To Sleep in a Sea of Stars – REVIEW/COMMENTARY

Christopher Paolini, left To Sleep in A Sea of Stars, right

Christopher Paolini has an incredible life story. He’s both talented and incredibly lucky. All successful authors are lucky, but Paolini is luckier than what is normally considered lucky for any author. That is because he wrote a novel as a teenager and then published it in his early twenties to critical acclaim and attained author stardom.

His debut novel, Eragon is a behemoth of a fantasy novel for a teenager. I think I should make that clear. As a teenage science fiction writer, I can say that achieving even the slimmest sliver of his success would be amazing and incredibly lucky for me.

I read about half or one third of Eragon when I was ten, but started some other book and so I put Eragon down. I remember liking it quite a bit, but also that I found to be a bit derivative of Star Wars. This is something that has been noted by many different people. I still clearly remember noticing that the idea of a squandered culture of trained individuals’ suddenly being accessible to a young farm boy who has to evade a large scale power that has done the squandering is right from Star Wars. To be fair, that premise from the original Star Wars trilogy is probably from something else or more than one thing altogether.

I can’t speak strongly on Eragon since I haven’t finished reading it and I was ten when I last read it. I have no clue what I would think of it now, but I’m still planning on picking it up again because of how big of a deal it is.

I just want to see what another teenager did for his debut novel since I am working on what will be my debut novel. Also, I remember reading Eragon was fun. That was my first epic fantasy.

All stories are remixes. You can’t escape tropes and archetypes. When used correctly, they are tools and not limitations or disguises. Some stories are just more overt about how much of a remix they are.

Besides, Paolini wrote this when he was a teenager. I can cut him slack on that front for being derivative of fantasy tropes.

He made it big, got a movie made out of the book and became an established fantasy author in the most unlikely period of a writer’s life: his twenties.

Since wrapping up the Eragon sequels in The Inheritance Cycle, he has been hard at work for a decade on his first science fiction work, which was released this past September. A lot of time has passed since Paolini was a teenager. He is now a seasoned writer and an adult with more experience.

I picked up his new book, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars from a library and read the 848 page science fiction epic. The word epic should be emphasized. So much of this book follows the format of an epic fantasy and is a quest story.

Science fiction has seen a trend towards fantasy in recent times. It seems to have been spurred by the New Wave breaking from the technicality and plot orientation of older science fiction and moving more towards the character based, the psychological and the literary. Dune also seems to have spurred a direction towards the epic in the science fiction genre.

The subcategory of science fiction fantasy has been established and honestly, the intersections between pure science fiction and science fiction fantasy is pretty blurred. You could argue that science fiction is a form of fantasy. There are so many fans of fantasy AND science fiction. The intersection is really blurred when readers and writers are fascinated by the fantastical and unreal of ALL forms.

Especially with the success of fantasy in recent years from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter film franchise and even HBO’s A Game of Thrones, it seems like there is more of a thirst for mythological stories.

As I’ve brushed upon in previous articles, at least part of that could be due to the lessening of religious life and spirituality.

So, given all of that, it really isn’t a surprise that science fiction has become more mythological and borrows more from mythological motifs than say Isaac Asimov did in his sci-fi stories.

However, there is no lack of scientific research and science based worldbuilding. At the end of the book is a whole scientific paper on quantum physics and the science of the FTL interstellar travel of the story.

In the extensive index at the end of the book is actually the name of a character from the Inheritance Cycle who serves as an easter egg. However, where the definition or otherwise description should be is a note that tells us that the input cannot be identified. Cool stuff.

Little nods Paolini has planted in this book, many of which are to various parts of sci-fi history include a fictional culture named after the famous American science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein as well as the name drop of the “hunter-seeker” a tiny floating remote controlled killing device from Dune whose purpose has not been changed for the Fractalverse, the universe in which this book takes place.

It seems as if Brandon Sanderson and his Cosmere is rubbing off on the world of science fiction and fantasy. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is the first book in a shared future universe called the Fractalverse.

Unlike the Cosmere, the Fractalverse stories take place in the real world or universe, except this is a projected future version of the universe.

The scope of this universe in TSIASOS is staggering. It utilizes the familiar space opera tropes and concepts of the interstellar government and the presence of interstellar corporations monopolizing on resources and endeavors. The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov and the Dune universe by Frank Herbert are some of the earliest space opera endeavors like this. Like Foundation and Dune, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars portrays a galaxy with many different colonized planets and the problems arising from selfish corporations.

While Paolini’s science fiction book is in many ways a really good science fiction novel it is no Dune. While the mythological storytelling here is bound to send ripples through sci-fi, Paolini’s entry into the genre is not on a Sanderson level of groundbreaking. Instead, this is a great showcase of worldbuilding, unique and creative takes on space opera concepts with some of Paolini’s own sci-fi concepts, as well a promising universe with many potential stories to tell.

Hopefully the experience Paolini attained by writing this book can help him in writing even better science fiction.

The first few chapters of this book seem to cover the major events of the entire Alien movie, but it takes the 1 hour and 57 minute story and condenses it. This isn’t a ripoff, but so much of what happens in the overall plot of that movie occurs in mere chapters.

Kira Navárez is a very well realized character. Christopher Paolini is very good with female characters and there are other female characters other than her in the book.

Eragon didn’t have many female characters, but it seems like since his teenage years, Paolini has become more experienced. He’s an adult married to a wife. It seems like the life experience that has been gained since Eragon has given him more insight into female characters and more prolivity to writing them in the first place.

I will say that as a teenager, I am in teenage Paolini’s boat. Writing female characters is hard for me right now, so I naturally write more male characters in 2200 Blues.

Readers will immediately empathize with Kira as she is thrust into a happy circumstance. She becomes engaged to the man she’s in love with while working with people on an important mission as a xenobiologist.

A tragic accident results in the alien that she unintentionally brought on board the ship killing all of her creamtes, including her fiance. She is the only survivor and the xeno has latched onto her body, forming a symbiotic relationship with her.

We start off with the protagonist given a blissful circumstance and then having that circumstance ripped away and replaced by a much uglier one.

Following her tragedy, Kira has to deal with corporate hassling. Eventually, she escapes onto a spaceship that serves as this book’s Prancing Pony or Mos Eisley cantina. Here, we learn of the many different kinds of people who exist in the galaxy and partake in interstellar travel. We are introduced to Numenists, a very interesting culture of number worshipping humans, constantly looking for the ultimate number.

Mental health is explored in depth in this book, to my immense pleasure. Throughout the story, Kira has to learn how tos stop beating herself up for the past errors, which were in her hands or otherwise. Gradually, she moves towards acting and thinking in the present, reaching out to others and striving for a better future.

There is a great sequence in this book where Kira and her newly adopted crew travel to a planet with an extremely unique topography and hemisphere. The adjustment to this planet is explained very well and is honestly one of the coolest sci-fi scenes I have ever read in prose.

SPOILERS

At the 3rd act of the book is an amazing Lovecraftian encounter with a space monster that the plot has been gearing up to. It’s connected to the Soft Blade (the name for the xeno) and its effects on Kira. This is the climax of the story and it is when Kira undergoes a physical and mental catharsis. It is here where she truly stops beating herself up over the past and moves on.

It is a wonderful climax and fictional catharsis.

NO MORE SPOILERS

The most jarring thing about the book is its pacing. While it doesn’t always detract from the quality of the story, it does sometimes take away from the propulsion of the narrative and action. Sometimes, I felt like I was just waiting for things to become faster and return to the action of the story. However, there are many great aftermaths here, following an action peice or other major plot event. When the story slowed down in many instances, Paolini took the time to depict the psychological repercussions of the plot on the characters, specifically Kira.

This story is ultimately about overcoming tragedy and trauma. It’s about rising above pain and anguish– embracing it so that it can even be used as a weapon. That’s clearly illustrated in how Kira uses the Soft Blade, an entity which initially caused her tragedy.

For the same reasons that the story of a traumatized Bruce Wayne turned Batman connects with us, the story of Kira Navarez does as well.

This is a really cool sci-fi story with great thoroughly explained concepts and a very detailed universe. The worldbuilding is top-notch, delivering you a wide scope through the eyes of the protagonist making her way through the narrative while also maintaining the idea that there is actually so much more in this world outside of the pages. The exposition and word building information is delivered seamlessly with the story without overwhelming or boring the reader.

The tone of this space opera harkens back to the optimism of writers like Isaac Asimov. This is not a warning like Dune. Rather this is purely a celebration of innovation and space exploration. Paoloni uses the romanticism of fantasy to imbue his science fiction with optimism for innovation.

This is a good space opera and a great first sci-fi novel. I am looking forward to more science fiction stories set in the Fractalverse. Hopefully, the movie adaptation that’s been announced turns out to be good. Hopefully, Paolini’s participation with the script makes it as great as possible.

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