Book Review – To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds.

Now she’s awakened a nightmare.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she’s delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.

As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn’t at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. 

While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity’s greatest and final hope…

My rating:

I received this book from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. 

I read part one (which is pretty big in it’s own right) as a sampler, and properly loved it. It was high octane and fascinating as a concept. Picking this up at part two, this was slightly less driven, but the concept still really worked for me. 

I think honestly the middle sags a little, but we get some gorgeous exposition and background, so it’s hard to complain. The end really picks up again though – we learn so much more about the various alien species, and we see Kira go through a LOT. We also get something I love – a hard look at humanity and it’s flaws.

This is a properly epic space opera (both in sheer size and in story), and includes a lot of things I love about such stories – war, intrigue, first contact and space squids. 😀 Plus the Wallfish have a pet PIG. I loved that.

It also felt really good on the science of it all, and I loved that there was an entire huge section at the end going into what he’d chosen to include as fact and why. My little nerd heart is very happy!

Buy To Sleep in a Sea of Stars from Waterstones.

Note: This is an affiliate link. If you purchase something using one of these links, I’ll get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks!