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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.75 Stars. I loved this book and was planning to rate it 5 stars, but the last 25% of the book wasn't as good as the first 75%. It wasn't disappointing just not as strong. It felt like the author wanted everything tied up in a wholesome way and I think it took away from the story's tone we were given throughout the rest of the book.
Paolini may struggle with dialogue and skillful plotting, he sure as heck will entertain you with a deeply detailed story with amazing world building. This book is 900 pages and I couldn't put it down. It took getting through the first 100 pages, which had some rough/awkward dialogue, which I account to Paolini saying that he didn't change the first 100 pages very much during 9 years of edits. But the descriptions, worldbuilding, and mystery are more than enough to be taken away on an adventure. Any time I raised a question about culture or how human society works in space, it was eventually answered. (I still have some about race, gender identity and roles, religion, which go untouched in this, tho...) I usually have a hard time following action scenes but was able to with ease here thanks to the detail Paolini writes. The plotting was slow, with unneeded red herring side track trips but I was also happy to be on a long adventure with Kira and her crew.
Pet peeves:
I did NOT understand why Kira usually got her way, made TERRIBLE decisions that put people in danger, and they keep going with all her ideas???? And the xeno suit's abilities felt incredibly overpowered.
I'm not fully happy with the ending but oh well. The queer couple survives and that's all that matters.
Pet peeves:
I did NOT understand why Kira usually got her way, made TERRIBLE decisions that put people in danger, and they keep going with all her ideas???? And the xeno suit's abilities felt incredibly overpowered.
I'm not fully happy with the ending but oh well. The queer couple survives and that's all that matters.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-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:
Complicated
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Literally the plot is going nowhere.
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Patchy high concept space opera.
When this is good, it is very good, but when it is bad it is turgid.
A good premise (xenobiologist gets ‘infested’ with an alien parasite/ exosuit, saves the universe), with nice world building and ok character development.
The scenes on ship are nice (love a found family) and the science is cool (the characters travel through vast distances in space so we get interesting explanations of faster than light travel and stasis). BUT the plot is episodic as the adventurers jump from one catastrophe to another. The battle scenes are LONG, tedious and repetitive.
I really liked parts of this and the end is great but it was very hard going at times.
Also, three words - xenobiological chastity belt.
When this is good, it is very good, but when it is bad it is turgid.
A good premise (xenobiologist gets ‘infested’ with an alien parasite/ exosuit, saves the universe), with nice world building and ok character development.
The scenes on ship are nice (love a found family) and the science is cool (the characters travel through vast distances in space so we get interesting explanations of faster than light travel and stasis). BUT the plot is episodic as the adventurers jump from one catastrophe to another. The battle scenes are LONG, tedious and repetitive.
I really liked parts of this and the end is great but it was very hard going at times.
Also, three words - xenobiological chastity belt.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
adventurous
medium-paced
A very solid sci-fi debut for Paolini. Some fascinating worldbuilding concepts are presented here and the attention to technical detail was super satisfying for my engineer brain. This is probably one of my favorite sci-fi books I’ve read this year, I loved that it was ~800 pages and I really felt like I got lost in it the way I love to with this genre specifically. Definitely moving Fractal Noise up on my TBR, I’m very excited for more Fractalverse content.