Category: Books

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini, Review

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

It takes courage to write something like this and even more courage to read it.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini is a monumental space opera. It’s 1219 pages, printed in small letters, sprawling across planets, ships, battles, and alien diplomacy. The story meanders between strongly engaging, tolerable, and occasionally exhausting, but it never becomes boring.

Despite its weaker scenes, particularly the space battles, I think it’s an excellent novel. It’s very ambitious, brave, and enormous in scale. It’s not the kind of science fiction you see often.

The premise is fantastic. Kira discovers an alien parasite with great superpowers, reminding me of Venom. Their connection starts a series of catastrophic events that only she and the parasite can stop. From there, the novel launches into a difficult to explain interstellar war. Spaceships fly left and right through the void, missiles hit and miss, long battles, strange species. Nothing to win and everything to lose.

There’s plenty of action, though the book is also emotional and a little sentimental.

I liked it, but I may not try reading another 1200-page space opera any time soon. Kira and the parasite are cool. 5/5

This is row 1 of the Nebula series, Paolini’s book is #3 from the left. 12 down, 3 to go.

April in Books

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

I read some good books in April, and some I won’t remember.

Best

  1. Mickey7 – a Silo-style sci-fi, where settlers live inside a struggling habitat and are surrounded by ice and hostile aliens. It was short and on point, getting extra points for keeping the story contained. Overall, a clear 5*, and recommended here. Edward Ashton is on Bluesky and saw my post 😀
  2. City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett – Robert Bennett comes up with very complex fantasy worlds. In City of Stairs, the Gods have been defeated and temporarily withdrew. The main character is like Adjunct Tavore, bravely facing them off when they attempt to creep back in.
  3. Death and a bit of love by Alexandra Marinina – Kamenskaya will chase her most obscure murder case so far. I guessed who the murderer was this time but it was overall a great crime story. It was very confusing and not at all clear, despite my good guess.
  4. Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings – I awarded this epic LOTR-style fantasy with only 3 stars. It is very foolish and full of tropes. But it is interesting and I’m slowly reading the next chapter on my phone so it might not be 3* after all.

Worst

  1. Law of Gravity – I gave it 5/5 but I have no memory of ever reading it, no idea who the main character was, and what happened. So, a special point for pointlessness
  2. The Mermaid Singing (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #1) – A horror story that tortures some victims but mainly the reader.

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

Mickey is a colonist on the wrong planet. It’s cold and icy, and also inhabited by the metal-eating creepers. His only advantage is that he can be respawned, if the colony considers his respawn worthy the loss of calories. The cold and icy planet doesn’t provide much food sources, so everyone is hungry. Respawning might not be a priority.

Quite a terrible situation for the 7th iteration of Mickey but it gets worse when he survives to only discover that Mickey8 has already been spawned, without him being dead. Having two copies of the same person is considered a mortal sin, punishable by death. The twin Mickies will have to figure it out.

This is supposed to be a distant future space opera, but it felt like a post-apocalyptic thriller in the world of Silo. Either way, it is a fantastic sci-fi. A creative person in a terrible situation. 5/5.

This is also the 12th book from the Nebula series I finish. I might be able to read the whole series, if I only have the bravery to start Children of Ruin.

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

I started my review of the last book by comparison to other books. I’ll start this with a quote.

I learned very early on not to speak to my folk from on high, but to get down with them, beside them, showing them how to act rather than telling them. And I suggested that they should do the same with one another: that they didn’t need a book of rules to tell them what to do and what not to do, but experience and action.

Robert Bennett builds not just a fantasy world but a wisdom system for his series. It doesn’t need to be correct, to be appealing.

The gods were killed 80 years ago. With their deaths, most of their miracles vanished as well, including a large number of buildings from the sacred city of Bulikov. Eighty years later, the gods are forbidden. They can’t be mentioned, studied, hinted, their religions practiced, and the leftovers of their miracles cannot be used. People pretend they never existed, or at least most people.

Someone is breaking these rules. A top spy, the mighty Shara, is sent to Bulikov to figure out the conspiracy. Who killed the expert of the divine past, Efrem Pangyui? Why? Why do miracles still exist?

Dense and likable characters, a rich world, and an endlessly long ending, just like The Tainted Cup. Would I have been able to read this book if I hadn’t read The Tainted Cup? Unsure. But it’s a clear 5*/5 and a great fantasy. Ending with a quote as well.

Forgetting… is a beautiful thing. When you forget, you remake yourself… For a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it must forget it was a caterpillar at all. Then it will be as if the caterpillar never was & there was only ever a butterfly.