Venom meets space opera.
If you're looking for a wonderful space journey... then look no further than this beast of a book!
Usually I am extremely intimidated by books longer than 600+ pages, so I'm glad that I did not check TSIASOS page count before beginning it. I'll admit a few times I had to trudge through the pages because the pace moved slower than my liking, but this certainly was not an issue for the entirety of the book. To be honest, the whole last 150ish pages held some amazing actions sequences.
My favorite part of this story was definitely the atmosphere and world building around this lush sci-fi. I've been on a role lately in reading novels with stunning descriptions, but TSIASOS was by far the best. I cannot recommend it enough solely for that purpose. Space is a marvelous setting for any story, and I don’t know if Christopher is known for beautiful prose, but he truly outdid himself. A great first impression!
Now I will admit that I advise readers to go into this book with relatively no information. Don't even read the synopsis if you can help it because then you're experiencing the same mystery/ confusion that Kira is. It was incredible. Since I'm saying this, I won't mention much of the plot of the novel besides galactic chaos, Jellies, and an intelligent space ship who is the greatest sass master that space has ever seen.

I have waited so long for another Christopher Paolini book, and let me tell you, he did not disappoint! I wasn't expecting a sci-fi novel, since Eragon was fantasy, but this book is still just as exciting. From the beginning, I was so caught up in this book. Paolini did a great job of building his main character Kira. She is relatable, smart and strong. You feel all her joy and sadness. She is a great character. I loved the alien storyline. It was fascinating all the twists and turns Paolinin took with the various aliens involved in the storyline. I loved how Kira's character grew and developed in the face of adversity. I also loved the secondary characters, and how her relationship with them grew and developed. I loved how a crew of smugglers turned out to be so noble. I would highly recommend this book.

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.

Going into this i should say I’ve never read this authors work before, despite his popularity as the Eragon writer. That being said

I DNF. I got to about 60% and called it quits. This book is close to 900 pages. Which is entirely too long, when most of the beginning. It’s very World building and very plot driven. It’s a huge info dump like a giant fantasy book, that’s actually sci fi.!

I can’t even explain why i didn’t enjoy this book. The main character was sort of annoying and written in a way that’s clearly s man writtng about women. He writes some weird line about the main character trying to masturbate in her skin suit and another about her cutting off some guys genitals so she can’t have sex anymore

She also kills her fiancé and half her team?? By wondering into some strange location she has no business being in in the first place?

I was super excited for this book but ugh

I was a huge fan of the Inheritance Cycle books as a kid, and I was excited to hear that Paolini was coming out with another book, this time for adults. I was less excited when I discovered it was a hard sci-fi book, as those are not really my taste, but I had so admired Paolini’s earlier work that I decided I had to give it a shot.

I should say, at the outset, that I did not finish this book. I did really enjoy it, and I have a lot of good things to say about it, but I did not finish it. I read to a point where it really seemed like the book could have ended (to make room for a second book). And, realizing that I was only 50% of the way through the book, I decided that was a good point to stop. Not that it was too long; I’ve read longer books this year. It was more that I got to a point where I had endured all I could of things going badly for the heroes, who I absolutely loved, and I needed to take a break.

So, what’s this book about? Well, here’s a short overview. Approximately 250 years in the future (our future, as humans of Earth—this becomes important later), humanity has spread out around the galaxy. We have colonies on a number of different planets in a number of systems not our own, we have faster than light travel, we have terraforming, we kind of have artificial gravity. What we DON’T have is evidence of extant extraterrestrial life. It’s a cool future world.

Enter Kira Navarez, xenobiolgist and part of a team to study a planet and confirm that it should be terraformed and made ready for a colony to be built there. On the last day of her mission to this planet, she encounters an alien artifact that affixes itself to her body, and shortly thereafter all hell breaks loose. (I’ll leave it at that to keep things spoiler free.)

