To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars

I thought I wanted a real doorstop of a sci-fi novel to dive into, so I picked To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars by Christopher Paolini, of Eragon fame. And, at least at first, it seemed like a good choice. It started out intriguing, well-paced and effective at drawing me into the story. Kira is a xenobiologist, a member of a terraforming team preparing a planet for colonists. She discovers an alien structure and gets bonded to a semi-sentient substance that forms round her like a protective shell. The story then expands out to encompass an inter-planetary war and lots of fighting.

I liked a lot of the characters, and Kira's exploration of her bond with the xeno-form is well-done. But the plot is stretched out quite a lot, and the ick-factor gradually ratcheted up past my tolerance levels. There was too much fighting for my taste and I just lost interest over time. And it is a very, very long book.

It's not badly written at all, though, and people who are more interested in hard sci-fi than I am will probably like it. Just a bit too much for me on all fronts.