An epic story in space, a huge book that felt effortless to read
Where do I start with a book this long? Actually, the length is a good place to start. When this book came in the mail, I'm not gonna lie, I was intimidated. It's huge. But I think the fact that it took me under a week and a half with no ebook and even more so no audiobook speaks volumes about how much I enjoyed reading it. (For comparison, the same height Outlander book is 627 pages and took me over 2 weeks with an audiobook.) The pages just flew by. I was so immersed in the story that I never ever felt like it dragged or that it was lasting forever. I always looked forward to picking it up. It covers so much time, over a year, and I think every scene is necessary. It was actually kind of refreshing and bold that Christopher Paolini was like I have this epic story to tell and I'm not doing a trilogy. One book.
Ok, so the world. It's awesome. At first glance it is very much our world, but in the future. But man, the more into the book I got the more I just marveled at Christopher Paolini's mind. This dude is a deep thinker. All you have to do to realize this is take a look inside the glossary at the back. Ok. This is an actual entry: NOMATI: polyp-like animals native to the Arctic regions of Eidolon. Every solar eclipse, they detach from their anchor point (usually a rock) and hop fourteen times. Reason as yet unknown. THIS IS NOT IN THE STORY AT ALL. He just...came up with it. And I mean, not everything is this silly. But truly, I don't know if Christopher Paolini is a genius or stark-raving mad. Probably both. The best authors are.
I guess my point is that the world is incredibly detailed. So detailed that he's thought of details that have no bearing on the story. And I say this in the best possible way. Everything in the story is there for a reason, there's no overload of unnecessary info (again, a slight comparison with Outlander). But in his mind he knows all of this background info and small details about random animals and governments and political organizations and atmospheres and languages and who knows what else. It makes the world COME ALIVE and feel so real.
And the best part is that all of the world-building is dropped into the story so so naturally. There is definitely no huge infodump. We discover things exactly the way we would in the real world. One example that comes to mind is the Entropists. Kira walks by them and says oh look, there are Entropists on this ship. We as the reader are then wondering, who are the Entropists? How does she know that these people belong to that organization? But we don't find out the answers to those questions until pages later when Kira has a conversation with them. I don't know if I'm making sense but it was so well-done. It really was the perfect example of showing instead of telling. The writing style was absolutely perfect.
I really really love the tech in this world. The alien elements obviously make this world different than our own, but the futuristic tech was so cool. I loved things like overlays (basically all texting, news articles, videos, etc. EVERYTHING is inside your head), medifoam (instantly stops bleeding, protects wounds until they can be properly looked at), Stimware (the future of caffeine, literally makes you feel like you had a full night's rest without sleeping), and so so so much more. And just like the culture and the aliens all of this tech was effortlessly dropped into the story in a real world way. It all felt so real.
I came to love theses characters. Kira is obvious, she's the main character, but I really felt all the feels along with her. That girl goes through some stuff in this book. I really came to love the crew of the Wallfish, Falconi, Sparrow, Hwa-jung, Trig, Nielson, Gregorovich. Every character was so different from each other and had likes and dislikes and backstories and I know I sound like a broken record but it was just so well-written and well done. I think my favorite character was Gregorovich. Speaking of tech, the concept of a shipmind is kind of amazing. He sort of reminded me of AIDAN from Illuminae, but what makes him unique is he's a REAL HUMAN BRAIN taken out of his body and grown to incredible intelligence and also semi-insanity. Seriously, some of the scenes with Gregorovich were just ahh amazing.
I don't know what else I can say. There are a lot of moving parts and characters in this book. It covers a lot of time and a lot of actual distance in the galaxy. It was a great mixture of adventure/action and slowed down characterization/conversations. And again, it's a huge book but I never actually felt like it was too long.
