and with this one I can. I will give props to Paolini for writing a believable female main character and not skeeve me out while reading.
Unnecessary long and predictable. Also I hated the ending. The aliens and the ship mind were the only things I liked in this book.
4/5 stars
This is a nice mix of Star Trek, Star Wars, Indianer Jones and a tad of Fantasy.
I really enjoyed it for 2/3 of the book, the later third was a bit of a drag but still on the good side. It could have used some trimming, I would guess it's 200 pages too long, for example there is a super pointless romance arc out of nowhere and a super super cringy sex scene and drawn out action/fight scenes, which are not the strength of the book.
Anyhow, good story, great world, looking forward to reading more from the Fractalverse
Complete enough story that I feel like I don't need to continue the series.
This is a 5 stars no doubt
This book was just sooooo wonderful and Soo freaking beautiful I just didn't even wanted to end it because the world shown inside of it was so big so detailed the simple fact of imagining the stars,the loneliness and a lot more of sensation here described just give it So much more magic and mystic feelings to this one
The characters were sooo deep well it's normal 900 pages is more than enough to get good characters although being totally honest I didn't love most of the endings of the main characters but the development of Kira and her reaction to them was more than enough to make you forget
Finally the ending it was really good for real I love it don't want to say more but it was really cool
And yes after all I totally recommend it Ik it's hard to get into it can be a little bit draining sometimes but it's totally worth it
Whew! Well that was phenomenal. LONG but phenomenal. I honestly feel like this could have been culled by a few hundred pages and the intent would still have been very clear and well loved. BUT as it stands...
I absolutely loved this. I haven't read many space operas and boy did this have it all. I can only imagine how hard it must be to build a world in outer space, let alone keep things going when most of the time spent in space is on ships. While there are parts that are slower, I think the author did an amazing job with keeping the storyline moving.
Let's talk characters. I ADORED every single one, main and side. Trig stole my heart early on as well as the Entropists. Kira, even with all her insecurities and annoying whining
This book was entertaining but there was a lot of stuff I didn't like. First of all it's about 150 pages too long. Second, all the dream sequences are annoying and difficult to understand. Thirdly, her combing with the Maw and having all these thoughts were confusing to me. Lastly the ending took forever to get through. Like just end the damn book already. But overall it was worth reading but holds no reread value to me.
All finished. Five stars for an epic, galaxy-spanning tale of a woman's life and metamorphosis; the challenges, the enemies, the friends, and the loves.
What a mess!
This book is all over the place and never trust itself on its own. Its basically Alien and HAL 9000 gangraping ET at the Firefly ship. 95% of my reading time was spent trying to find from which franchise the next chapter would lend its theme. And still i wouldnt stop reading, dont know why