I really loved all of the characters, who coalesce into a Firefly-esque, ragtag bunch of space explorers, and I found that the world that Paolini created was truly immersive and fascinating. In the Inheritance Cycle, Paolini inserted a number of nods to different real-world places and pop culture fandoms, not least of which is that Eragon is Luke Skywalker with dragons. Those references could be pretty jarring in a second world fantasy, but that’s not the case in To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. In fact, it’s really fun to read references to things I recognize in this book, because it connects readers in a direct lineage to these humans far in the future, which is super meta and very cool!

That being said, it hurt me to see bad things happen to the characters I had quickly grown to love, and I needed to take a break halfway through the book to recover emotionally from the crazy amount of plot development that took place in the first half. They’re all precious, and must be protected at all costs! Especially Runcible and Mr. Fuzzypants!!!

All in all, it’s clear in this book that Paolini let this story percolate for some time, and the result is a really delightful read. And yes, I say that as a person who didn’t finish the whole book. But I will, because Kira’s story is worth it!

"To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a brand new epic novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eragon, Christopher Paolini.

Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds.

Now she's awakened a nightmare.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.

As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.

While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope..."

Paolini has left Alagaesia behind and taken us to the stars!

As someone who doesn’t read a lot of sci-fi, I found that To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was very captivating (even if I didn’t understand all the sci-fi lingo!). The pace is great and it kept me invested the whole time. Big thumbs up and definitely recommend for veteran sci-fi readers and those who are looking to dip a toe in to the genre for the first time.

I was given an advanced copy from the publisher via Netgalley for an honest review.

I will start by saying that I have not read any of Christopher Paolini's previous books so I was going into this one with no expectations.

This story sounded AWESOME and I was really excited for it. The novel was quite interesting with the different species and worlds and just deep space and futuristic, all things I love! At the same time, this novel felt WAY too long and way too descriptive at times when I felt it was not necessary. I often got lost in this novel and did not retain pages worth of reading because I just got bored. I feel like this did NOT need to be as long as it was. If this was made into a television series or on Netflix I think that I would love it because visually this could really be amazing. This definitely touched on bits of sci fi and space that I love and felt akin to the Alien and Predator franchise and of course Star Trek and Firefly. I feel bad in saying that it was just so long and it made me quite bored. Maybe if I hadn't read it through it would have been more interesting? At the same time, I feel if it is that easy to put down a book maybe it's not for me? Again, so many positives about this....just too stinking long!

Content-wise this book is a complete departure for Paolini fans. It's hard scifi which is completely different from the fantasy world he is known for. Structurally and thematically the plot and characters are familiar enough to be comfortable - you definitely get Paolini's style from them, especially in the characters. This book is decidedly more adult than his earlier works. It's a very rich book and well written, he explains in the acknowledgements how long it took him to write and you can see the care he put into it. It's serious but still fun and you fall in love with the characters. In terms of comparisons to known and beloved scifi I am more familiar with scifi in the mediums of TV and film than I am books - To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is closer to a Star Trek-esque story than it is Star Wars and I say that as a fan of both types of scifi. But it's still different than other scifi that I personally have experienced. The story opens on a terraforming colony but after making first contact with an alien species it becomes much more space opera in scope but with more hard science and realism than many space operas. The main character, Kira, doesn't just make physical journies through space, she also spends the book on an emotional and spiritual journey. There are three sentient alien races introduced in this novel and each of them is interesting in their own way. The main species is the Jellies and they're unique among scifi aliens in my experience to make a comparison between Star Trek and Star Wars again - think about a hybrid between the Borg from Star Trek and the Mon Calamari from Star Wars and that's what the Jellies seem like. My only major complaint about this book is that there are times where it dragged but it clocks in at over 600 pages and any book over 500 usually has parts where it drags a bit especially between action scenes. But even when it drags there's enough to keep it interesting. If you're into space adventures this is a great one, and if you're into Paolini but unsure about scifi give it a shot I think you'll enjoy it there's enough classic Paolini in it to keep you engaged.

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.

