 Alright, so I have finally, finally, finally gotten finished with Reading to Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paulini, and this is actually the first book he's written in almost ten years ever since he finished up the inheritance cycle, and I thought, it's pretty good. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. Now I don't have a lot to say about the good parts of this book, unfortunately, because there's just not much to say about them. It's just like, yeah, this bit was fun. I was kind of into the story, I was kind of into the characters, and it doesn't go particularly deep. You know, some people might have some sort of deeper enjoyment of it, but for me it was just like surface level, but still really fun. The problems on the other hand are a little deeper. We'll get into those, especially in the spoiler section, because the weirdest part about this is, look, we'll get into that. So the setting for this book is pretty standard science fiction ferrets. Hundreds of years in the future, humanity has gone around and colonized a bunch of other planets, enter a scientist named Kira, who is a xenobiologist. So she works on, well she's a biologist for aliens, but there aren't any sentient species of aliens that they've met so far. And one day she's digging out a site looking for some stuff, and then this alien artifact living thing, which she winds up calling the soft blade, attaches herself to her. It's like a mess of fibers, which covers her from her neck down basically, and it feels just like skin when you touch it, but sometimes it can harden itself to work as armor. It can form spikes and like stab people, and later on she figures out how to do even more stuff with it, so it's kind of cool. And then other aliens come in, start attacking humans, and then Kira has to use her newfound soft blade powers to save the day. Now when I first heard about this, I was glad that Paulini was, one, doing something science fiction, and two, doing something, well doing something that wasn't aimed at the same target audience. You know, this is more adult oriented than Aragon. There is swearing, there is some sex stuff in there, it is a little violent, and it doesn't get super super dark or mature in there, but like, yeah, it's not really aimed at kids or teens anymore, which is, you know, that's fun, I'm glad he did something different. But while I was reading, it felt a little familiar, and I couldn't quite think of what it was. At first I thought it was just the setting, because as I said, it's pretty standard, you know, nothing really stood out about it to me good or bad, although I will say that, you know, with all the stuff like faster than light travel and everything, they don't really bother explaining it in the text, it's just the characters know how it works and all that, yada yada. But there is an appendix at the end, so if you're interested you can go in and look at some of the more technical details, which I thought was a really neat compromise, so we're not getting hit with pages upon pages of exposition dumps. But as it went on, I realized that this is still pretty similar to the story of Aragon. Like, think about it, they both start off, find some source of crazy, powerful power, and then they have to go off and use it to save the day. And then there's a couple other major story beats as well, which I won't get into here, but especially near the end, I was like, yeah, this is really similar to Aragon, it's like they compressed the entire inheritance cycle into one book. And that was pretty disappointing, like a lot of the smaller details along the way are different, so it's not a complete retread, but still, if you're expecting something totally new and original, you're gonna be disappointed here. However, even those smaller bits which are more original are a little clumsy. This book, again, I liked it, but it really could have used some tightening up in the editing process, because it's a very long book, it's like over 800 pages actually, and I wouldn't say it's super way too long, like it is a little too long, I think you could cut it down by like 5% to 10%, but mostly there's too much focus on some areas and not enough focus on other areas, and I would rather you swap those around. Like for example, there's a lot of action scenes in this book, and most of them are fun, especially near the beginning and at the very end, like the climax is really good in that regard, but there's a lot in the middle which are kind of small, and they just start to feel repetitive after a while, like it's just, oh, bad guys are doing things, heroes have to fight a little bit, but mostly they gotta escape so that they can go do other stuff, and so it's just a fighting retreat basically, and I think if they had took two, maybe three of those and sort of combined them into one big scene, then it would have worked out better, and for another matter, the way that the characters are introduced in this is, well it ties into the story as well, it's just kind of clumsy, like see Kira starts off on one ship full of people, and those are people she's known for years, including her fiance and others, and then she winds up having to go to a different ship full of total strangers, and she has to learn how to get to know them over the course of this story, and the way they show that oftentimes is just, like there's one chapter in particular, which is just she goes around the ship talking to characters, and they each give her their long, in-depth back story, and it's, well, it feels off, because, like, why didn't she just keep it with her original ship and have the people she already knew pretty well, so that maybe in the narration somewhere she could put, this dude was always kind of a dick, but I knew he had a heart of gold, like something like that, you know, so it would be a little shorter, a little tighter, and I mean, if you wanted to have people, like, die or get lost or something, and Kira has to use that as a motivation to keep going, then you could still have her fiance or something die, but have everyone else survive, like this way just feels like it's taking up a little too much space. That said, the cast is generally slightly above average, you know, I liked how Kira was not really a damsel in distress, she figured out how to use her powers relatively quickly, even if she does grow and grow more over the course of the story, and she, I don't know, she comes across as a decent enough person, and then the other members of her crew, like I said, the way they give their backstories is kind of clumsy, but the actual backstories themselves are neat, and they all have at least a little bit of personality, even if they aren't, like, the most amazing characters ever, they're pretty cool. The only individual character I really connected with was this artificial intelligence named Gregorovich, who, I'm