Reviews with content warning for Body horror - To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

At first I wasn't sure what to rate this book. It's not perfect on a technical level, and I can see why it's reviews are somewhat mixed. That being said, I ended up loving it. It's been a long time since I've had as much difficulty putting a book down as this one. Somehow, despite being well over 800 pages, it's still a fast pace story, there's near constant action and all of it is just so well written. If you love sci-fi or want to jump into a space opera for the first time, I absolutely recommend this, it's a joy.

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redbeanm0chi's review against another edition

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Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

To sleep in a sea of stars takes place a couple of hundred years into the future, where humanity has taken root out into the universe. We follow the story of xenobiologist Kira and her team as she makes first contact with a strange and mysterious alien artefact that thrusts her into an intergalactic war, pushing her to the limits of her identity and sanity. There’s awesome tech, found family, kinda living spaceships, space warfare, a beloved pig, a satisfying slow burn relationship, and discovery of really cool newfound alien powers.

Though there are on page descriptions of sexy times, it’s minimally graphic, so it gets a spicy score of 1.

This book really hit the sweet spot with realistic, descriptive science for me. There’s enough of it to be truly believable in the world without making the reading any kind of heavy (excluding the many pages long fictional science article at the end, goddamn Paolini).

I found the same balance between the dark, heavy scenes and the incredible humour that is reoccurring throughout all of the THIRTYTWO AND A HALV hours of this book.

There was some repetition of, among other things, Kira’s self pity and wallowing that did get a bit whiny and annoying to listen to, but over all it wasn’t impossible to get through. Like, that’s most of my criticism honestly.

“With no tongue to taste and no throat to sing, all names are equal.”

The book was effortlessly and refreshingly diverse and inclusive. The characters were above and beyond loveable and charming. The found family trope combined with the ragtag rogue group dynamics will always always steal my heart. The descriptions spanned from horrifying to hilarious, and descriptions of The Soft blade were especially lush and intriguing; every discovery about it was satisfying and giddy. And the slow build and exploration of Kira’s relationship with The Soft blade and with herself was so exciting all the way through.

“Miss Kira,” said Vishal, standing and joining them. “We know the risks and,” he bowed his head, his eyes soft and round, gentle. “We accept them with open hearts.”

“You shouldn’t have to though,” said Kira.

Vishal smiled and the pureness of his expression stopped her. “Of course not Miss Kira, but life is such, yes? And war is such.”

It’s impossible to not praise the audiobook narrator. I can’t help but be in AWE of Jennifer Hale and to find out this was her FIRST EVER AUDIOBOOK????? Getting a voice actor with experience with games and stuff was a power move. Her ACCENTS, her character work, her clarity and enunciation without sacrificing a shred of emotion and inflection- it’s masterfully done. It was so engaging and immersive to listen to her that the thirty-something hours honestly just flew by. I would recommend everyone, even those who’ve already read the physical copy, to listen to the audiobook just to be dazzled by the scope of Jennifer Hale’s voice.

The ending hit me somewhere soft behind my ribs. Hearing Christopher Paolini say he started with only the beginning and the end, and that every single word in between was written to end up where it did, made a lot of sense for me. It lost me a little bit at the end after the explosion. I’m not entirely sure why; it might have gotten a little too speculative after how grounded the rest of the book was in real life science, but it absolutely towed me mostly back at the very end. I’ll be thinking of it for a long time.

“The universe was so beautiful it hurt. So very very beautiful. And yet at the same time so full of ugliness. Some born of the inexorable demands of entropy. Some born of the cruelty that seemed innate to all sentient beings. And none of it made any sense. It was all glorious, horrible nonsense. Fit to inspire both despair and numinosity.”

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akfowly's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This book made me feel emotions, i.e. I cried several times reading through. I cared about Kira by the end, though I'll admit to having been pretty ambivalent to her for most of the book. I do find Paolini's world building and alien-building to be fairly creative -- I definitely appreciate that the communication was not standard 'human-style', and there were some twists and turns along the way that I found compelling. I found the writing style to be kind of choppy/clunky and a bit of a drag for the first couple sections of the book, but found that after a certain point either I got used to it, or it made more sense. I'm willing to accept that this could be because I don't typically read science fiction these days, and might just be a feature of the genre.

In the end I think I might have enjoyed the book? I have some quibbles about Kira's fate. It felt almost a little like it leaned too hard into a few tropes about women, but it was still unexpected and creative. I read this as part of a christmas present for my mom, so it wasn't my first choice of a book, and if it hadn't been for that I probably would have stopped reading before part 1 ended. For an almost 900 page book, it lacks heavily in character development.

Also, I don't care for the world-building info-dump I discovered at the end of the book when I went back to check a couple things for this review -- if you want to tell me that a pepper was cultivated by someone before they won a 'tri-solar hot pepper bash', incorporate it in the text.

Important: I don't care for the way Paolini portrayed the non-white characters and women in this book, to be completely honest. There were definitely moments where Kira's perspective felt uncomfortable to read, and pulled me out of the flow as I was reminded that a man wrote her, especially as she was perceiving herself and some of the male characters. Also when she had 'emotions' she felt less believable/real than the (2/3 male-coded) maybe more robot-than-human ship minds. It felt a little like she spent the entire book (which covers maybe up to a couple years of time? Hard to follow the timeline between her dissociating and the cryo gaps, tbh) dissociating from shock, and viewing the world through a looking glass.

In general the romance aspects of this book felt clunky and unrealistic/lacked emotion**, and even as an avid romance reader, I could have done without it. On the note of Hwa Jung, I did not care for her portrayal - it felt at times like a series of microaggressions rather than a whole person. Kira's own heritage is only alluded to via her last name, so it felt a little bit checkboxy, i.e. they are not white because that's what's 'in' vs. creating full and complete intentional characters. Also felt pretty uncomfortable about the other two romances - Hwa Jung and Sparrow felt like another 'diversity' checkbox, and the Dr. who was being antagonized by the gal and then suddenly they were having sex and then engaged to be married felt...bizarre to say the least.

My other big quibble is that a huge twist in the book relies really heavily on unreliable narrator and hinges pretty heavily on something that in my opinion is actually a moment where he figured it out at the end and forgot to make sure the beginning still fit the timing right. Without giving spoilers, it has to do with the timing of Kira's first and subsequent contact experiences and the origin of something that I don't think quite fits with the explanation at the end.

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bean_7088's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Big alien space adventure.

Huge shift for Paolini, but it was good!
I always love the trope of a ragtag space crew and I loved all of the characters. Shipmind Gregorovich was my favorite character.

The ending bits weren't my favorite? I'm not sure how to word my feelings but 🤷🏼‍♀️ it was still a good intense read.

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jackiepreston's review

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adventurous challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This book is too long. The premise was intriguing, but it took almost 200 pages to get interesting. There are a ton of characters, and none of them feel fleshed out in any way, even our POV character.

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retrofuturism's review

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adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Was really enjoying it and was thinking a 4 rating until Part 5 when it suddenly started to fall apart, both in plot and in writing. Could have seen it coming as it bloomed from an earlier plot element I found ridiculous but I trusted the author to wrap things up nicely and was disappointed. Paolini's deep world-building and sincerity usually gets him through plot/dialogue corniness with me, but not here. Some stuff with the interaction between species was corny, and it just got worse and worse until it affected everything.

Still a good read, but for its length the ending feels so unsatisfying as to retroactively mess with my enjoyment of the rest of the book. I agree with other reviewers that it could have used heavy editing, but I would've been fine with the length if the ending was good.

For fans of creature features, transhumanism, and space fantasy.

Jennifer Hale was a great audiobook narrator.

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sometimes_samantha_reads's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book was a beast. It took a long time to finish but it was worth it! The fight scenes were wel-written, judt a bit overdone bu tue end I think. Otherwise, this is the best sci-fi I've read in years and I'm happy to know that a second book is in the works.

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ashlightgrayson's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I don't usually read hard sci-fi like this, but this one gradually grew on me. It reminded of original Star Trek in terms of pacing, but with really enthralling action scenes in between the lulls of the plot. There is an emphasis on the vastness of outer space and this first book feels like an introduction to the Fractalverse overall. It takes a while to really get to know the characters, but by the end I really appreciated the humor and friendship amongst the crew. I would say it is definitely more of a plot dye l driven story, though.

The conclusion of the story is open ended and emphasized how far in the future the story is occurring. I think some people may see some aspects of fantasy in the world and story. Personally, I found that interesting and enjoyable. I’m not one to nitpick at the minor aspects of a world if it doesn’t really affect the story. It’s a fictional story with aliens, spaceships, and impossible space travel, so a symbiotic relationship that modifies the host party isn’t really where I draw the line is what I’m saying. If you want to just read this first book and stop here you totally can. However, I definitely think I'm going to read the sequel. I feel like I appreciated the story most after finishing it and having time to digest everything that happened. It’s one of those books that I think you have to sit with for a bit in order to determine if it’s for you or not. Even if it’s not for you, I think it’s not a bad introduction to hard sci-fi. I'm looking forward to more.

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