As many are, I was excited to read this newest work from Paolini. Having read the Inheritance Cycle when I was younger, I was ready to see an improved writing and world building experience.
I was disappointed.
While the overall plot had potential, the execution was just not there. The writing is unimaginative, the characters had very little depth, and the length was tiresome.
I had little to no connection with any of the characters. There was never a time that I felt drawn in and worried about their fate. As the same thing happened over and over, I started hoping for something dramatic to happen, which never did. The devices used to learn the little we do about each characters seemed forced and disjointed.
The plot dragged, was repetitive, and full of mass info dumps that did little to progress the story. At almost 800 pages, I really had to force myself to finish.
The small element of “romance” involved is cringe worthy. There is by no means any romance in the book, but the two moments that relationships are in focus, I felt like it was still a 16yo writing.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor for providing an early copy.

4.5 stars

I'm an avid Paolini fan. Probably a bit obsessive when it comes to the Inheritance Cycle. So I was curious to see what the mind behind Alagaeisia would do once given a whole universe to play with. Boy, I wasn't expecting this at all.

Firstly, I had no expectations going into this book other than it's Paolini, so it'll be good writing and characters. From the beginning, I had no clear idea of where the series would go, and even in the middle, I didn't. This series is one massive twist after another, and the poor characters don't get a break.

I found Kira to be a fascinating character, dealing with things way far outside what she ever imagined to deal with, and yet, at some point, accepting that this was her life now and simply rolling with the punches as best as she could. I don't feel like she had huge amounts of character development, but I also didn't feel like she needed it as she was a well-developed character all ready. This is a very introspective book, so you get a lot of time in her head where she puzzles through all of what's going on, but it doesn't feel like the plot is being paused for that to happen. The way the story is written, there's a natural flow as to when Kira, or other characters, have really slow, introspective moments.

I found the universe as a whole fascinating and well-developed, though that wasn't too much of a shock considering how well-developed the Inheritance Cycle's world and lore are.

The only real stumbling block for me was the science. I'm not a science-y person. Those were the classes in school, second to math, that I struggled with the most. I can understand the concepts, but don't try to explain it to me too much because at some point you're speaking another language. This is probably why fantasy typically appeals to me more because it doesn't have to be rooted in reality. The level of scientific/mathematical detail in this book is staggering. I do not doubt that Paolini actually spent 4 year studying as to whether or not the science in this was even plausible. You can see the research carefully structured into a way to make this book work with how the ships move and function, as well as everything else. This isn't a "press the warp drive button and we zip off" type of book. This is the "okay, everyone get into cryo, and sleep for 3 months because that's how long it's going to take to get to Planet A to Planet B" type story. It feels real and tangible and very much like this could literally be the world in 2300. Also, side note, but I love how 3D printers were in this and used. Just super cool.

As a whole, this is a great story. It's a chonk, and it'll take time, but it's worth it for the adventure and mayhem.

I read the excerpt galley first, and absolutely fell in love. But when reading the full text, I felt almost dragged along, reaching for the initial interest and excitement. This novel is a fun read, but not one that easily absorbs readers. I plan to listen to it as well to see if that makes it more enjoyable.

My thoughts

Rating: 5

Would I recommend it?yes


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 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 Once again thank you so much Tor books for inviting me to read this.

Space nerds rejoice! Christopher Paolini’s space opera is a grand adventure, and you can tell that he had enormous fun writing “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars.” The book is not too cerebral or nerdy on the surface; Paolini put all the weird science in Appendices I and II so that you can take a deep dive if so inclined. You should not read this book without consulting “Appendix III, Terminology." As for the bizarre dream sequences, hang in there: all will be revealed.

Xenobiologist Kira Navárez hopes for a happily-ever after with her fiance on a faraway planet. Instead, while Kira is exploring her possible new home, she catches an alien parasite which bonds to her and creates a second skin or “suit” with healing powers. The “xeno” says its name is “Soft Blade,” and Kira has become a sort of a combination Venom and Wolverine. Soft Blade doubles as body armor and also has the ability to take her into a hibernation state without the need for cryogenics, which is handy for space travels.

When Kira ends up on board the Wallfish with a temperamental motley crew of space smugglers, she and her symbiotic Soft Blade lead them on potentially deadly missions, fighting alien races that are hostile to humans and to each other.

