To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

I have not read any Paolini before, so I am not coming in with any nostalgia over Eragon. I umm-ed and ahh-ed about the star rating for this but in the spirit of trying to be a bit more generous with my ratings I'm plumping for 5 stars.

I read the ‘sneak peak' last year, which comprised of “Part One” of the total novel, and really enjoyed it. It took me a while to get back to finish it off as I am a mood reader and the intervening mood between TSIASOS's release and now has been overwhelmingly fantasy based. It took a while to get back into it given the almost-a-year gap between reading Part One and continuing from Part Two and I had forgotten a couple of things but nothing that made too much difference.

Looking through other reviews, this seems to have been a polarising book but I'm definitely in the positive camp. I was possibly a little more invested in the story/history of the xeno/alien that Kira first encounters as opposed to the, erhum, ‘space squid' as others have dubbed them. I would certainly read more around Kira in the future and the crew of the Wallfish who she encountered along the way.

No, it isn't perfect but no book really is. Some of the dialogue/language used was a little hammy but I can forgive it because of the enjoyment I had from the rest of the book. Yes, it is long. I think it was worth it. If you don't want to read 800+ pages though, don't, that's up to you.

The book is a long story about Kiara and her relationship with the soft blade that surrounds her. It brings ancient and new species into contact with each other, and a spell binding situation of the consequences of human actions of fear, love, lust, and ego.

Futher more over and again this book pushes the idea of what it means to be not quite human, in hindsight almost ever main character displays this idea from a different perspective.

It is definitely a journey style novel. The plot can be meandering and the ending suprising. At many turns it's clear this is not the straight forward plot many books go for. Without understanding that it could be a very long frustrating read. So graba nice nook, take some breaths and just live with Kira, because that's truly how this book shines.

Oh and this is a bit hard core. There's a lectures in the back of the book from “Professors” to explain the sci fi elements. Personally I was satisfied without the deep dive, but knock your socks off!

Such a big, fat book is my first, and I think my brain is sweating inside. Great sci-fi plot based on real life star systems in our universe. Character detailing, storyline and action sequences are great to read, fun too (what else are you going to do in 800 pages right?!) But it got a little extra for me.

This book has no business being as long as it is with only that half excuse for a plot that it has. Don't even get me started on the cookie cutter characters and the predictable cliche ending. The worldbuilding is on point though, however, worldbuilding doesn't make a book. There's too many scenes where the only purpose is to show you details of the world and not develop the characters or plot.

I have to say that I was unsure about this one after seeing all the mixed reviews. It sounded really good to me, so I gave it a try.

I was not disappointed.

This book is fantastic! It was immersive right from the start. It was action-packed throughout. The cast of characters are amazing. I loved them all. Speaking of the characters, Jennifer Hale did a great job with the narration. Every character had a distinctive voice which I really appreciated. Some audiobooks are hard to follow if there is no difference in character voice. Not only was every character different, I thought the accents and different species made this even more enjoyable. I highly recommend this one.

I received a copy from Net Galley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Complex but gripping. At certain points though almost lost me when things got too philosophical. But I guess it adds to the depth of the characters. Clearly also a very easy way of paving the way to upcoming books at the end.

I had already been trudging through the audiobook for hours when i realized there were still 20 hours left, and 10 hours was really enough.The writing didn't interest me and I didn't care about the characters so I finally gave up.

I know I said that I'm going to be stricter about 5 star reads, but I really have just been reading incredible books this month.

This is one of my first big explorations into sci-fi. My only other experience is probably “Ender's Game” and Sanderson's “Skyward” series. I've always thought that I wasn't into how complex sci-fi gets. Boy was I wrong. This book is a masterpiece. It also got me obsessed with learning more about space and I've already checked out 5 books from my library to learn more.

This book follows Kira, a scientist who studies different planets. Her world, and the entire universe, are turned upside down when she discovers an alien species. We follow her on a path where she tries to quell what she has released.

Because of the release of this alien species, we explore so many emotions with Kira. We explore deep grief, confusion, elation, curiosity, among so many more. The explorations of grief were the most poignant to me. The longer Kira takes to learns more about this alien species, Paolini really doesn't shy away from creating consequences for this time taken. The relationships she creates, and loses, on this journey are so profound and meaningful, and they fully impact the story throughout.

The worldbuilding is fascinating. It's apparent that Paolini really did his research on astrophysics and astronomy. He's created this huge, expansive universe of settled space that is so in depth and so technical without being overwhelming. The worldbuilding alone had me falling down multiple wikipedia holes as I tried to learn more about how space works.

The ending was satisfying and bittersweet. I think it was a fitting ending for such an epic tale. I look forward to reading what Paolini writes in the future, and I recommend this book to sci-fi fans, and non-sci-fi fans alike.

About 60% of the book in I have already figured out how it would inevitably end so that it feels unnecessarily long and drawn out to reach the conclusion.

The absolute full package on any sci fi book i've read in the last 2+ years. Hands down 5 stars. Holy crud was the length of this book humungous like 880 pages humungous the audio book I read along with was over 30 hours long o.O i thought the midnight sun was a beast but this one was engaging the full way through. I loved kira and gregorivich (I have a soft spot for AI's lol). It definitely felt like 3 books built into 1 but over all I loved the war with the alien race, the evolvement of kira as a character and the over all whole package of this book. I loved it so much I went out and bought. I wish I could have gotten a signed copy of it but its okay, I don't own a single book that is signed already but one day.

The book wasn't horrific (I finished reading it!), but I've definitely read better sci-fi. 3.5 stars.

