To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini is a highly recommended science fiction space opera - based on a excerpt.

Kira Navárez, a xenobiologist,is on a routine survey mission with a small team of other scientists when she finds what indicates an alien civilization. When the alien dust begins to move and encase her, she loses consciousness. Later, when she wakes up after her rescue and time spent in recovery, she seems to be fine, but a horrific incident makes it clear that an alien organism has bonded to her body, forming a second skin. When she feels threatened and the need to protect herself now, spikes will jump out from her skin stabbing anyone around her. Kira needs to learn how to control the suits power and perhaps use it to help humanity.

The main drawback to reviewing To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is that I was provided with an excerpt of about the first quarter of the novel. This allows me to get a sense of where the story may be going and the opportunity to develop a theory about the narrative. Over the many years I've been reviewing books there have been numerous books where the ending has totally change my rating, so being provided with only the first part of the story only allows me to determine if I would keep reading the novel or not. I would keep reading. Paolini's novel has the start of a great science fiction space opera. I hope to finish reading the story someday.

Now, that is not to say the section provided is perfect. Prose is still a problem and doesn't always flow smoothly and he also doesn't quite pull off writing as a female lead. Now, why I would have kept reading the novel if I were able is that the storytelling and world building is compelling. I think the drama, excitement and the plot will likely overcome some of those awkward points, but I can't know for sure.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Tor/Forge.
After publication the review will be posted on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Admittedly, I skipped the Eragon books because I just couldn't enjoy them for whatever reason. But this is miles away from that! Think Venom in space. I don't think I've been this excited for a science fiction novel in ages, but it's such great storytelling.

Fast paced sci-fi thriller and space odyssey 🚀👽 from the author of #Eragon #InheritanceCycle

Kira is a xeno biologist on a distant planet studying lifeforms to determine if the planet is inhabitable for humans. Life is good for her. Her boyfriend just proposed 💍. It's their last night on the planet. Before they leave she has a last minute errand to run.

Her curiosity leads her to an ancient alien ruin. She thinks okay 'Wow, this is great!'. She might've just found proof of alien species. Her career is looking up. BUT. She's stuck there. Tragedy strikes. What follows is a series of very unfortunate events that kept me on the edge of my seat.

So far reading 10 chapters makes me feel so bad for Kira. She is all alone and scared. Except for the strange alien suit. Which she discovers is somehow sentient.😃

This book is a fast paced sci-fi thriller. With space battles 🚀 Aliens 👽Smartphone📱type skin implants! And printers that can about print anything like seeds and body parts 😮. Waiting so many years for this book really paid off (9 years! 😱). #StarWars vibe people!!

I received the partial ARC for this thanks to @netgalley and @torbooks
I'm so excited to get my hands on the physical copy😃🤩 Would you look at that COVER😍

What a tease! I'm really enjoying the story so far and can't wait to read more. Kira seems like a great protagonist and it's interesting to see Paolini writing from a female perspective. While a bit slow considering how long the whole book is, the plot is keeping my attention and seems original and interesting. What little we see of the aliens pulled me in and has me eager to get the finished copy!

The first part of this book is very interesting. It kept my interest the whole time although there were fast paced and slow paced parts.
The part where Kira finds the relic was exciting and how it ended up forming to her body and becoming a suit that is part of her and also a weapon is really a fun idea (but destructive). I was not expecting Kira's team to end up how they did and it came as a big surprise.
After Kira gets taken onto the second ship and after what happens to that ship, it really pulled in my interest.
Part one leaves it on such a cliffhanger, I can't wait to find out what happens to Kira and the ship she is on!

An intriguing taste of things to come in To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. At the onset, I found it a bit challenging to keep track of the all the many characters. But the story takes off and I couldn’t put it down. This is only a partial galley of the story and I was sorry when I got to the end of it. There is so much more that I need to know!! Despite its length (688 pages), this is one book that I’ll definitely be reading when it comes out next week! Looking forward to seeing what happens next.

I love Christopher Paolini's writing style. The pacing is tight, everything is so vivid. It grabs you from the start and won't let go. I've had a book hangover ever since I read the sample. I am counting down the days until it's finally released so I can finish it. Absolutely outstanding.

Originally this was a book I had no intention of reading even though I enjoyed Paolini’s earlier fantasy works. When Netgalley offered up an excerpt of the book I thought I’d give it a try and I’m so glad I did. Upon starting the first couple of chapters I was of the mindset of not being into this type of read but then things took a turn and I’m anxious to see where this story leads and have since pre-ordered the book.

