To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

By: Christopher Paolini

Narrated by: Jennifer Hale

Length: 32 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Goodreads Choice Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a masterful epic science-fiction novel from the New York Times and Sunday Times best-selling author of the Inheritance Cycle, 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....

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Christopher Paolini (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Christopher Paolini is a true rarity." (Washington Post)

"'An authentic work of great talent." (New York Times Book Review)

"A breathtaking and unheard of success." (USA Today)

Great listen

I loved this book. The world building was great and characters felt real. And the narrator was absolutely amazing. A must listen

Enjoyed it a lot

Exactly what I was wanting in a Scifi. Fantastic narration looking forward to the sequel

Outstanding and mesmerising!

I could not stop listening! Both story and performance was so addictive I absolutely couldn't wait to put my headphones on and disappear into Kira's word. I loved every minute of this book and can definitely recommend to all fantasy and scifi fans.

good but a little derivative

jennifer hale is a star as always so there is great narration at least, the story is nothing new, it's all stuff we've seen before: powerful but mysteriously vanished ncient aliens, grey goo, mild cosmic horror etc. it's all familiar territory but it's done in a fairly entertaining way. it lacks anything truely unique, but at the end of the day this is true of all modern fiction. everything can be boiled down till it resembles basically everything else if you try.

great voice, average, bloated story

really good narration. Story not so much. paolini's previous work was considered derivative. He's changed genre, but it's still derivative. This time of the Alien franchise, and he seems to acknowledge this with some awkward homages. The book is compelling at times but at other times seems like it was written with a screenplay or video game in mind. And the main character manages to be the only significant person in the universe in terms of the events, everyone else is under developed. This is soft sci fi but for some reason there is an appendix explaining the future tech at the end. Like some piece of lore you would find in an RPG game. A good writer would weave that stuff into the story, lord knows he had enough opportunity in this bloated book. Without spoilers I can't get into the finer points.

BRILLIANT!!!

Beautifully written. Narration an Oscar-worthy performance. Paolini is without a doubt a truly gifted author.

The book was just okay,

It was beautifully written and I felt that the author really transport you into the possibility of other life forms.
The book lacked cliffhanger moments it felt like I was reading ahead of the authors ideas which made it somewhat disappointing.

My favourite part was the factual information annexes at the end of the book and the interview with the author 😊

Bland military sci-fi with few redeeming qualities.

As bland and uninteresting a book as you could ever read. couldn't finish this drivel. Standard mold characters all the way. Stereotypic and shallow. Character gets blamed for circumstances that are obviously not her fault by implausibly gritty and confrontational shipmates. then there's hours of blaming herself and agonizing over her choices.
Predictably, she joins up with marines. Ah yes. the hero joining up with damned marines. And they, of course, are all grim faced, no nonsense, hostile to everyone, unprofessional, straight of the most used mold of sci-fi. Delivering their stereotypical "this is what I imagine a hardass would sound like" lines every damned time they open their mouths.

No world building. Aliens appearing out of nowhere guns blazing. There is never a time when danger isn't imminent, so that we can have more scenes of marine hardasses doing hard marine things. a glimpse of something interesting, like the short description of some alien artefact or city, but hurry it along so we can have more combat scenes . boring, predictable, and a negative net worth. my life was wasted.

Meh

The Narrator is amazing. But then of course, it is Jennifer Hale. A LEGEND among voice actors who has commanded my loyalty amd respect for decades. There is nobody who could have done this better, given, in my opinion, what there was to work with.
The story. Boy. It could have been shorter. Much shorter. I don't know what else to say. I was reminded of a lot of other sci fi works throughout reading this. Anne McCaffery's The Ship who Sang. Alien. Mass Effect. The Expanse. Concepts taken from all the greats and woven into something that didn't quite get there. I am too harsh perhaps, I never really liked the author and shouldn't have gotten the book in the first place. But. Jennifer Hale. And I finished it. Perhaps like a person suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, when I got half way I didn't know how to leave.

Irrational

The future is full of irrational hostile people, handing out blame for random chance - and harping on about it, unable to compromise or work together. I wonder if Paolini has ever encountered co-operative people, or learned how to counter people being unreasonable. Lots of little nods to great science fiction don't save the repetitive nature of the book. The story had potential but requires some severe editing, trimming and revision of nearly all the conversations.