Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of the first ten chapters in exchange for an honest review.

Let me first start by saying that I was delighted to see Paolini return to the literary scene! And with a science fiction epic no less. I was obsessed with his Eragon series for YEARS as a wee young thing and am delighted to return to his books, this time both as a reviewer and as a fan.

In terms of the review—I bounced back between 3 and 4 stars on this one, and eventually settled for a solid 3.5, because that’s ultimately what the sample struck me as. Solid. Not bad, not groundbreaking, but a staunch, interesting read.

The good: I did like Kira, our protagonist. I admired that she wasn’t immediately willing to sacrifice herself for the “greater good”—it was refreshing to see a lead who complicated the hero narrative by caring desperately for her own survival as much as if not more than the superordinate situation. Not that she didn’t care about others. She just wasn’t willing to suffer for the sake of a murky goal. Most of the other characters were interesting as well, though I didn’t see as much of them as I wanted to. Her love interest felt like a cardboard cut out—which makes a little sense, in context, though I still would have appreciated more development in that department.

I won’t go into too many spoilers but I was also fascinated by the concept of the alien presence. I enjoy extraterrestrials in science fiction who really and truly feel unlike anything I have seen or encountered before, and this one fit that bill.

It’s also clear that Paolini has done his research. Though I’m no physicist, to me as a layperson the science of the story seemed very sound, from ship calculations to geology tidbits. These details were clearly curated and served to make the story feel more real.

The Less Good: The pacing dragged in the beginning especially around chapter 5, which I won’t extrapolate upon just yet because of spoilers. In general I thought the pacing could have been notched up a level, but once the action kicked off I was drawn in. I also have to say it—the beginning felt predictable. Our protagonist, on the verge of having everything she ever wanted, only one chapter into book? It’s clear that that’s all going to head down the drain pretty fast. I suppose every story had to start somewhere, though.

Overall I enjoyed this sample, and I am excited to read the rest of the novel as soon as I can!

My thoughts

Rating:

Would I recommend it?

Would I read more of this series?

Would I read more of this author? Yes in fact he writes one of my all time favorite series The Inheritance Cycle Series

WOW just wow , I can't put into words how good this was even though it was a partial galley of the story I just couldn't stop reading it ,it just came out of nowhere and bam I was hooked. It had every thing i could want in a SCI fi book: a bit of romance , space trivial , aliens, space battlers and the fate and humankind in the hands of one person. This definitely a win for Christopher Paolini and it just might be right up there with his The Inheritance Cycle Series . Can't wait to get my hands on the book so i can read the rest of it and finds out what happens next. Once again thank you so much Tor books for inviting me to read this.

This book is definitely different from anything I’ve read from Chris. It seems a bit over the top for me in terms of description and a novella of like the Expanse series.