I had such high hopes for this book. Alas, it was not to work in my favor. Having read nearly 60% of this book I feel that I can give a proper review and share my likes and dislikes.

Starting off, this book was intriguing and had a constant sense of discovery. Or should I say, believable, somewhat scientific discovery. I enjoyed it for the first 30% and despite not loving any of the characters, I thought it would be a solid enough book. But oh, I did not realize how tedious this story would become.

The thrill of alien discovery was short lived. Kira Navarez is bonded with a mysterious xenobyte while surveying the planet Adrasteia. The xeno forms a protective skinsuit of sorts, but it can also be used as a weapon on purpose or even if the inexperienced host becomes upset. This results in the death of her fiance, and several other team members. She undergoes a battery of tests by the military so that they might determine whether the xeno is infectious and she's kept in quarantine. Until tentacled aliens they call "jellies" attack. And then the jellies attack other human settled planets. It's pretty bad and gets worse when another alien species called Nightmares start attacking humans AND jellies.Thus begins the interspecies war. 

It's bad, but I'm even bored typing up the most basic plot summary. This should have been an exciting, action packed book that I adored but it so was not. It was tedious and mind numbing and after a particularly boring card game between Kira and Captain Falconi, I decided I'd had enough. For goodness sake, even the dialogue was dull and Lord knows there was far too much of it. Ceaseless droning and I didn't care about ANY of the characters despite the authors efforts to flesh them out and make them likable. 

This book just did not work for me and I'm tremendously disappointed because I've spent a year looking forward to it. The characters never had more than surface level interaction and emotion, leaving me feeling underwhelmed even after what should have been impacting events. The death of Kira's fiance Alan left me(and apparently Kira) feeling nothing. I quit before I had to suffer through another lengthy space journey where Kira couldn't be cryogenically frozen and spent hours listening to Bach and being hungry. I'll be honest, I'm glad I don't have a physical copy of this book because then I'd have to find someone to give it away to. I was not excited to spend another 10+ hours on this audiobook and now here we are.

I will also note, since this is an audiobook review, that the narration was fine. It wasn't spectacular and it wasn't terrible - solidly middle of the pack.

This is the first work I've read by Christopher Paolini and it has me hooked! I've had his Inheritance Cycle on my list for quite a while, but because of the length and the mixed reviews, I haven't started them yet. But this? This is good! From the very first chapter, I was already interested in what was going to happen in this story. Even in this Sneak Peek of 9 chapters plus an interlude, there were at least 2 chapters that ended in a cliffhanger of sorts. There is enough in this Sneak Peek to have an idea of things to come, but I have no idea how it's going to end. Although I generally like Fantasy a tad bit more than Sci-Fi, I am really enjoying this story! I also love all the influences I'm seeing from other sci-fi works and films that I've seen--it makes it all the more fun. I don't know how often it is that a publisher will release a sneak peek ARC of a book, but this one definitely captured my interest and I can't wait to read the full book! Which thankfully will be soon!

FTC Disclosure: Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) provided by the Author and Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was so engrossed in this book that I totally forgot it was a partial galley. I was not happy!! It is so good and I can not wait until September 15th when it releases. Paolini built a fantastic world with great characters for us to loose ourselves in. This is SFF at its best.

This is fantastic. While it is only a partial galley, I'm hooked. Kira is a xenobiologist on a mission to colonize a planet with a team of scientists. On the day before she is scheduled to leave, she discovers a relic of non-human origin. The discovery of the relic changes the trajectory of Kira's life.

This book has everything I love about science fiction. We have good scientific explanations without being too technical, there is space travel, and it looks like there might be aliens involved. The book is descriptive without being overly verbose and the plot is moving along at a good pace. I'm excited to get my hands on the full book to continue on with Kira's journey.

I loved the opening chapters of this! Paolini is such a phenomenal writer, and the plot swept me off my feet. I cannot wait to get a finished copy!

I really enjoyed this clip-it of the book. The characters are interesting to me, and I am enjoying the world building. Space sci-fi books aren't normally my thing but I wanted to keep reading the story. Thanks for letting me read this title. Christopher Paolini is hitting it out of the park with this one.

This book seemed like it could go in a hundred different directions. I didn’t expect the xeno to attach itself to our MC or for most of the characters we were introduced to up to that point to die. I will definitely check out the rest of this book in the future, especially if there’s more of a plot centered on these aliens.

