We find ourselves with a team of surveyors, making sure a planet is fit for colonisation. For the team, it is a routine mission, and they are only days away from completing. Kira, our main character is a xenobiologist, and is struggling to come to terms with what this means for herself and her partner, Alan. Everything seems to be going according to plan but on their last day, she gets asked to do one last inspection on the planet and before she knows it everything she believes about herself and her universe gets turned on its head.

I really liked the main plot here - first contact stories are rare, and when they do happen they often start on earth, before humanity has decided to explore the stars. And this book certainly had elements of all my favourite troples within the genre - space pirates, sentient ships, strong female MC and lots of action. However, I really struggled with the writing. This book is nearly 900 pages long and I found myself skipping pages because they just didn't hold my interest. There seemed to be a lot of padding, and I felt like it could have easily been half the final page count. When the writing was good, it really was excellent, Paolini did a great job with the world-building and felt like I could really imagine the setting. Some of the characters were brilliant, I really liked Kira, as well as Gregorovich (my favourite). But more often than not, it all felt a little flat. Some of the characterisations were a bit too one-dimensional and stereotypical, and some of the relationships between those characters just didn’t work for me. It felt like a few of the characters were brought on to be canon fodder for plot development, I don’t really see the point of introducing characters, giving them basic back stories only for them to be killed off in the next few chapters.

I wish there had been more of a back story about the original surveyor team that was introduced in the first few chapters. I understand they were not strictly necessary for the overall plot of the book, but for me, I thought it was a shame we didn’t get to know them better. I hate to say this, because I work in a bookshop, but for me this story would probably be better portrayed on the screen than in the pages of a book, and if it did, I would definitely watch it. But unfortunately, in its current format, this novel just wasn’t for me.

I received a free ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was something else. Something exciting, fast paced and unexpected. The beginning felt like the end of another story and made me wonder where else the story could go. Even at the end of the book I am still ruminating about what is going to come next. The characters are intriguing, I can see the potential for 'found family' or development of a a team but for this book, the focus remains on one primary character and the situation she finds herself in. I really enjoyed reading this and am looking forward to reading more.

Check out my full review on twwbookclub.co.uk a little closer to publication date.

This preview was excellent and cruel (because I now must wait to continue on!)

Reading this has me absolutely desperate for the September release. I loved the character and the way Paolini has set up the story. I think this may be a new favourite!

I received a partial ARC (about 25%) of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This review is based on an extract, my opinions may change after reading the whole book.

I read Paolini’s first series, the Inheritance Cycle, when they came out many years ago. I liked those books, they weren't great, but they made it clear exactly what kind of a story you were going to get (traditional epic fantasy setting with a hero's journey) and that's exactly what they delivered. Yes they were very derivative and predictable, but they were also easy to read and a great 'starter' fantasy for people who were getting into the genre.

Fast forward 9 years and the same can be said for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. The genre has changed (this is Paolini's first time writing a science fiction novel) and it is classified as adult rather than YA, but my judgement remains - the plot feels very familiar and predictable (think Alien), but it was also really easy to read and I think would be a good starting place for someone who wanted to get into reading sci-fi.

Things I liked:
The POV character Kira. I liked her right from the start. Her curiosity and motivations were easy to empathise with and I was really rooting for her.
The bond between the crew. This book has the standard spaceship crew (engineer, doctor, biologist, etc). I enjoyed the banter in the scenes between the crew members.
Although there’s a lot of sci-fi jargon used, most of it is familiar terms like ‘cryo’. As I said, I don’t read a lot of sci-fi and I was able to follow the story without constantly wondering what they were talking about.
The mystery about the alien relic. While it’s definitely not an original concept, I am genuinely interested in the mystery of who this alien race is and what will happen now the humans know about them.

What I didn’t like so much:
The sex scene. It wasn’t very long or graphic but I just wasn’t expecting it and it just felt a little bit awkward.
Genericness/stereotypical characters. As I said this did make it very easy to read but I would have liked to have seen some variations on what’s been done before. There’s been so many sci-fi stories with the researcher who’s obsessed with their area of study and just has to go and investigate that really dangerous place even though everyone says it’s a bad idea or the high ranking military officer who’s super strict and by the book but you just know that deep down there’s more to them. But who knows, I’ve only read the beginning, maybe he turns all this on its head later in the book.

Review live on blog from August 13th.

Trigger Warnings: non-consent to medical procedures, death, torture, emetophobia (one scene but real gross), loss of limb, light body horror.