not gonna go too much into him, but he was a lot of fun because he's always just kind of unstable, and you feel like he's right on the edge of snapping and killing everybody, which is just, I don't know, like I said, it's fun, it's a little tense, but you never really feel like he's evil or anything, so it's not that bad, and for that matter, I think the aliens are kind of cool. Like, this is one of the few science fiction books I've ever read where it really goes into how alien aliens can be, like these guys communicate using mostly smell, actually, and so it's pretty much impossible for humans to talk to them at first. It takes a while before we can really find a way to translate and communicate with them and figure out what's really going on here, and the villain, while he's not particularly, I mean, I don't know, he's kind of like Galvatorex in the sense that he doesn't really have a reason for doing anything that he does, but he is a pretty powerful, intimidating villain, so it worked out all right in the end, but as I said, the aliens are really alien. They have a completely different mindset, their biology, their culture. Everything is just difficult to wrap your head around. I mean, the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that, where the aliens are even more alien than this, is in Gundam 00, where the aliens are literally just this big hive mind of living liquid metal, and it also has no concept of communication outside that hive mind, so it just goes around trying to absorb everything, like it's not even done out of malice, it's just how it operates, and yeah, it is really weird and bizarre. I think that's about it for the non-spoiler section. My overall thoughts, this book is a little bit longer than it needs to be, it's a little clumsy, but Paulini has definitely improved since he finished Inheritance Cycle, the way the prose is written and some of the descriptions, while they do occasionally go over the top, are better than they were back in the day, and overall I think if you're looking for some sort of science fiction space opera, that isn't going to be like 20 books long, and this story is self-contained. It's not part of a series as far as I know, like it is open for a sequel, but it is self-contained, so if you're looking for something like that, I think you could maybe check this out, and if you hate it, then I apologize. Oh, you're too much! So now the spoiler section, the main thing I want to get in on with this is just the very end, and how it's exactly the same as the end of Aragon. Think about it, the very end of Aragon, they defeat Galvatorex, they defeat the evil force that was going to destroy the world, and then they start the rebuilding process. Aragon has this several hundred pages, actually, of seeing how all of his friends end up, and it's usually pretty good, like Arya gets to be a queen and a dragonrider, his dwarf friend gets to be king of the dwarves, like, you know, it's basically just showing off hate. A, everything worked out amazing for us. We're the good guys, everything's great. But at the same time, circumstances are forcing Aragon to leave his home and never return. And to sleep in a sea of stars has kind of the same thing. Like, when Kira defeats the big bad, she winds up sort of becoming leader of this godlike being or hive mind type thing, and, well, she becomes a godlike being. She brings an end to the fighting and defeats the bad guy and saves, in this case, not just the world, but the whole universe, and things are great. And then it goes around having her use her new powers to make everything amazing for her friends all of a sudden, like, ones with genetic problems. Well, here's this thing, you just eat it once a day, it'll alleviate your symptoms, and stuff like that. And, again, it spends a little too long on it, and it feels just a little too, like, hey, everything, happy ending, everything's great now. So it is a little cheesy and dumb. And then circumstances, again, force Kira to go off away from humanity forever, and, well, it is basically just the ending of Aragon. And here's the thing, it's not the worst ending ever. I'm actually one of the people who will defend the inheritance cycle because it showed how the evil king doing all that damage doesn't go away overnight. But, yeah, it did feel a little forced when Aragon had to leave, and in this case, it feels a little less forced that Kira has to leave, but also, it does seem, I don't know how I should put this, like, fantasy, generally speaking, is all about great men, you know, individuals who go out and do crazy things, and save the day themselves, or not completely themselves, but like, without them it wouldn't have happened. Whereas science fiction, in a lot of ways, is more about society, and movements, and how that sort of thing can change things. So, the idea that this one woman, who, again, not totally by herself, but without her it wouldn't have happened, can go off and not only destroy the bad guy, but become this benevolent, god-like being, and make everything great, just feels a little, I don't know, it feels a little too fantasy. And I know that Paulini is mostly a fan of fantasy literature, so I think that might be coloring it a little too much. It's not even that I hate fantasy, really, it's just that it feels kind of at odds with this science fiction thing, where it's more about society, and how that moves ahead, because the days of great men doing things are seemingly in the past. I don't know, maybe I'm being a little too pedantic here, but in this case it does feel a little bit worse, even though it's the same thing, and part of that is definitely just that I've seen this before, and it's retreading old ground. So that's about all. Like I said earlier, I recommend it if you're really looking for space opera sci-fi, with some fantasy elements admittedly, even if they don't really seem like fantasy elements at first, and I don't know, I think that Paulini, if he continues to improve his craft, can really be one of the greats one day. Now is the time for the verbal shout out for my $10 nut patrons, Appo Savilainen, B Quinn, Brother Santotis, Christopher Quinten, Mbis, Emily Miller, Evan Stigald, Joel, Carcat Kitsune, Madison Lewis Bennett, NB Star, Sad Martigan, Tobacco Crow, Tom Beanie, Vacuous Silas, and Vaivictus. You guys are the best, as well as all the other names here, and if you want to get stuff like early access to my videos, and you can suggest new content, you want to get your name on here, then consider donating to my Patreon. And if you either can't do that, or you just hate me and don't want to do that, then well, liking this video, commenting on it, and sharing it around, really helps to get the word out. And even if you dislike it, that also boosts it in the algorithm. So really, no matter what, I win here. Anyways, see you guys later. Bye.