I am also listening to the Audiobook, but from what I've read/listened to so far I have just cleared this sampler, this book is amazing. It is detailed and expressive. Kira is such a wonderful character and very well rounded. I am intrigued by the parasite it reminds me of Venom from Marvel Comics. The story also gives me 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke vibes. It is a wonderful Science Fiction work so far.

This has been a long time coming. The way I see it, this book had a lot to prove the world. The Eragon series success that the teen- CP garnered, could it follow him into mature adulthood after he became better acquainted, not only with his craft but his likes and dislikes? Many things change, tastes in reading especially from when we are younger. So getting to read a book by the adult CP is a treat. I want to say that once I undertook the journey of reading this book, I understood what an immense labor of time, energy, and love that is this story. It is memorizing; captivating and very hard even now to fully grasp the thought provoking feelings that this story leaves you with. So prepare yourself for a journey.

Let me lay some things down up front about this book.
1) It is an epic odyssey across time and space unlike anything I have read that I can remember (I read a lot, too). This puppy is 801 pages long. Around page 200, there was so much going on and I thought "How can there be more to this story?" But there was so much more to happen. This story isn't really a "Space Opera" as romance isn't a key theme. Think of it as a space odyssey and buckle in.
2) Wipe Eragon from your mind. That was then, this is now. Don't let it cloud your thoughts. Only think how much CP has grown since then.
3) Don't get attached to ANY of the characters. You will find out very early on in this book that everyone is expendable (sadly for the betterment of the story). CP holds no love for any one character, especially if it means sacrificing the story, so be warned.
4) Kira is a scientist through-and-through. It may seem at times that she is heartless or emotionless, but she is coping the best way she knows how given the situations she is in. As a scientist myself, when I get overwhelmed it is easier to shut-down the emotions and not think about what can't be controlled and focus on what I can. That is what Kira is doing. She is falling back on her 'scientific brain' to get her through this war.
5) Kira is not a warrior so keep in mind her first thought is to run or hide, to freeze or throw her hand up to keep away. She is constantly fighting herself to be something different this whole book.
6) CP did some intense research to make this book great. This book takes place in the stars, interstellar space. You will learn more about space than you probably remember from school thanks to the amazing amount of research that when into not even world-building because this is more, it's interstellar-space-building.

Alright, with all that being said. I hope you would like to hear more about this book. Let me see if this can put you into the mindframe I was in while I was reading this book - think Bastian, with the blanket over his head, hunched over the book while he was reading Atreyu's story in The NeverEnding Story. That was how riveted I was while I read this book. I barely ate or slept. I ignored my family talking to me while I was reading it (I think they finally got the hint and stopped including me in conversations). I had to finish this story. It has become my own story somewhere along the way. I couldn't keep but be invested with the characters, with the story. I needed to see it through to the end.

This book has epic space battles, aliens the likes of which I would have never imagined, and imagery that brings worlds and space alive. It's a fine line between the science and the fantasy but he does such a good job balancing it with facts, so for those of my fellow geeks out there, I hope you enjoyed that side as much as I did. 😘. He is definitely putting the science back into the Sci-Fi genre, especially when as of late it has been Sealy lacking.

CP is merciless to his characters. He could have made is easier for them, even a little (I found myself several times saying that other authors would have given their characters 'that' win, but no not him). He is constantly dealing the deck against them. It is a constant all-out war, high-stress situation he places his characters in. There is no reprieve, no easy-going, no 'I'll give you this one'. This is way and CP hammers these characters relentlessly non-stop from the being of the book too the end. You will curse him and shake your fist, but that is a mark of a good story. I'm sure I won't be alone in thinking that there were points in this book, battles, that CP could have said 'alright, this is good enough.' Did the man stop there?!? Did he want a 'good enough' book?!? Hell 😜 no. He wanted an EPIC science fiction space odyssey and he got it. Ask yourself when was the last time you became so into a story.

Now for some of the negatives. Though I don't think they take way from the book as a whole, so please keep in mind I'm just wanting to give a well-rounded review. The dream sequences tend to get very enigmatic at times and can meander a ways until you forget what they are about. . . Ah, what were we talking about. Any good, they are sometimes so far between sequences that you don't remember if there was even a point to needing to know about the dream in first place. Even now I don't know if all of the dream sequences where needed, resolved in the waking world. They are the hardest part to understand and read due to the POV and I feel some are more powerful than others, but not all were important. As someone who who lives and breathes science, I enjoyed what learning about the science behind why something worked, but I don't know if everyone would (even if it is only a blurb in the book). It make some people weary about reading the book.