This is a miniseries-ready novel. In fact, Paolini went ahead and wrote the whole miniseries. It seems overlong in parts, and there are multiple names for the same thing, even accounting for human vs. alien vocabulary. This is me trying to find flaws, however; my patience with some of the slower chapters was more than rewarded by space hijinks galore: annoying bureaucracy, a sly Wodehouse reference, funny dialogue, steamy romance, epic gory battles, and artful brush-strokes of characterization that made me slowly fall in love with every last Wallfish crew member.

I particularly adored the AI Ship Mind, Gregorovich, who never says a word when 20 words will do. Gregorovich was once accidentally marooned in space for five years and is a bit. . .off.

Just when you think Kira has reached the limits of Soft Blade’s powers, she makes more discoveries, each more amazing than the last. The ending of the final mission was not at all what I expected, but I found it to be very original and moving. As it turns out, the universe can’t just be saved once and for all.

Most highly recommended for fellow travelers through this universe who don’t like to take themselves or their books too seriously.

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher and was encouraged to submit an honest review.

When I finished this book, I texted my friend and said "I should title my review 'I was right to not read Eragon."

This is a book with not a lot of interesting stuff going on. The characters are dull, the locations are dull, the plot is unoriginal and tired. It got to the point when I was reading towards the end of the book I thought it was getting interesting and then I realized that I'd read this sort of stuff before.

I wanted to like this book, but it just didn't work for me. If you enjoy Eragon, you'll probably like it.I would not be shocked if this wins best SF book 2020 on Goodreads.

This has been a long time coming. The way I see it, this book had a lot to prove the world. The Eragon series success that the teen- CP garnered, could it follow him into mature adulthood after he became better acquainted, not only with his craft but his likes and dislikes? Many things change, tastes in reading especially from when we are younger. So getting to read a book by the adult CP is a treat. I want to say that once I undertook the journey of reading this book, I understood what an immense labor of time, energy, and love that is this story. It is memorizing; captivating and very hard even now to fully grasp the thought provoking feelings that this story leaves you with. So prepare yourself for a journey.

Let me lay some things down up front about this book.
1) It is an epic odyssey across time and space unlike anything I have read that I can remember (I read a lot, too). This puppy is 801 pages long. Around page 200, there was so much going on and I thought "How can there be more to this story?" But there was so much more to happen. This story isn't really a "Space Opera" as romance isn't a key theme. Think of it as a space odyssey and buckle in.
2) Wipe Eragon from your mind. That was then, this is now. Don't let it cloud your thoughts. Only think how much CP has grown since then.
3) Don't get attached to ANY of the characters. You will find out very early on in this book that everyone is expendable (sadly for the betterment of the story). CP holds no love for any one character, especially if it means sacrificing the story, so be warned.
4) Kira is a scientist through-and-through. It may seem at times that she is heartless or emotionless, but she is coping the best way she knows how given the situations she is in. As a scientist myself, when I get overwhelmed it is easier to shut-down the emotions and not think about what can't be controlled and focus on what I can. That is what Kira is doing. She is falling back on her 'scientific brain' to get her through this war.
5) Kira is not a warrior so keep in mind her first thought is to run or hide, to freeze or throw her hand up to keep away. She is constantly fighting herself to be something different this whole book.
6) CP did some intense research to make this book great. This book takes place in the stars, interstellar space. You will learn more about space than you probably remember from school thanks to the amazing amount of research that when into not even world-building because this is more, it's interstellar-space-building.

Alright, with all that being said. I hope you would like to hear more about this book. Let me see if this can put you into the mindframe I was in while I was reading this book - think Bastian, with the blanket over his head, hunched over the book while he was reading Atreyu's story in The NeverEnding Story. That was how riveted I was while I read this book. I barely ate or slept. I ignored my family talking to me while I was reading it (I think they finally got the hint and stopped including me in conversations). I had to finish this story. It has become my own story somewhere along the way. I couldn't keep but be invested with the characters, with the story. I needed to see it through to the end.

