Wow!! This was an epic read.

The story shoots out the gate at top speed. It has a fantastic, breathtaking plot that has a sci-horror feel in places, which I simply adored and admired. The alien aspect was utilized to perfection, unknown, terrifying, and fascinating.

The characters are real and well drawn. I easily and immediately bonded with Kira, which made everything even more intense. She is my kind of hero. The crew of the Wallfish also won me over. I loved the way everyone interacted.

But that end... so much love. While this can work as a standalone, I'm greedy. I need more, crave it, hope it comes soon.

I liked this science fiction novel - quite a change from the Eragon series. Personally, I thought the ending fizzled, but a good book overall.

First of all I have to say I am so glad for Paolini's determination and drive to write this story. I usually have a love hate relationship with science fiction. It intrigues me but a lot of writers make it so heavy and over complicated. Paolini had the perfect balance. He draws you into Kira's world and his character development kept the pacing moving effortlessly. Never did I feel like I was reading an 800+ book. I just was so sucked into what would happen to Kira next.

This book was like if Alien's met Venom but with more feeling. This book has a lot of action and is definitely intense but it had a lot of heart to it. I am giving To Sleep in a Sea of Stars 4.5 out of 5 stars. My .5 mark off of it being 5 stars was I wanted the ending to be a little more descriptive or visual but it still was fantastic. I highly recommend this!

Xenobiologist Kira Navarez travels to various planets for the Lapsang Corporation dreaming of making contact with alien life. However, when she does find an alien relic, it leads to a frightening metamorphosis that takes her across galaxies. She makes enemies and allies who are believable and add to the story. She doesn't know who or what to trust and neither does the reader, which keeps up the suspense.

Finally, after months of fear-mongering in my own brain, I tackled the Goliath of my TBR pile--To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, the new space-opera sci-fi from Christopher Paolini that comes in at 880 pages, including an extensive glossary. It was...daunting, to say the least. I don't read much Sci-Fi, or space stuff, but I remember liking Eragon back in the day and I   requested the dang thing on NetGalley...so I felt like I had to read it. It took...awhile, and it was a lot of work to keep my motivation up as the percentages slowly ticked by, but I was so pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! Again, not a space person, but I liked the story! It was interesting, Kira was compelling, and maybe I learned some science stuff?

Let's start at the beginning shall we? Kira Navarez is a xenobiologist in a near-future society in which humans have branched out into space. Kira is as human as you or me (with some nice augments, of course) but has never been to Earth. She's working for a company that does something akin to pre-colonization research & prep on new locales, and she's about to blast off from her last assignment when he ends up discovering a strange formation. When she falls in....things go south quick. When she wakes up, back with her crew, everything has changed. An alien biosuit, of sorts (called a xeno), has attached itself to Kira, and it's going to change her life. The suit is powerful--maybe too powerful--and after it lashes out and hurts the ones she loves, Kira finds herself both on the run towards and from the military. But then, things get complicated with a new form of aliens make contact--and they appear to be hostile. Things are not what they seem in space though, and Kira's suit may just be the cause and the cure to everything going wrong. Interstellar war isn't a cakewalk, but along the way, Kira travels far and wide, meets up with a fascinating crew aboard the Wallfish, and there is much more to her xenosuit than she ever realized. The universe will never be the same. 

Okay, I'm not going to critique any science parts of this, because for one, I was an English major. Also, that's not why I read books--I'm not taking notes so I can also go into space, ya know? But I did like the story of this! Kira was compelling, flawed in the right ways and stubborn, and I loved the cast of supporting characters. Especially Mr. Fuzzypants, the ship cat. I don't read a lot of sci-fi, so I can't say how it compares to similar books, but I still enjoyed the book, even if I was overwhelmed by its size. Gregoravich was a really fascinating character to read as someone who doesn't do sci-fi too!  

One thing I do want to talk about is pacing and structure--because this book was 880 pages but somehow did this so well. There are six parts, each with chapters inside of it and mini sections. It kept you from getting bogged down in one thing or another. I love a good short chapter, and these weren't that short, but they were super manageable. Also, the problem with existing in space is that getting places can...take a while. And following along while people float in space for six months is boring, right? Not here---because Paolini uses the "exeunt" sections and Kira's immunity to cryo to his advantage and makes it interesting and reflective but doesn't dwell in it too long--not long enough to bore us or make us want to skip those parts. 

Overall, I give this book 4 stars! I'm not going to start reading all the sci-fi back log now, but it's cool to see Paolini back in the swing of things, and I will definitely recommend this book to space and sci-fi lovers!

