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

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Reviews tagging 'Gore'

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

40 reviews

discordantdungeoneer's review against another edition

It felt vaguely misogynistic. The opening was pretty good but the main character was barely compelling and the action was way too slow. The characters weren't introduced in anyway that felt meaningful after a while.

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tiffanysmith's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Like many people, I grew up with Paolini’s debut series The Inheirtance Cycle, which I was quite fond of. As an adult, I was thrilled when I discovered he had written a space adventure novel and immediately got my hands on it.

I can say that I enjoyed the premise and the characters up until I was about halfway through this tome…that’s when I began to despair. The story was slow. The plot and characters began to grow stale by the middle because their was a lack of forward motion to the story. I didn’t really know what the true plot was for quite a while and the character’s devoted much of their time to mundane dialogue and many scenes aboard the Wallfish that really just didn’t seem relevant. I think if the story had been condensed down by 300-400 pages, it would have been totally awesome! Instead, it grew dry and I had to slog my way to the finish line.

I did enjoy the plot premise and the space world that Paolini built. It was brilliant. He writes beautifully, and the description drew me into each moment. I just didn’t enjoy how it was executed in terms of pacing. From the middle until the climax at the end, I was desperately challenged to read through it, but I’m glad I finished it, so I can relish the parts I loved about it.

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erynpaige's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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? No

4.25

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kfergey's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I'll start by saying I did like this book. The story (when it got going) was interesting and most of the characters were likable or interesting. The world was cool if under-explored. But, this book is TOO long, it did not need to be this long. The whole storyline of the staff of blue mcguffin was unnecessary and the dream sequences were overly long and dramatized and made the book drag. The main character was also hard to like at times as she was so introspective to the point of being a bit needy/whiny. However, what dropped this below a 4* for me was the ending. All of a sudden she can make all sorts of magical staffs and pills and she talks like an omniscient creature and overall I found it to be too much. I'd only recommend this book to people who really like sci-fi and philosophy. <Spoiler>

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gladiolus17's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful tense slow-paced

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

4.0

This was a ride from start to finish and I enjoyed every bit of it. Paolini really put his heart into this book.

I liked many things about this, so in no particular order:

(Sorry for any spelling mistakes, I listened on audiobook)

-Paolini may have used his creative license with the science, but I sure couldn’t have told where he used it. Kira sounded like a xenobiologist and a regular user of spaceships, and everything sciencey that happened was written with confidence and clarity.

-Sometimes you can tell when a woman was written by a man. In this case, I could not tell. I think Paolini wrote Kira with realism and sensitivity.

-BOB THE NUMENIST

-Related to the above, I was delighted with every humorous part of the book. Sometimes the story can get serious, but the humor catches you off guard in a good way.

-Fuckin loved Gregoravich the ship mind. Everything he said was so off-beat and delightful.

-I discovered I love aliens as a trope? I felt so sympathetic to the jellies, especially Itari.

With every book, there were some things that didn’t work for me, but it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the overall book. Here’s the things I thought could better suit my taste:

-The writing is great on a macro level, but it could be more specific and more trimmed on a sentence/paragraph level. This is in the instances of describing emotions and feelings mostly.

-I had mixed feelings on Alan. I could have used some specific instances of Kira and his relationship to make me sympathize with him more. He was described as wonderful, but I didn’t see much action or scenes that revealed this.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, and the audiobook was fantastic. The book has both character and plot, but I would say that this is more plot and world-building heavy. If you like sci-fi books heavy on detail and science, this is the book for you.

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ssgcedits's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

And he did it again. Paolini never writes anything below epic.

This story is brilliantly researched, packed with action (even a bit too much for someone used to slower books) and well-rounded, diverse characters. It feels like a perfectly plausible future, but there are also nods to the Empire series that make it seem like a plausible future in that same universe.
It is definitely more adult and explicit than Empire. I am not saying that Empire isn't violent, bloody and nasty at points, because it is, but this book goes into more gore-ish detail, I think. So, be ready for that. I had to pause at various points not just because of the violence but also the sense of impending doom that builds up throughout the novel and to the very end.

Another great skill of Paolini's is in depicting relationships from the most formal to most intimate. Nothing is instantaneous or unexplained. It all makes sense to those characters in that moment and under those circumstances (almost always abnormal). Similarly, the saddest moments are often bittersweet and the happiest tend to be quite complex, which I also appreciate.

There is a lot o subtle and not-so-subtle commentary on racism and 'otherness,' on government, corporations and the exploitation of space and workers such as miners. I always admired the way Paolini handles the interaction of different species and it is no different here. In such a dark narrative, the inclusion of comical or lighthearted characters was very welcome.

And, again, as usual, at the end of a long book, there are still many mysteries to uncover and stories to tell beyond the protagonist's. So, is that an open door for (a) sequel(s)? I hope so.

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sofia_marie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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elthechameleon's review

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mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

This book is really interesting. It's wildly different than Paolini's Inheritance cycle, and it seems to blend a variety of different sci-fi, fantasy, and fiction conventions. His use of "exeunts" between chapters and systems shows the influence from his unsuccessful playwriting endeavors, and yet, it helps with the pacing of the book. I've read that some think this is a sluggish read, but for me, the balance between fast and slow pace feels apt for this particular story, using playwriting conventions to set up every action scene.
The main character of the story is a Latina woman, but the inclusivity in this book doesn't feel robust. The writing also feels rather male-focused, as Kira develops

relationships with primarily two male characters, Gregorivich and Falconi (aka Salvo) but doesn't develop any deep female friendships. The queer couple in the book is casually mentioned (at an attempt at normalization?), and Kira's family is always on the periphery of the story without getting any fleshed-out details. As a result, Kira's primary relationships are to two male characters, even becoming intimate with one of them. It feels limiting. And, the voice does not feel so different from that of Eragon's, only mentioning her "parts down there" in an early scene to remind us that Kira is female-identifying. The take on gender in this book also feels a little neoliberal. The alien species' focus on two-forms being ship minds and bipedal humans renders gender an afterthought, but gender norms nonetheless feel very classically reinforced. I feel like Paolini could have done a bit more with this. The ending with Kira becoming this Gaea-like god for the entire universe is disappointing. She becomes defined by reproductive power, instead of transcending it with the possibility for a post humanist feminist theory (see Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto. In that regard, gender defines the future, instead of being something to transcend.

. Despite that, I've read some reviews that find the banter of the characters to be childish or out-of-place. I'd disagree. There seems to be a realness in Paolini's writing when it comes to camaraderie and humor. It's easy to dismiss that as low-hanging dialogue fruit, but it resembles a lot of the silly merriment of real friend groups. And that's commendable. I'm satisfied with this book. It didn't feel long. The pacing was really enjoyable. And, it is very well-researched, making it feel like I'm diving into a world already there, in which Paolini has fully fleshed out the edges and spots that never make it into the narrative at all.
Despite the drawbacks, I found myself really enjoying this book, especially Paolini's commentary at the end. For what it is, it's really beautiful.

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ehmannky's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

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

3.75

This book is kind of hard for me to rate. Because on the one hand, the plot is very good, I was interested for all of the 800+ pages that this book goes on (though I did have to do a hard pass on the ending addendum stuff), and I was invested in these characters. On the other hand, the plot kind of meanders (it is 800+ pages long and I personally feel like at least 100 pages could have been cut overall) and the dialogue is clunky. It's a fun space opera and it gets really good once Kira starts really merging with her alien biomass, but I wouldn't rank it as one of the best books of all time. Read for a good time not a smart time.

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bluelaceagate's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

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