I went into this book almost completely blind. I honestly didn’t know one thing about the plot. I’m not sure I’d even read the blurb but I knew it was an adult sci-fi from Christopher Paolini and that was enough for me. In hindsight I think that that might have been the best thing I could have done. At no point in this book could I predict what was going to happen next. This year I’ve started to really hit my stride with sci-fi and I think it might have finally beaten out fantasy as my favourite genre (blame Tor entirely for that, with Murderbot, Gideon the Ninth and this book). To Sleep in a Sea of Stars hit every single one of my favourite sci-fi features. First contact? Weird symbiotic alien relationships? Snarky ships? Check, check, check.

I don’t know if I’ve ever actually read a book that’s wholly focused on first contact before, but it’s one of my favourite movie concepts and whenever it’s glossed over in sci-fi I’m sulking hard about it, so to read a book that’s entirely based on first contact is incredible to me. In To Sleep in a Sea of Stars humans have been expanding and colonising and spreading as far as they can with the faster-than-light (FTL) technology that they’ve developed. But thus far they’ve been alone in the universe. I’m not going into details because I don’t want to spoil anything, but the way that the humans respond to the threat of first contact feels uh….. uncannily accurate. And speaking of the technology. There’s a helpful glossary in the back of the book. I didn’t use it, and I found this book perfectly accessible without a hint of info-dumping. I don’t know how Christopher Paolini managed to fit so much complicated exposition into the text naturally, but when I realised how easily I’d picked up the jargon I was really impressed.

The character cast in To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is perfection. Kira is my queen of thorns, and I would trust her with my life and with the fate of humanity. Maybe I’ve got a soft spot for powerful women with Something To Prove, but I was cheerleading Kira hard every step of the way. The supporting cast is just as lovable and I think that they’re all well developed and individual, without drawing away from Kira, who is very much the focus of the story. And then there’s Gregorovich. Gregorovich is the ship’s mind, a concept explained in the book, and the love of my life. I’ve been thinking about him for weeks. He’s a monstrously powerful character if you think too much about what he can do. He’s also a total edgelord. I love him to pieces, and as the book told me why he behaves the way that he does, it only made me love him more.

I am the spark in the center of the void. I am the widdershin scream that cleaves the night. I am your eschatological nightmare. I am the one and the word and the fullness of the light. Would you like to play a game? Y/N – Gregorovich
No – Kira
😟 – Gregorovich


I’ve always been leery of men writing female main characters – I’ve been stung too many times. There were moments where this book was a bit male gaze-y, and Kira’s internal narrative just didn’t seem like the kind of things any woman I know would say or think, but for the overwhelming majority, she was fantastically written. She’s going on my list of strong female characters that I aspire to be like. There is a brief romantic sub-plot in this that felt totally unnecessary to me, but it didn’t impact my enjoyment of the book because the plot itself was never sidelined for the sake of romance. In all honesty, I’m being nit-picky to criticise those points. This has flown onto my favourites, and I’ve already got a spot set aside on my favourite books shelf ready for when I get a physical copy of this baby. I could never have predicted the ending of this book in a million years, but I loved it and I’ve been thinking endlessly of it since finishing. Honestly, I hope that the paperback comes with some kind of short story set later, because I just need more of this universe, of the Wallfish and Kira.

This is a long book, I liked parts of it but it never made me feel like I needed to continue reading and I admit there were times when I had to force myself to pick it back up. I think personally the size of the book intimidated me and made me not want to read it so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have.
The sci-fi aspect was such a great concept and I really liked it. The overall story wasn’t exciting for me but I did think it was done well. The writing is very descriptive and I did like the style of writing once I got used to it. The descriptive writing meant that the world building in this book was great and I liked the world it was set in. I loved the sci-fi world building and it was my favourite part of the book.
The characters were all okay, I though there were some stereotypes but I did like them. I enjoyed how they interacted with each other and their dialogue was witty in places.
This is an adult book so there is swearing and sex among other things which doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t really impact on my enjoyment one way or the other.
Overall this is a solid sci-fi story that I liked but i wasn’t crazy about. I’d give it a 3.5 stars and I’m not sure if I will read the sequel.

I have some mixed feelings about this one. I hadn't actually realised that it was a partial galley until I hit the ending as that was not mentioned anywhere, and I feel that I would have liked to have read more to get a proper feel for the book. As it is, it was an enjoyable enough read and it has the potential to be something special, but it didn't fully hook me until right at the very end of the galley and I would have liked to see where that took me. I will be looking out for the book when it is released though, because I do want to find out what happens and more about the world-building.

