Hey everyone! I know I said I would be back tomorrow or Monday to do this review, but I actually finished reading To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini this afternoon while I was sitting outside on the front step enjoying the sunshine and warm temperature. And since I have nothing else to do this afternoon, here I am. So let's get right into the book.
When Brad dropped this book on my front step six days ago I wasn't sure what to expect from it. I'm not a huge fan of Paolini's work mainly because, well, I've only read Eragon and since that's his first book ever, that he wrote when he was still a teenager, and wasn't edited properly, even when a publisher actually picked the book up, it was so wordy and a blatant rip-off of Star Wars that I didn't like it and never finished reading the Inheritance Cycle. So when I found this book on my front step on Sunday I didn't think I was going to like it.
Here's the thing though. I REALLY enjoyed it. It is so different from Eragon and so much better written, that I was completely surprised at how good it is. I've never seen Alien, but this book seems to take inspiration from Alien, Witchblade, Star Trek, and Star Wars. But it's not any of those things. I swear it takes elements from each thing and mashes them up into it's own thing.
The main character of the book, Kira Navarez is pretty great. She makes mistakes, she's not overly confident, but she tries her best and is loyal to her friends. And for a xenobiologist, she's actually a pretty strong person, unlike other scientist characters in fiction, who end up just standing around looking stupid until the soldier character or characters save them from whatever threat they're facing. Not Kira though. Instead with the help of the xenosuit, the Soft Blade, or Idealis, Kira fights the bad guys (and the good guys at times) as well as any of the soldiers that are in this book.
However, Kira isn't what kept me engaged with this novel. She's pretty cut and dry throughout the book, so it's easy to follow her. What kept me engaged is the cast of supporting characters that populate the Wallfish which is the ship that Kira finds herself on eventually. From the ship's captain, Salvo Falconi to the ship's mind Gregorovich. A ship's mind is basically a human consciousness inside a starship's control circuits, allowing him or her to control a ship. While we learn a bit about each of them, we don't get anything from their perspectives, leaving us to learn about them as Kira does. Which is intriguing and allows us to get to know them, without being overloaded with information about them. Which is cool.
The alien race that's invading our galaxy, the Wranaui, or Jellies as they're commonly referred to as throughout the book, are your typical alien race, but they aren't bugs. They're kind of like the Borg in that they have artificial bodies, but they don't have the hive mind. So I guess they're more like if someone built an army of protocol droids from Star Wars and unleashed them upon the universe.
Of course the so called good guys, known as the League of Allied Worlds, which is basically like the United Federation of Planets, and their military arm, the United Military Command, which is basically the book's version of Starfleet, aren't much better than the Jellies, and end up being your stereotypical political and military organizations that pop up in many books, comics, and movies, like the Nova Corps in Guardians of the Galaxy, the United States Military in the DC Extended Universe films, and other things as well. Which gets tiresome after a while, but it's still interesting to see how Paolini portrays this as he isn't outright portraying them as the villains as he did with the Empire in the Inheritance Cycle.
Another thing that I like about this book is that the technology isn't as advanced as it is in franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars. They still have to cook, they use microwaves, and they still have to do the dishes after a meal. Which blew me away. I mean in most Sci-Fi shows, movies and books, there's some sort of device that cooks the meals, and then disposes of the dishes afterward. As silly as this sounds, it just makes the characters seem more relatable. Especially since the situations they find themselves in throughout the book aren't ones that the majority of the readers would most likely find themselves in. Also, I like how the Faster Than Light travel isn't instantaneous like it seems like it is on Star Trek or in the Star Wars films.
The thing I don't like about this novel is how long it is. I was talking to my sister about this on Tuesday after we watched our episode of The Orville for the week and she mentioned there were several places where the book could've, and probably should've, ended before it did. However, I didn't notice that at all. There were just some places where I thought the material could've been shortened or taken out entirely and it wouldn't've mattered all that much, but there wasn't really a place, that I found, where the story could've ended before the actual ending. And even when it did end, it felt abrupt, as if there was still more of the book to go.
What's neat about this book is that Christopher Paolini wrote an afterword detailing when he came up with the idea for the book, and what his process was when he was writing it. He first came up with the idea as he was finishing up writing the third book in the Inheritance Cycle, Brisingr, back in 2006 or 2007 but didn't start writing it until after he was finished with it. Though he didn't begin in earnest until 2012 after the final book in the Inheritance Cycle, Inheritance had come out. Then he wrote until the book was publishable in 2020. Occasionally, particularly with major authors's books, you get this information in interviews and then people record it on Wikipedia or the Wiki dedicated to that series, but writers don't often publish those kinds of details in the afterword of the book in question, so I thought that was cool.
Overall To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was a fun book to read. Despite the 878 (825 of story) page count, I finished it in exactly six days. Mostly because I've spent two hours sitting outside reading just about every day this week, in addition to reading a bit before bed. If you're a fan of the Inheritance Cycle or are just looking for a new Sci-Fi book to read, I definitely recommend this one.
And that is going to be it for me for this week for real this time. I will be back next week though with more reviews and posts. I should have volume 2 of Codename: Sailor V finished by Tuesday or Wednesday, but I might even have it finished by Monday, so expect that review to come out next week as well. So until then have a great evening and a great rest of the weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
No comments:
Post a Comment