This book has epic space battles, aliens the likes of which I would have never imagined, and imagery that brings worlds and space alive. It's a fine line between the science and the fantasy but he does such a good job balancing it with facts, so for those of my fellow geeks out there, I hope you enjoyed that side as much as I did. 😘. He is definitely putting the science back into the Sci-Fi genre, especially when as of late it has been Sealy lacking.

CP is merciless to his characters. He could have made is easier for them, even a little (I found myself several times saying that other authors would have given their characters 'that' win, but no not him). He is constantly dealing the deck against them. It is a constant all-out war, high-stress situation he places his characters in. There is no reprieve, no easy-going, no 'I'll give you this one'. This is way and CP hammers these characters relentlessly non-stop from the being of the book too the end. You will curse him and shake your fist, but that is a mark of a good story. I'm sure I won't be alone in thinking that there were points in this book, battles, that CP could have said 'alright, this is good enough.' Did the man stop there?!? Did he want a 'good enough' book?!? Hell 😜 no. He wanted an EPIC science fiction space odyssey and he got it. Ask yourself when was the last time you became so into a story.

Now for some of the negatives. Though I don't think they take way from the book as a whole, so please keep in mind I'm just wanting to give a well-rounded review. The dream sequences tend to get very enigmatic at times and can meander a ways until you forget what they are about. . . Ah, what were we talking about. Any good, they are sometimes so far between sequences that you don't remember if there was even a point to needing to know about the dream in first place. Even now I don't know if all of the dream sequences where needed, resolved in the waking world. They are the hardest part to understand and read due to the POV and I feel some are more powerful than others, but not all were important. As someone who who lives and breathes science, I enjoyed what learning about the science behind why something worked, but I don't know if everyone would (even if it is only a blurb in the book). It make some people weary about reading the book.

Overall, this book has given me faith going back into the realm of space again if CP decides to continue in this genre. The world of SciFi better watch out because this story will instantly became one to be known as a standard in Science Fiction.

On a side note, see if you can find the Eragon Easter egg hidden amid the story 🤔

** I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review. **

It has been 10 years since we have seen anything from Paolini and while this is what we could have hoped for i expected more. He has shown us in the past that he can create wonderful characters but these felt stiff. maybe there were too many of them to be flushed out properly or something but there was something off about them. there might have also been to much detail. I understand that he was building a new world and technology but i kept getting bogged down. we shall see though as my ARC was only part 1

I was commissioned to write music for the book and came to read it very early on. TsiaSoS is a great Sci-Fi book that feels more sci than fi. Paolini really tries to make the world, the characters and the science believable, and he exceeds at it.
It is a giant book, but it is such a joy to read, that you don't realize you just went through 200 pages.
Highly recommend this book to any sci-fi fans and especially to those who like Mass Effect, Halo, Alien and other franchises of that style.

I really wanted to like this book and have been looking forward to it from the moment it was announced. However, it is long and feels that way with slow pacing that makes it feel like a slog to get through. The premise is interesting and the beginning starts out great with quick set up enough to make me like the characters and then events that turn everything upside down and make me want to keep reading to see how it all turns out. But then the rest of the book is just. so. slow. I like the characters and I like this futuristic world, but the pacing takes away all suspense and I feel like I'm spending too much time with them. I get it, space is big and it takes a long time to get anywhere. I get it, aliens are intimidating and the unknown makes people suspicious and hesitant to act rationally. But every other space opera I've read (which is a lot at this point) has dealt with those issues in ways that still make me intrigued and eager for more. This book had enough to make the long read good enough to keep reading, but halfway through I was already exhausted with it. Still, it had to have some things that made me keep going and for me the unanswered questions, what ifs, and cast of characters I cared about made it worth finishing. I'm not sure who the ideal reader is for this book. If you are new to sci-fi, do not start here or you'll be bored and give up on the genre. If you love sci-fi, you might be like me and keep thinking of books that do this better as you're reading. But if you enjoy space operas and aliens, this book will give you everything a good sci-fi book has with a mysterious discovery, space battles, new worlds, hidden agendas, bad politics, quirky ship crews, and humans finding new alien species.