Agent Cormac
Dark have been my dreams of late..
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2013
- Messages
- 913
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
Finally finished this epic-sized book. Have to admit, I did lose some of my interest halfway through when the storyline looked to be heading towards a SF/fantasy mishmash; especially the quest for the Staff of Blue, which seemed to me like a simplistic fantasy trope and an anachronism in a story that was SF up to that point. To my mind, just renaming the Staff of Blue to something like quantum harmoniser would have given the artefact more credibility. It’s only a small part of a long story, I know, but it almost made me put the book down. However, I stuck with it and thankfully it didn’t veer too much from the SF theme from then on.
Much of the story concerns Kira’s search for a measure of control over the alien nanotech that has covered her body. At first, it lashes out when she feels threatened and she clearly needs to deal with this. While the ship is in FTL and the crew in cryosleep, she trains hard to learn how to control the tech and gradually begins to understand its purpose. All this is against a background of first contact that quickly descends into interspecies conflict, and there are some long action scenes that subscribe to Moltke’s tenet of no plan survives contact with the enemy. These can be relentless at times.
To me, the book started off well and I was pretty much engaged until the Staff thing popped up. It did have the effect of turning me off but it would be wrong to judge a very long story on a poorly named artefact. There are other flaws, such as the cheesy giving out of gifts scene near the end, but To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a pretty good story and the central theme of a nanotech suit was a good one. Because of its length, I feel the need to give the story a rating: 3 stars.
Finally finished this epic-sized book. Have to admit, I did lose some of my interest halfway through when the storyline looked to be heading towards a SF/fantasy mishmash; especially the quest for the Staff of Blue, which seemed to me like a simplistic fantasy trope and an anachronism in a story that was SF up to that point. To my mind, just renaming the Staff of Blue to something like quantum harmoniser would have given the artefact more credibility. It’s only a small part of a long story, I know, but it almost made me put the book down. However, I stuck with it and thankfully it didn’t veer too much from the SF theme from then on.
Much of the story concerns Kira’s search for a measure of control over the alien nanotech that has covered her body. At first, it lashes out when she feels threatened and she clearly needs to deal with this. While the ship is in FTL and the crew in cryosleep, she trains hard to learn how to control the tech and gradually begins to understand its purpose. All this is against a background of first contact that quickly descends into interspecies conflict, and there are some long action scenes that subscribe to Moltke’s tenet of no plan survives contact with the enemy. These can be relentless at times.
To me, the book started off well and I was pretty much engaged until the Staff thing popped up. It did have the effect of turning me off but it would be wrong to judge a very long story on a poorly named artefact. There are other flaws, such as the cheesy giving out of gifts scene near the end, but To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a pretty good story and the central theme of a nanotech suit was a good one. Because of its length, I feel the need to give the story a rating: 3 stars.