I was a huge fan of the Eragon books as a kid so I was interested to see what Paolini had come up with next.

In Eragon, the dude bonds with a dragon (which makes him OP and very unique), runs into some elves and dwarves, and then has to save the world from evil.

Switch genders, replace dragon with magic spacesuit, and have aliens instead of fantasy characters and it's the same sort of thing.


Things I didn't like:
* I love sci-fi because it feels realistic - like humans are going to get there in 100 or 500 years. Unfortunately I didn't really get those vibes from this book. It felt a bit too fantastical. In a way the suit the main character obtains just feels like magic powers that help propel the plot by getting her out of sticky situations
* The above-mentioned suit makes the main character seem like an invincible Mary Sue who can get out of any situation. She suddenly gets strong like halfway through the book and turns into a killing machine
* Her main personality trait is that she's a xenobiologist. Paolini loves to bring up every two seconds how she's so interested in studying the foreign environment around her but can't stop because she's saving the world
* Main character's original boyfriend's only purpose is to die immediately and then she spends the rest of the book thinking about him. Felt very shallow. You could also see the second romance coming from a mile away, and it felt pretty cringe, like he was the only option on board and she just went with it
* There was a character very similar to Angela from Eragon (the eccentric / mysterious cat lady) who I think was originally based off of Paolini's sister. I guess it's supposed to be a nice nod to previous fans but it did feel out of place and overall unnecessary to the plot.
* So much travelling back and forth between locations. Honestly the characters spend sooo much time on the ship, it really doesn't help to bring out that sci-fi feel i.e. exploring different societies and cultures in depth (we do get to see a bit of it among the aliens but I would've loved to see more, even among the humans)

I will admit the one thing I didn't see coming was how she suddenly turned into Mother Earth at the end of the book, which conveniently does away with the second cringey romance which was nice. Again though it's kind of just making the character super OP (like she just builds a space station out of magic basically) and doesn't really feel sci-fi.

I love the fact that Paolini adds small nods to science fiction literature all over the place. I'm not sure if he did it on purpose, or if I just making correlations. Meatbags, Prey, Firefly, Halo, Ringworld, and much much more. Just an enjoyable audiobook.

Finally finished this one. I originally started it when it came out, but I decided to stop for a while when I got to part 5 so that I could read some spooky seasonal stuff. Although, this is sci-fi fantasy that could honestly also be tagged as horror because some of the stuff, like the nightmares and Soft Blade consumption can get really dark and graphic. 

I love his writing style and I've been a fan for years but I found myself really unsure of how to rate this one. There are things that are explosively good about this novel, and there are things that aren't. I think one of the major issues is length. When it comes to a first novel (and seeing he's calling it the Fractalverse I'm assuming more is incoming?) it's sometimes hard for me to feel that connection immediately and want it to keep going on. Like in the Inheritance Cycle, by book 4, you genuinely care enough to know what happens to every single person and why. But those got longer and longer over time... and although I think he does a great job of highlighting the darker side of space travel that I feel like some others skip over (IE. All of the FTL stuff over and over—not that I necessarily liked them...) it doesn't always necessarily land well. However, the things I liked I really liked and even loved. Personally I decided to go with 4/5*. 

I'm very curious how Paolini and his sister are going to handle adapting it, because it'll be very hard to get a symbiotic relationship to read as something other than Venom. Especially with Sony's second film coming out next year... 

Full review to come. Overall very fun. A step up from Inheritance in some ways and a step in place in others.

CAWPILE Breakdown:
Characters: 7
Atmosphere: 10
Writing: 10
Plot: 5
Intrigue: 7
Logic: 9
Enjoyment: 9

I really enjoyed this book. It was fascinating to see everything come together. I also loved how the book was broken up with each part being one trip of Kira's journey after her discovery. The characters in this were decent the writing is what I absolutely loved. The plot was very slow and I found myself wanting a faster paced novel at times but the writing and descriptions of everything were great. I rarely if ever read adult science ficition so I have nothing to compare this book too but I think if you are a fan of Christopher Paolini you will love this book.

Christopher Paolini is not a superb writer: he sucks at world building, at character development, at avoiding trope over trope from the genres he touches or sometimes rips.. ehm.. gets inspired from (coughexpansecough).

But he's great at storytelling.

This book is a mix of extremely trite “sci-fi on a ship” aspects (the characters are carbon copies of all the usual stereotypes, and interact much the same way), and thinly veiled fantasy epic settings (replace orcs with aliens and the wilderness with space), but the story keeps you hooked from the moment it gets going. The way things happen and don't happen, develop and regress make for a very enjoyable reading, and decidedly a notch above the level of “bad writers”.

Is this a great book by the standards of “good sci-fi” (whatever that might mean to each of us)? Maybe not. Is it on par with the Eragon serie? Very much so: if you enjoyed that, you'll like this book very much. (And if in general you don't read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy, then you won't recognise where many of the ideas are coming from, and you'll enjoy this all the more.)

Very enjoyable, I wish this were a series instead of a one-off.

I received a partial advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley and Tor Books.

Me, liking a science fiction book? A miracle!
I'm so glad I read this excerpt after the book was fully published, because I'm going to buy the complete book right. now.

The first part of this book is already very intriguing and screams for the book to be read further.

I was quite scared I wouldn't fully understand the story as it is science fiction and difficult (and maybe non-existing) words are mentioned into it. I was surprised to see that I could adapt to this world rather quickly and that I could so enjoy the book further.

I'm very excited to read the full book!