This is only a partial galley for TSIAAOS and I cannot wait to read the full book. It’s really engaging and well-written, the main character is also really well-drawn. I couldn’t tear myself away from the pages, eager to find out what was going to happen. Genuinely so excited to see what happens when it’s released!

The ARC of Part 1 of «To Sleep in a Sea of Stars» was available on NetGalley. Considering the time I spent reading, it is approximately 200 pages long. According to Goodreads, the complete edition has a total of 880 pages :O I will definitely be buying the final copy once it’s released on September 15th!

The book begins on the planet Adra, where we follow a xenobiologist Kira Navárez. In this world, humanity’s advanced technology allowed them to explore space, to create colonies in other “solar” systems. Kira was part of the team sent to Adra to collect organisms, to research and explore and see if this planet was fit for colonization.

This first introduction did feel a little bit overwhelming, but Christopher Paolini knew exactly how to catch his readers, how to make them even more interested, and how to make them care about the characters.

In all honesty, the very beginning - of getting to know Kira and the planet, of her task to explore something detected by a drone - was one of my favorite parts of the book (so far!). It really reminded me of «The Martian» and made me remember why I love space-related science fiction.

I was just starting to enjoy my time on this new planet when the plot took a very unexpected turn and things went wild REALLY fast! I don’t want to give too much detail away, but Part 1 felt like a complete book. So many things happened, so many people got involved in Kira’s discovery. The stakes were very high! And that fear for the characters and how fast the plot was progressing kept me glued to the pages. I’m pretty sure that I’d have read the whole book in a day if I just could get my hands on it.

Since I only read Part 1, I won’t be giving any rating, but so far it’s a solid 5 stars. :) I’m really hoping to get my finished physical copy asap so I can follow Kira’s journey and see what happens next!

When I requested this Arc I did not see it was only the beginning and not the entire book. But this sample did exactly what it should be. It made me extremely excited for the entire book! It reads in a very pleasant way and makes you excited to see whats next!

This is a partial arc review (around 150ish pages).

Christopher Paolini's previous series is one of my favourites so I was really intrigued to see how he changed his writing style from a classic style fantasy series to epic Sci fi. I was not disappointed! I love everything about this excerpt!

The world building is fantastic (though a key and a map would have been very useful) and the characters are also very well written.

The events in this extract have left me wanting more and I will definitely be picking up a copy when it is released!

I received a partial galley of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review - as always, thanks to Netgalley for sending this to me! I’ll be marking this book as ‘dnf’ on Goodreads for now, for the simple reason that it was only a partial galley, so for obvious reasons I haven’t finished the book.

Just a quick disclaimer before we begin: I’m not generally a sci-fi reader. Christopher Paolini wrote one of my favourite series’ of all time, and I picked this up purely because of who the author is. If it had been by anyone else, I wouldn’t have reached for it. I feel it’s only fair to mention that bias going in, and that my feelings on the book may not necessarily reflect how enjoyable it would be for someone who actively reads in this genre.

TSiaSoS follows Kira, a scientist living on board a spacecraft, along with her partner, Alan, and a number of other crew members. This was my first point of contention with the story: there were a LOT of characters all introduced at once. Most of them, I forgot instantly, and I found that they all blended together. Not the greatest start.

Kira goes on a space exploration and discovers an alien relic that immediately causes all kinds of problems. Without going into too many spoilery details, this story gives me huge ‘Venom’ vibes, but without the humour. I’ll be honest; it was all very doom, gloom and darkness. The characters felt dry and emotionless, I didn’t really feel much of a connection to any of them for the first few chapters I read.

As a self-confessed sci-fi noob, I found the worldbuilding both delightful and baffling. There were some really lovely terms sprinkled in - ‘gecko pads’ for scaling rock faces were a particular favourite - and I felt that the book does a good job of integrating these things gradually instead of throwing a hundred new terms in your face and expecting you to understand them, so the balance was good. My tastes have leaned towards contemporary fiction for a while now, so my sci-fi-fantasy senses are a little rusty, but there were definitely things about the world that intrigued me. (As a side-note, Christopher Paolini recently announced his intentions to make this book part of a huge extended universe, called the Fractalverse, which has exciting potential.)

