Each step they take toward the mysterious abyss is more punishing than the last.
Thank you to Drew Kilman at MacMillan for reaching out with an audio ARC NetGalley widget! I can’t even express how excited I was about a prequel to To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and I was disappointed when I wasn’t able to get an eARC copy. Thank you again! As always, my thoughts are my own and my review is honest.
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About the Book
Fractal Noise
Fractalverse Book 0.5
by Christopher Paolini
Published 16 May 2023
Print/eBook
Tor Books
Page Count: 265
Audiobook
Macmillan Audio
Narrator: Jennifer Hale
Length: 9 hours and 57 minutes
Genre: Science Fiction
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
July 25th, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the Anomaly.
On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos VII:a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide.
Its curve not of nature, but design.
Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and why.
But they all carry the burdens of lives carved out on disparate colonies in the cruel cold of space.
For some the mission is the dream of the lifetime, for others a risk not worth taking, and for one it is a desperate attempt to find meaning in an uncaring universe.
Each step they take toward the mysterious abyss is more punishing than the last.
And the ghosts of their past follow.
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My Review
My Rating: 4 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Consider liking my review on Goodreads
Alex, a xenobiologist reeling from the recent loss of his wife, finds himself on a ship that is about the make first contact with… something. Something that left a perfectly round hole where no other signs of life exist. When Alex volunteers for the landing party, he has no idea what’s about to unfold or what danger awaits him and his three landing party members.
Oh, and by the way: THUD.
The perfectly round hole is pulsing with an eerie, increasingly deafening thud.
I can’t speak to any added material in the print/eBook edition, but if you listen to the end of the audiobook, you’ll be treated to a brief interview with Paolini about the origin of this book and his writing process. This story was conceived long ago, way before To Sleep got its publishing deal, but it’s clear that this is the spark that eventually turned into some of the alien elements in the lengthy 2020 novel. You won’t see any familiar characters, and you won’t get any firmly defined answers, but you’ll be left with a sense that you’ve been given a glimpse under the hood at what happened before Kira encountered the Soft Blade.
The audiobook is narrated by Jennifer Hale, once again, and once again her performance is spectacular! Hale is a master of character voices, so each character sounds very distinct in a way that few other narrators achieve. One could be forgiven for thinking more than one narrator read the dialogue! The Fractal Noise audiobook also features a small collection of songs composed and sung by Hale, and even at the rushed speeds I’m used to listening to audiobooks on, they sounded beautiful.
If To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was one of the best books you’ve read this decade like it was for me, this one probably won’t compare, but it has a lot of merit in its own right. This is a dark, gritty horror story set in space with a tantalizing element of mystery woven in. It’s suspenseful, gory, heartbreaking, and captivating. It’s a solid 4 stars for me, and I absolutely recommend this to both fans of To Sleep and to fans of dark SFF in general.
This book can be read independently of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, as well. It doesn’t matter it you read it first, second, farther into your Fractalverse journey, or if you never read the rest of the series. If this is your introduction to Paolino as a science fiction author, though, please don’t stop here!
An important note before I go: The average rating on Goodreads, and I imagine other places once retail listings go live and accept reviews, is artificially low. The print publisher, Tor, has chosen to use AI generated artwork for the cover, and advocates are review-bombing the book with 1-star ratings. While I’m not the biggest fan of AI art replacing illustrators like myself either, and I know Paolini didn’t want an AI cover, leaving fake 1-star reviews on a book only hurts the author (who had no say in the final cover.)
Want more? Check out my 5 star review of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
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