Wow well this was fun. I haven't read a lot of sci fi and aside from the length, this is a great intro to the genre. I felt like concepts were explained really well and they didn't take over the novel and make me feel like I needed to be back in school. Lots of nonstop action until the end where things lagged a bit, but the story had a decent wrap up. Not sure how I feel about the main character's fate but we'll see.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini is a great space opera. I found the book to be fast-paced and exciting. The battle scenes which are often too drawn out are manageable and exciting without becoming tedious.

Kira, the main character, finds an alien relic on an uncolonized planet. This first encounter with alien life is complex and is both exhilarating and life-altering. She evolves from a xenobiologist to a young woman encapsulated by the alien skin that she needs to learn to control. Initially, she is not able to harness the skin’s reflexes and slowly learns the discipline necessary to control her newfound power. As she encounters new friends and travels to other worlds she learns the good and bad of her new powers and the limitations it places on her life. As readers, we feel her struggles and sympathize with her predicament.

She falls in with a motley crew of space privateers, who become her new family. She is placed into the position of the savior of the universe while dealing with her body’s changed reality. The growth of the character, Kira, is the driving character force in this novel. She is the most fleshed-out of the characters. Along with the ship’s brain, named Bishop, she develops as a character and is an interesting personality. Most of the other characters are interesting and as we learn their backstories, we gain an understanding of how they came together as a crew and friends. They are not developed fully and do not change as Kira does.

This is a plot-driven novel and the lake of great character development is acceptable. The story is not entirely predictable but is comfortable in the direction if heads. The plot twists are not epic or confounding but more enjoyable than puzzling or challenging. I found myself reading this pretty fast and enjoyed it a lot. This is a book that I recommend and believe will find an audience that may not normally read space-oriented sci-fi. The author’s notoriety can draw new fans to this genre.

Rating: 4/5

This was a long journey, but in the end it was a wonderful one. The story was a dash of Aliens, Interstellar, alien warfare, space adventure, and survival. Our protagonist is Kira, who becomes attached to an alien that takes over her body, making her a weapon... and something more. Things go extremely downhill for Kira after she awakens with this alien life form attached to her. The story is her journey of survival and helping humankind fight for its survival amongst the alien creatures. Along the way we meet the crew of the Wallfish, a ship that picks her up after a terrible incident, and we get to meet the amazing shipmind, Greg ( my favorite character in this book). There is a lot of action in this book and the first 30% is pure alien horror. The book is lengthy at about 802 pages, but the journey we take with Kira as she grows along with the alien xeno attached to her is quite a unique one. I really did have a fun time reading this and was enticed throughout all the plot twist and turns. The language is a bit flowery at some points and there are a lot of alien terminology and such, but there is an area in the back of the book that helps clarify for you. Most of the journey takes place on the Wallfish and how Kira interacts with each member of the crew and how the development of the war continues throughout the story. Though some parts seem to go on for a bit I really did like the parts where we got to see Kira grow her relationships with each crew member, and how she starts to accept what she has to do and becomes more confident in the process. The ending left me wanting a bit more but that’s just a personal preference, otherwise this was a fun read and great for anyone who enjoys space adventure and aliens!

*Thanks Netgalley and Tor for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

Where do you start when you attempt to put into words your thoughts on a book that is 880 pages long? You simply dive in and try not to loose your way. So my thoughts on this story and that what is a story. This novel is very much a character driven story. You start out with a crew who is working in space, our main character Kira ends up joining up with an alien spacesuit that takes over her whole world. I was hooked from the start mostly cause i really felt for Kira and i wanted to see how she was getting this alien life form off of her. Then you add in some really cool aspects like not one alien enemy but two, then you add in that her whole crew is killed, and then their a cat and pig for pets. How much more interesting can it get oh i forgot the ship minds, the quest to find a blue staff and that alien space suit and all the amazing things it wants to achieve and how Kira has to navigate her life in it.

This novel took the author almost a decade to deliver and it shows in all the intricate details. I really loved how he poured a lot of research and time into showing that he has so much more to offer beyond the inheritance cycle. Their been a trend for young adult authors to move out that genre and write adult novels and i sad to say i not sure it the best move for them. In this case i think it totally was, mostly cause he took the opinions of those first earlier readers and made it better, he saw where they were coming from and instead of turning in some half baked idea he went back to the drawing board and delivered an epic story. Don’t let the amount of pages put you off, if anything let them draw you in to an adventure that spans if i remember right ten months of space adventure. I promise you come out on the other side missing it and looking for your next great adventure.

