To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: science fiction, space opera
Pages: 880
Published by Tor Books on September 15, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads
A brand new space opera on an epic scale from the New York Times bestselling author of a beloved YA fantasy series.
It was supposed to be a routine research mission on an uncolonized planet. But when xenobiologist Kira Navárez finds an alien relic beneath the surface of the world, the outcome transforms her forever and will alter the course of human history.
Her journey to discover the truth about the alien civilization will thrust her into the wonders and nightmares of first contact, epic space battles for the fate of humankind, and the farthest reaches of the galaxy.
Welcome to the Excerpt tour for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. Today is the second day of the tour, which means that the first excerpt was posted yesterday a whole bunch of blogs and websites including Tor.com, there are more places posting this second excerpt today, including The Mary Sue as well as yours truly and the third excerpt will be posted tomorrow by another chorus of SF and SF-adjacent sites led by Den of Geek. All of us will be posting the entire excerpt on Friday, to whet every SF/space opera lover’s appetite for the complete book, scheduled to be released in September.
I have an eARC and I can’t wait to settle in and read it. But in the meantime, here’s that excerpt to tease your reading appetite!
Excerpt #2 from To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
Kira dug her fingers into her arm, scrubbing at it as a scream of revulsion threatened to erupt out of her.
Neghar collapsed backwards. Then the clot moved. It twitched like a clump of muscle hit with an electrical current.
People shouted and jumped away. Alan retreated toward Kira, never taking his eyes off the unformed lump.
Kira dry-heaved. She took another step back. Her arm was burning: thin lines of fire squirming across her skin.
She looked down.
Her nails had carved furrows in her flesh, crimson gashes that ended with crumpled strips of skin. And within the furrows, she saw another something twitch.
Kira fell to the floor, screaming. The pain was all-consuming. That much she was aware of. It was the only thing she was aware of.
She arched her back and thrashed, clawing at the floor, desperate to escape the onslaught of agony. She screamed again; she screamed so hard her voice broke and a slick of hot blood coated her throat.
She couldn’t breathe. The pain was too intense. Her skin was burning, and it felt as if her veins were filled with acid and her flesh was tearing itself from her limbs.
Dark shapes blocked the light overhead as people moved around her. Alan’s face appeared next to her. She thrashed again, and she was on her stomach, her cheek pressed flat against the hard surface.
Her body relaxed for a second, and she took a single, gasping breath before going rigid and loosing a silent howl. The muscles of her face cramped with the force of her rictus, and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.
Hands turned her over. They gripped her arms and legs, holding them in place. It did nothing to stop the pain.
“Kira!”
She forced her eyes open and, with blurry vision, saw Alan and, behind him, Fizel leaning toward her with a hypo. Farther back, Jenan, Yugo, and Seppo were pinning her legs to the floor, while Ivanova and Marie-Élise helped Neghar away from the clot on the deck.
“Kira! Look at me! Look at me!”
She tried to reply, but all she succeeded in doing was uttering a strangled whimper.
Then Fizel pressed the hypo against her shoulder. Whatever he injected didn’t seem to have any effect. Her heels drummed against the floor, and she felt her head slam against the deck, again and again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Christopher Paolini was born in Southern California and has lived most of his life in Paradise Valley, Montana. He published his first novel, Eragon, in 2003 at the age of 19, and quickly became a publishing phenomenon. His Inheritance Cycle—Eragon and its three sequels—have sold nearly 40 million copies worldwide. This is his first adult novel.