I don’t think I’ve ever received a partial galley before, and I have to admit my overall opinion of them is low. It was hard to motivate myself to read this knowing that I was going to get cut off and forced to wait around for five months before continuing, and it’s hard to get a full impression of an 800 page book from a segment of probably less than the first 100 pages. In essence, it was all setup and just when things start to get interesting, the book gets snatched from underneath your nose with a finger-wag and a coy ‘well, you’ll just have to wait until it comes out, won’t you?’ It was frustrating, to say the least, and it’s hard to say how much of an impact this had on my overall view of the book, which was, to put it succinctly, ‘meh.’ I’ve yet to start caring about any of the characters, including the MC, I’ve little more than a passing interest in the plot, and while I liked the imaginative and whimsical nature of some of the worldbuilding, the overall impression I got was that the story feels a bit bland. Like I said, sci-fi isn’t my thing, which could explain my lack of enthusiasm, but overall I’m not particularly impressed. I won’t be rushing to pick this one up on release day, but I might pick it up from the library whenever it reopens.

Verdict so far: 3 stars.

I absolutely loved Eragon when I first read it and when I heard that Christopher Paolini was coming back with a new book I was excited. Unfortunately, I didn't see much development in his writing and I think that it's a bad timing for this book but it doesn't bother me personally.

I was so excited to read this new scifi novel by CP but I expected better and developed writing from him. I like the story so far thought and I'd love to get the book and read the rest.

It’s difficult to review this after only reading a teaser of this book, but from what I’ve read so far I can’t wait to read the finished copy in September.

Part 1 was action packed from the beginning. The story doesn’t take long at all before kicking off and from then on it’s near impossible to put down. It’s high stakes, it’s exciting, it’s unpredictable.

I don’t read a lot of sci-fi so I was nervous going in, but I think it’s fantastic. I found it approachable, accessible for the new to sci-fi reader and engaging; the story and setting so interesting and I’m also enjoying getting to know the main character. Despite only having this teaser, I’m really looking forward to reading more.

This is nothing that I expected from the author of Eragon and the range from Paolini is incredible.

I think this will be extremely well received by readers when it’s released. Thank you to NetGalley & Pan Mcmillan for this e-ARC.

With only a teaser of 140 pages of a tome of over 800 it is hard to give a full review of how the rest of the story will play out. However it is certainly enough to give the reader a very engrossing insight (and cliff-hanger) to what should be a totally absorbing tale. I am sure it will be very well received by his fans who grew up on the Eragon series, and bring him new ones.
Even if you aren’t a big sci-fi reader and prefer fantasy, there are elements of both in this book so I feel even pure fantasy fans may still appreciate this as well as the fans of writers like Peter Hamilton who are known for their space opera epics.
I am not going to talk about the story line as the blurb and other reviewers do that well enough, but while reading this very visual beginning I was seeing glimpses of movies and TV shows like Aliens, Star Trek, Space:1999, Dr Who and Lost in Space. There are also characters named after famous sci-fi writers so I think you get the idea on just who this book is aimed at. There is even some classic Matthew Reilly-esque action sequences!

It isn’t Eragon but a totally different beast, yet his writing is still brilliant and vividly imaginative.

Interesting to see the transition from fantasy to science fiction! A good start (apart from the name Alan - sorry!) - I definitely want to read the rest of this when it comes out

I’m rooting for Christopher Paolini, but having read Part I I do have some concerns about the cliche dialogue and characters early in the book, and small but distracting writing inconsistencies throughout the text. As another reviewer mentioned, the writing feels far more solid in the action and dream sequences. As I’ve never read an ARC before and I feel uncomfortable passing judgment until I’ve read the full novel, I’ve shared the following review on social media:

In a recent Reddit AMA Paolini described this book as his “love letter to Sci-Fi”, and it does contain many elements that will be familiar to hard sci-fi fans, one highlight being his thoughtful consideration of the physics related to spaceflight. However, Paolini’s character-centric writing makes his first adult novel appealing to a wide range of readers, not just those who’ve turned up for the aliens and laser guns.

One danger in writing love letters (I also recall from my teenage years, somewhat less fondly) is being seen to rely on clichés. In this excerpt from what Paolini confirmed is going to be a big read, he sets up some world-building that I’m excited to see develop, his action sequences are awesomely cinematic, and the plot so far is dark, thrilling and a li’l bit scary. So I hope that Cupid will be on Paolini’s side!

Judging by the tantalising blurb and the decision to release a partial review copy, I’m guessing that TSiaSoS has some decent surprises in store, so I’ve deliberately not elaborated on the story. Suffice to say that this book stands completely separate (and perhaps across the galaxy) from Paolini’s previous work, but fans can remain confident in his imagination. I’m excited to sleep in a sea of stars this September!