This was a good start to what’s obviously going to be a pretty epic space opera. Humans have begun spreading across the galaxy and have multiple colonies. While there have been a couple of artifacts discovered humans appear to be alone at first but sadly for humanity this is not the case. It’s a very long book but the pace keeps moving with the action dividing the book nicely into several shorter sections.
The author has also improved greatly in quality since his fantasy trilogy. Don’t get me me wrong. I liked his first efforts and had fun reading them but there was a bit too much in them that was derivative in the fantasy trilogy because of his youth and inexperience. And those were still much better reads than most adults could hope to manage writing! That’s gone in this book. I look forward to seeing where he takes it next!

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini | Sep 15, 2020| Tor Books

Kira is an exobiologist on a team finishing up a pre-colonization survey, enjoying a final party with the team she's bonded with, and the guy she'd be happy to give up the exploring life for, maybe even join the colonists coming to ?????.

You know better than to get attached to any of them, even if  Christopher Paolini isn't George R. R. Martin, right? When a story starts out with everything going right for the main character, you know something terrible can't wait to make its appearance.

So when Kira draws the short straw to check out the crash of one of the survey drones before they all go home, it's no surprise that what she finds is an ancient alien artifact, a cloud of black alien goo that swarms her, and after she's rescued that most of her team will wind up suddenly dead. But that's not all.

A military ship has been sent to check out the artifact, and since Kira now qualifies as the artifact, or at least its host, that means she gets to be prodded by increasingly aggressive probes whether she likes it or not, because the black cloud is now a skin fitting exoskeleton and it's very, very, tough. Also, naturally, at least a little sentient and connected to Kira's nervous system.  Then really hostile aliens show up and take the Extenuating Circumstances apart, with Kira escaping in one of the ship's shuttles.

And we're still only about a tenth of the way through an 880-page novel (Hardcover edition). Don't plan on getting anything done for a week or two, because Paolini just keeps ratcheting up the action, adventure, and mystery in his first Space Opera.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars deserves a full review, and I plan to do that elsewhere, but first and foremost it deserves a wide audience among fans of Space Opera. Paolini spent the better part of a decade getting not just the plot but the technology right, and it shows. Sometimes it shows a bit too much, but when you've invested so much time building a universe and paying attention to details it's hard not to obsess a tad. At the core, as it must be, is Kira's evolution from wounded scientist to whatever her will and destiny determine. Along the way, she's given the advice that she must "Eat the path,"  and though it takes her some work to claim her agency, she doesn't let us down.

I am DNFing this book and before I get into the bulk of my review I want to addressed a few things. I also think I'm going to stop using netgalley as I don't like the pressure of having to read something. I'm at the point with this book where having it hanging over me is making me not want to pick up my Kindle, and at that point I'm just not willing to continue with it.

1) I have read ~105-120 pages of this. I'm not exactly sure because I don't know how long my version of it is. I understand that some people may feel that I haven't read enough to review it, but I'm of the opinion that if a book doesn't work for people when they've already read this much most people would probably just give up on it.
2) Most of my DNFs are simply because a book isn't working for me, however in this case I think this book has some real issues and that's why I'm not enjoying it.
3) Based on other early reviews it seems like I'm perhaps in the minority so if you are interested in reading this for whatever reason, please read some other reviews before you decide you do or don't want to read it.

Okay, with all that being said, I have three core issues with this book:

The Characters Obviously one of the most important things about any book is its characters, even in the sci-fi genre where there is sometimes a prioritization of plot over character (which seems to be the case here) and the characters here are so uninteresting that it damages the plot too. The main character, Kira, does not feel like a real person. Very early on in the novel her fiancee is killed and she has almost zero emotional response to it. Now, I don't know about you, but even if there was a lot of other stuff going on around me, I'd be one hell of a wreck if the person I love died (especially under the circumstances here). She was already pretty uninteresting and after her lack of response to this I completely checked out from her. The other characters early on here range from being so uninteresting I couldn't tell you a single thing about them, to being incredibly irritating to read about (looking at you Fizal and Dr. Carr) and this becomes even more of an issue when we look at the plot.

The Plot Right off the bat I'll say that there's not a whole lot going on here that I haven't seen elsewhere. Now, that's not necessarily a problem in sci-fi since authors often 'borrow' ideas from each other but in this case the book lacks anything else to make it really stand out. On top of that, the plot early on is heavily reliant on you the reader caring about the characters, and in case it's not clear from my previous paragraph, Paolini has not done a good job to make you care about his characters. Kira goes through an experience that would send anyone into emotional turmoil and then she's essentially tortured but for either of these plot points to work you really need to care about the characters, so for me they didn't work at all.

The Writing I was very underwhelmed by the writing here. Paolini is fairly heavy on description but I never found his descriptions to be interesting. At one point he describes an alien laser weapon as "white pods with bulbous lenses" and I think you'd be hard pressed to find a less interesting description of a laser weapon across the genre.

