Initial reaction: I am dead, I have been slain. I cannot WAIT to see a physical copy of this book.

Full review: https://inkandplasma.wordpress.com/2020/08/13/to-sleep-in-a-sea-of-stars-by-christopher-paolini-review/

Trigger Warnings: non-consent to medical procedures, death, torture, emetophobia (one scene but real gross), loss of limb, light body horror.

Thanks to Tor.com for the review copy of this incredible book, it hasn’t affected my honest opinion.

I went into this book almost completely blind. I honestly didn’t know one thing about the plot. I’m not sure I’d even read the blurb but I knew it was an adult sci-fi from Christopher Paolini and that was enough for me. In hindsight I think that that might have been the best thing I could have done. At no point in this book could I predict what was going to happen next. This year I’ve started to really hit my stride with sci-fi and I think it might have finally beaten out fantasy as my favourite genre (blame Tor entirely for that, with Murderbot, Gideon the Ninth and this book). To Sleep in a Sea of Stars hit every single one of my favourite sci-fi features. First contact? Weird symbiotic alien relationships? Snarky ships? Check, check, check.

I don’t know if I’ve ever actually read a book that’s wholly focused on first contact before, but it’s one of my favourite movie concepts and whenever it’s glossed over in sci-fi I’m sulking hard about it, so to read a book that’s entirely based on first contact is incredible to me. In To Sleep in a Sea of Stars humans have been expanding and colonising and spreading as far as they can with the faster-than-light (FTL) technology that they’ve developed. But thus far they’ve been alone in the universe. I’m not going into details because I don’t want to spoil anything, but the way that the humans respond to the threat of first contact feels uh….. uncannily accurate. And speaking of the technology. There’s a helpful glossary in the back of the book. I didn’t use it, and I found this book perfectly accessible without a hint of info-dumping. I don’t know how Christopher Paolini managed to fit so much complicated exposition into the text naturally, but when I realised how easily I’d picked up the jargon I was really impressed.

The character cast in To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is perfection. Kira is my queen of thorns, and I would trust her with my life and with the fate of humanity. Maybe I’ve got a soft spot for powerful women with Something To Prove, but I was cheerleading Kira hard every step of the way. The supporting cast is just as lovable and I think that they’re all well developed and individual, without drawing away from Kira, who is very much the focus of the story. And then there’s Gregorovich. Gregorovich is the ship’s mind, a concept explained in the book, and the love of my life. I’ve been thinking about him for weeks. He’s a monstrously powerful character if you think too much about what he can do. He’s also a total edgelord. I love him to pieces, and as the book told me why he behaves the way that he does, it only made me love him more.

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 – Gregorovich
No – Kira