To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a brand new epic novel from New York Times bestselling author Christopher Paolini. Exploring new worlds is all Kira Navarez ever dreamed of doing. But now she has found her nightmare. On a distant planet ripe for a colony, she has discovered a relic previously unseen by human eyes. It will transform her entirely and forever. Humanity will face annihilation. She is alone. We are not. There is no going back.

CAWPILE Breakdown:
Characters: 7
Atmosphere: 10
Writing: 10
Plot: 5
Intrigue: 7
Logic: 9
Enjoyment: 9

I really enjoyed this book. It was fascinating to see everything come together. I also loved how the book was broken up with each part being one trip of Kira's journey after her discovery. The characters in this were decent the writing is what I absolutely loved. The plot was very slow and I found myself wanting a faster paced novel at times but the writing and descriptions of everything were great. I rarely if ever read adult science ficition so I have nothing to compare this book too but I think if you are a fan of Christopher Paolini you will love this book.

I have heard such good things about this book. But to be honest I thought it was utter garbage. It could have been 300 pages and at the same time, it should have been 3 separate books. Either way, this 880-page monstrosity isn't the right way.

Getting through it was immensely difficult. The characters are not interesting, all of them are boring especially the main character. Only the ship-mind is likeable and seems interesting and 3 dimensional. So much happened to them but none of them really changed or developed in any meaningful way, without intervention from some unknowable alien god creature anyway.

So much happened and at the time nothing at all happened. There wasn't any overall goal the party was clearly headed toward which also made it hard to keep me excited for the next chapters.

And let's not forget the ending where she just apparently gains ineffable and unexplained powers and knowledge that she uses to give all her friends gifts and then goes to chase after the just murdered alien gods Horcruxes. The ending was honestly stupid and made no sense for the story whatsoever. What an excruciating journey with the most meaningless conclusion of all time.

I love the fact that Paolini adds small nods to science fiction literature all over the place. I'm not sure if he did it on purpose, or if I just making correlations. Meatbags, Prey, Firefly, Halo, Ringworld, and much much more. Just an enjoyable audiobook.