Should have been a trilogy or series...

Story:
I loved Paolini's "The Inheritance Cycle", so naturally was looking forward to a new story from him. I'm so glad I stuck it out.

There were times when I zoned out, finding it lengthy and boring (and this comes from a lover of long fantasy books and series). I may have missed important story lines as a result, but couldn't bring myself to re-read these dull areas unless I felt something didn't make sense or I'd missed something vital.

I feel this book would have been better if it was broken up into a trilogy or series of books. Way too much time was invested in explaining the back story and various nuances contained in this particular Universe. As a reader we needed to know this information, however, it became "information overload" and took away from the actual story. Rather, this information could have been "drip fed" over a series of books, making it easier to bare and not so boring. It was a monster of a book with such great, thought out cultures, technologies, species and Worlds. It would have been great if Paolini could have taken his time with the story, expanding it to the size a story like this needs, rather than condensing the monster into a single book.

In saying this, I absolutely loved the story! Paolini has a wonderful imagination and creates believable Worlds that are well thought out and scientifically explained.

Performance:
This is the first time I've heard Jennifer Hale narrate a story. It took a little time to get used to her style, but by the end I adored her! At the beginning I thought she was quite monotone and rushed, however, as the story developed I realised she was very well suited to the story and it's characters. I particularly enjoyed her rendition of the mad ship mind Gregorovich. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Jennifer Hale and will definitely look out for her future narratives.

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3 people found this helpful

Great story and great value.

Story was well constructed and narration performance is top shelf.... felt engaged the whole way through.

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1 person found this helpful

a great escape

an amazing story with an amazing narrator. a great and very long escape to get lost in.

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Worth the wait

Paolini spent the 9 years since the release of Inheritance well. A masterful space opera.

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FAB-U-LOUS

As an extreme fan of Inheritance Cycle I was nervous coming into a new Paolini world. But the nerves were for naught. What a fabulous elaborate tale, always moving always going somewhere new.
Jennifer Hale (narrator) was so perfect for this story and does an incredible and engaging job.
Highly highly recommend

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1 person found this helpful

A long walk down a familiar, but no less enjoyable, path.

Story:
It was cliche at times, had moments of long winded intermissions, and the action was patchy in parts. However, the story was in no way a poor effort and often produced quite dramatic and enthralling sections sadly missing from similar works. Furthermore, while supporting character’s motives and development tended to happen in chunks, never to be returned to, the dynamic between characters - some being cookie cutter personalities - still remained outstanding and heartfelt, working well towards the protagonist’s development.

‘To sleep in a sea of stars’ was nothing truly outstanding, but certainly provided a truly enjoyable read without the high-minded technical forms trending today.

Narration:
Simply put, Jennifer Hale was exceptional. It was my first time experiencing her VO/narration work, and frankly, I think she knocked it out of the park. She demonstrated a broad and expressive variety of character voices, and consistently remained clear in her vocal skills.

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Best book I've read in the last couple of years

This is an amazing book, it's long, but the story is intriguing and with the amazing narration, it was was so easy to get lost is this world for hours on end. The universe feels so real and lived in and there was a surprising depth to all the characters and the story. Easily the best stand alone book I've read in the last 5 years.

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Fun Epic

So, I love SciFi. I've NEVER been able to read or listen to the genre before. It's always been too technical or, for lack of a better word, alien, for me to stay in the world, or able to imagine it at all.

But this was perfect. I LOVED that it used common concepts of the genre to create a galaxy that comes naturally to the imagination, allowing the reader to enjoy the journey without getting characters and places confused.

The narrator does an amazing job too, maintaining the individual characters effortlessly.

highly recommend

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Very predictable story, with big plot holes

WARNING SPOILERS

An ancient super advanced intelligent nano-tech suit is found and accidentally takes over a human scientist. She accidentally creates an evil hegemonising swarm. For some reason the suit takes on the desires of the wearer. The original creators of the suit made it for good, but didn't take any steps to make sure that it didn't do bad things. It takes the scientist most of the book to realize that she can create a good swarm to fight the bad swarm, which was the obvious solution right from the start. Even then she does a half arsed job of it and just takes over the bad swarm but finds out there are seven more bad swarms out there somewhere. She makes a space station with one copy of her mind running it and just makes one advanced ship to go after seven bad swarm groups. She realizes the full potential of the suit but then doesn't just make multiple copies of herself to fight the bad swarms, and has to leave on the advanced ship herself, leaving her boyfriend behind.

There are also some aliens who are bad, then become good. There is some running around to find a weapon the original makes of the suit made that can destroy the suit. They find the weapon broken, and just leave it behind as she doesn't think of using the suit to fix it.

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Not for everyone

Not going to lie, it was a real struggle at the start and I almost lost interest towards the end. It's a very long book but it seemed like the characters spent most of their time not really doing anything. Overall, a decent science fiction novel with some great narration by Jennifer Hale.

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2 people found this helpful