The storyline isn't full of twists or reveals. I was sometimes surprised at the direction it went but mostly this is just an adventure through space. The end was definitely satisfying. It felt like an ending and I love the direction it went. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if a sequel grows from here. There are several things mentioned throughout the story that felt significant but were never explained, as well as a few entries in the glossary that just say [[Invalid Input: Entry Not Found]] which definitely makes me think there's more to come. I have questions about the Old Ones and the Wranaui (what the heck is the ripple??) that I'd definitely like answers to, and I want to know what happens after the last chapter as well. So yes, even after this 880 page monstrosity, I'm left wanting more. That, more than anything I've said in this review, speaks to Christopher Paolini's talent. Can't wait to see what he comes out with next.
Ok, so the world. It's awesome. At first glance it is very much our world, but in the future. But man, the more into the book I got the more I just marveled at Christopher Paolini's mind. This dude is a deep thinker. All you have to do to realize this is take a look inside the glossary at the back. Ok. This is an actual entry: NOMATI: polyp-like animals native to the Arctic regions of Eidolon. Every solar eclipse, they detach from their anchor point (usually a rock) and hop fourteen times. Reason as yet unknown. THIS IS NOT IN THE STORY AT ALL. He just...came up with it. And I mean, not everything is this silly. But truly, I don't know if Christopher Paolini is a genius or stark-raving mad. Probably both. The best authors are.
I guess my point is that the world is incredibly detailed. So detailed that he's thought of details that have no bearing on the story. And I say this in the best possible way. Everything in the story is there for a reason, there's no overload of unnecessary info (again, a slight comparison with Outlander). But in his mind he knows all of this background info and small details about random animals and governments and political organizations and atmospheres and languages and who knows what else. It makes the world COME ALIVE and feel so real.
And the best part is that all of the world-building is dropped into the story so so naturally. There is definitely no huge infodump. We discover things exactly the way we would in the real world. One example that comes to mind is the Entropists. Kira walks by them and says oh look, there are Entropists on this ship. We as the reader are then wondering, who are the Entropists? How does she know that these people belong to that organization? But we don't find out the answers to those questions until pages later when Kira has a conversation with them. I don't know if I'm making sense but it was so well-done. It really was the perfect example of showing instead of telling. The writing style was absolutely perfect.
I really really love the tech in this world. The alien elements obviously make this world different than our own, but the futuristic tech was so cool. I loved things like overlays (basically all texting, news articles, videos, etc. EVERYTHING is inside your head), medifoam (instantly stops bleeding, protects wounds until they can be properly looked at), Stimware (the future of caffeine, literally makes you feel like you had a full night's rest without sleeping), and so so so much more. And just like the culture and the aliens all of this tech was effortlessly dropped into the story in a real world way. It all felt so real.
I came to love theses characters. Kira is obvious, she's the main character, but I really felt all the feels along with her. That girl goes through some stuff in this book. I really came to love the crew of the Wallfish, Falconi, Sparrow, Hwa-jung, Trig, Nielson, Gregorovich. Every character was so different from each other and had likes and dislikes and backstories and I know I sound like a broken record but it was just so well-written and well done. I think my favorite character was Gregorovich. Speaking of tech, the concept of a shipmind is kind of amazing. He sort of reminded me of AIDAN from Illuminae, but what makes him unique is he's a REAL HUMAN BRAIN taken out of his body and grown to incredible intelligence and also semi-insanity. Seriously, some of the scenes with Gregorovich were just ahh amazing.
I don't know what else I can say. There are a lot of moving parts and characters in this book. It covers a lot of time and a lot of actual distance in the galaxy. It was a great mixture of adventure/action and slowed down characterization/conversations. And again, it's a huge book but I never actually felt like it was too long.
The storyline isn't full of twists or reveals. I was sometimes surprised at the direction it went but mostly this is just an adventure through space. The end was definitely satisfying. It felt like an ending and I love the direction it went. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if a sequel grows from here. There are several things mentioned throughout the story that felt significant but were never explained, as well as a few entries in the glossary that just say [[Invalid Input: Entry Not Found]] which definitely makes me think there's more to come. I have questions about the Old Ones and the Wranaui (what the heck is the ripple??) that I'd definitely like answers to, and I want to know what happens after the last chapter as well. So yes, even after this 880 page monstrosity, I'm left wanting more. That, more than anything I've said in this review, speaks to Christopher Paolini's talent. Can't wait to see what he comes out with next.