Overall, this book has given me faith going back into the realm of space again if CP decides to continue in this genre. The world of SciFi better watch out because this story will instantly became one to be known as a standard in Science Fiction.

On a side note, see if you can find the Eragon Easter egg hidden amid the story 🤔

** I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review. **

I was not at all sure what to expect from this, but I was RIVETED to the page! To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a a sort of sci-fi thriller that sucks you in and does not let go. I'm very excited to see where the rest of the book goes. This is the first major book from Paolini since the Eragon series, and it's an adult sci-fi novel.

The main character is a xenobiologist, often studying lifeforms on planets to determine if they are a good fit for terraforming. In the first chapter, she's headed to a party celebrating their last night on the current planet, but for her it's bittersweet because she's been working with her significant other and now might not see him for months. That night he proposes. Life is so good, the future seems so bright! She has one last investigative errand to run before they leave the planet and ride off into the sunset. You just know something is going to go very, very wrong. And wow does it. A routine patrol lands her stuck in an alien ruin where something very bad happens. This is all in the first couple of chapters. Then more bad things happen and everything changes.

Part 1 of the book is a RIDE, and this is the most excited I've been about a book all month. Expect a review of the full book soon since I have an audio review copy! But at this point, I would easily give it 5 stars.

A great novel by a great author. Highly recommend for fans of the genre and those missing the tales of Eragon. Purchasing for library.

Finally, after months of fear-mongering in my own brain, I tackled the Goliath of my TBR pile--To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, the new space-opera sci-fi from Christopher Paolini that comes in at 880 pages, including an extensive glossary. It was...daunting, to say the least. I don't read much Sci-Fi, or space stuff, but I remember liking Eragon back in the day and I   requested the dang thing on NetGalley...so I felt like I had to read it. It took...awhile, and it was a lot of work to keep my motivation up as the percentages slowly ticked by, but I was so pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! Again, not a space person, but I liked the story! It was interesting, Kira was compelling, and maybe I learned some science stuff?

Let's start at the beginning shall we? Kira Navarez is a xenobiologist in a near-future society in which humans have branched out into space. Kira is as human as you or me (with some nice augments, of course) but has never been to Earth. She's working for a company that does something akin to pre-colonization research & prep on new locales, and she's about to blast off from her last assignment when he ends up discovering a strange formation. When she falls in....things go south quick. When she wakes up, back with her crew, everything has changed. An alien biosuit, of sorts (called a xeno), has attached itself to Kira, and it's going to change her life. The suit is powerful--maybe too powerful--and after it lashes out and hurts the ones she loves, Kira finds herself both on the run towards and from the military. But then, things get complicated with a new form of aliens make contact--and they appear to be hostile. Things are not what they seem in space though, and Kira's suit may just be the cause and the cure to everything going wrong. Interstellar war isn't a cakewalk, but along the way, Kira travels far and wide, meets up with a fascinating crew aboard the Wallfish, and there is much more to her xenosuit than she ever realized. The universe will never be the same. 

Okay, I'm not going to critique any science parts of this, because for one, I was an English major. Also, that's not why I read books--I'm not taking notes so I can also go into space, ya know? But I did like the story of this! Kira was compelling, flawed in the right ways and stubborn, and I loved the cast of supporting characters. Especially Mr. Fuzzypants, the ship cat. I don't read a lot of sci-fi, so I can't say how it compares to similar books, but I still enjoyed the book, even if I was overwhelmed by its size. Gregoravich was a really fascinating character to read as someone who doesn't do sci-fi too!  

One thing I do want to talk about is pacing and structure--because this book was 880 pages but somehow did this so well. There are six parts, each with chapters inside of it and mini sections. It kept you from getting bogged down in one thing or another. I love a good short chapter, and these weren't that short, but they were super manageable. Also, the problem with existing in space is that getting places can...take a while. And following along while people float in space for six months is boring, right? Not here---because Paolini uses the "exeunt" sections and Kira's immunity to cryo to his advantage and makes it interesting and reflective but doesn't dwell in it too long--not long enough to bore us or make us want to skip those parts. 

Overall, I give this book 4 stars! I'm not going to start reading all the sci-fi back log now, but it's cool to see Paolini back in the swing of things, and I will definitely recommend this book to space and sci-fi lovers!