"As she approached the bodies, she looked. She had to. One man, one woman. The woman had been shot with an energy weapon. The man had been torn apart; his right arm lay separate from the rest of his body. Bullets had dented and smeared the wall around them"

I don't fully know how to articulate my thoughts on his writing but I just feel like it leaves a lot to be desired. The dialog was also pretty wooden for the most part. Also, as I mentioned Kira has a fiancee at one point (rip Alan, also wow please use a more interesting name than Alan in a sci-fi novel (no offense to any Alans out there)) and it's perhaps the most poorly written 'romance' I've read in a book.

At the end of the day, this is an 880 page book and for a lot of people that's a huge time commitment. If a book that long has some issues but it really knocks it out of the park in other areas, then it can still be worth your time, but I think this combo of issues really kills this book and there really wasn't anything here that had me at all interested in continuing.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an early copy of this book.

As a fan of Paolini's previous works in the Eragon series, this title shows a promising author's improvement after years of development.

I remember enjoying Eragon when I read it for the first time as a teen. I even liked the movie *gasp*. I know, that's a pretty unpopular opinion, haha. Sure, it wasn't as good as the book but I still liked it.

Anyways, when I saw that the same author was going to be writing a new book, but in space, I definitely knew I needed to check it out.

The book starts out like any movie I've seen where everything is perfect and then something goes terribly wrong. The action does begin pretty quickly but for that reason I just didn't feel anything towards the characters that the things were happening too. This was all in the first 5% and so it's hard to be shocked/sad or whatever because you had no time to really form any bond.

I kept going with this book because you can't judge a book within that little amount. I will say that I never formed any connections to any of the characters.

There is definitely a lot of infodump and at times there were clunky parts that just left me bored. I feel like the book could have been shrunk a bit and it would still have the same effect.

I did find some of the plot to be good. The aliens were interesting and I like how he executed their communication. The memories/dreams was another nice touch and gave us more information. The romance part of the plot was definitely a letdown. It really could have been taken out and made no difference.

Where the book shines is the technology and descriptions that comes with it. Learning about the ship minds was my favorite part. Gregorovich was very interesting. I can't remember reading anything like that before.

Overall, I think the negative outweighed the positive. It had its moments but it was still hard to connect with the story as a whole.

In 2257 during a routine survey of an uninhabited moon, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is infected with an inescapable symbiotic alien species, completely upending her life and touching off a three way interstellar conflict that threatens the survival of humankind. Christopher Paolini’s To Sleep Among the Stars is a sci-fi thriller that will please fans of Star Trek and Star Wars. Some of the action sequences compare to the Marvel universe, while the complexities of interstellar travel allow for character development. Paolini includes nods to Eragon and well known space operas and acrostics in the table of contents just for fun. The addendum contains articles that technophiles will enjoy on the theory of faster than light travel employed in the book, the physics of space combat, and a nice glossary.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is every reviewer's worst nightmare: a book so intricately amazing no review could possibly do it justice. This is the kind of book where you sit down to read page one and look up at page 50 wondering what time it is. It's the book you pull an all-nighter for, call out of - or show up late for - work over, and the kind of book that launches fandoms and franchises. Schedule your days off, get your tea brewed, and paint your nails so you won't bite them off. The fun is about to begin.

I love dystopian future fiction, but rarely venture out into space-based science fiction. This book has changed my view: outer space future dystopian visions of the future can be amazing, and this book is wonderful. From a woman's perspective, it addresses issues ignored in male-centric science fiction without missing a beat. I could not put this book down, and I'm hoping for a sequel!

Wow this is a spectacular book!!! I couldn't put it down but didn't want it to end. Kira Navarez, a xenobiologist exploring a far distant planet falls into an ancient artifact (craft) and makes 1st contact with an alien lifeform that changes her entire being. She is taken over by a form fitting bodysuit-like life form and develops frightening and exciting capabilities that lead her on a journey to save the universe. The xeno takes over her body and she must learn to control it. It was created by an ancient race , now extinct whose technologies have been borrowed by a lifeform that come to be know as the Jellies, who are invading Human occupied space in search of the xeno. The characterizations and plot are incredible.The crew of the Wallfish who become Kira's friends and fellow warriors are inspiring .You will be cheering them on every step of the way.
There is no way to describe this book other than epic and must read!

While I found this book intriguing, it felt forced and slow in many areas. The relationships the main character forged felt superficial , yet ate up a large portion of the book. I did like the aliens, and wanted to know more about the Old Ones and the Jellies more. Their stories were more interesting than the main characters.

I absolutely LOVED this book! It is such a unique sci fi page turning book!
Thank you so much for this arc! It is now one of my top reads for 2020.