Congrats to Mr Paolini on his new book (and perfect track record of awesome book covers)! Thank you to Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Space. Aliens. New planets. Kick-ass ladies. Everything I love about a great sci-fi book!

I was immediately drawn into this story and the character of Kira. The expanded universe is eloquently explained and the team's exploration of new planetary territory is intriguing.

I can't wait to read the rest of the story when it is released later this year!

*Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital copy of part 1 of this book in exchange for my honest review.*

This is just a taster of what I understand will be a very long book, but it's intriguing! Humans have colonised space and are finding new, Earth-like plants to terraform and make as hospitable as possible. They've found evidence of aliens and other lifeforms but have never come across a species of intelligent aliens like them. Our main character, Kira, is a xenobiologist who helps to identify lifeforms on the planets slated for terraforming. She loves her space-traveling life, but it starting to feel ready to settle down in one place with her boyfriend, Alan. They've just started planning to join a colony together when disaster strikes. Suddenly, Kira has to contend with things she never thought possible.

Kira makes a likeable main character - she's smart, savvy, and knows what she wants, but has enough moments of weakness to make her seem real. Her interactions with Alan are a little too syrupy-sweet to be entirely believable (or maybe I'm just cynical about romance), but they suit the stage of their relationship. Her interest in xenobiology really comes across, and I loved her inopportune worries about research publication - hugely relatable to any scientist. None of the other characters were particularly fleshed out, but that worked well - this is very much Kira's story and doesn't need to be bogged down with details of everyone else's life.

A novel about space travel and terraforming can only be so realistic - after all, if we knew the accurate science we'd be doing it already - but it felt believable. Paolini has clearly done his research. He also managed to avoid info-dumping, working new terminology into the plot relatively seamlessly. None of his inclusions are particularly new - brain implants which can connect to computers and store memories, faster-than-light spaceships with cryo storage, healthcare sophisticated enough to regrow limbs - but they all work well and give a good impression of what humanity has achieved. The freshest parts were the alien aspects, which felt much more original - but to give too much away would be a spoiler. I'm intrigued to see how they develop in the rest of the book.

The one downside of this extract was the first climactic scene. The deaths felt cheap and underwhelming - everything happened so quickly the shock value was lost. The rest of the extract was good enough to make up for it, but I hope that future emotional impact packs more of a punch.

Overall, this doesn't tread hugely new ground but it's a solid start and I have high hopes the rest will be even better. I'm looking forward to reading the rest on publication. If you like your sci-fi on the epic scale with plenty of aliens, this is a book for you.

After a slightly uncertain start, I enjoyed this partial ARC. The writing is definitely at its strongest when things start to get action-packed and visceral, with elements of body horror which were unexpected and welcome. The first vivid description of violence did make for a somewhat abrupt tonal shift, but it felt like the writing levelled out and settled into a groove as these instances increased, with the tone and atmosphere more firmly established.

Some of the characters, particularly the other members of Kira’s team, aren’t particularly memorable, and the way that they behave towards her after she causes problems seems somewhat at odds with what we’ve heard up to them about the team becoming like family. Fizel in particular I took some issue with, as his generally disagreeable and anti-social nature (not to mention his oddly callous disregard for human life) seemed a bad fit in his role as the doctor. The UMC personnel were much more memorable, if slightly clichéd at times - the driven, pitiless scientist, the all business, cold-hearted major, etc.

What might be excessive references to other media did get a little jarring after a while, with Crichton and Heinlein used as character names, not to mention Bishop as a ship’s AI in (I presume) a nod to the beloved Aliens character played by Lance Henriksen (Henriksen also being used as a character name). One or two would be fine, but this many, this close together, comes across as an unnecessary attempt to prove some sort of sci-fi credentials, at least to me.

I would have liked to know a little more about the universe To Sleep in a Sea of Stars takes place in prior to Kira making her discovery, as it makes it difficult to gauge just how advanced her abilities are without knowing what humanity is technologically capable of already. There are a number of references to the organisations and power structures that are in place throughout settled space, which I would have liked to have heard more about sooner.

Despite the confusing nature of them, I thought the prose in the dream sequences in particular was very good, almost verging on lyrical at times. The glimpses these sequences gave into mysterious events, coupled with the entertaining action scenes, would keep me interested enough to continue reading, with the caveat that I would hope for significantly more world building along the way. Kira still seems like something of a blank slate at this point too, but that would also encourage me to read on, in the hope that I would find out more about her.