stars

We like to go further, find answers and decipher the unknowns that arise. Curiosity is in our DNA. That hunger for knowledge was what led us to evolve and create solutions that made our lives easier.

Are we alone in this universe? That is one of the great questions that has marked the future of our species and that has led it to generate adequate technology to carry out space travel, intergalactic explorations and make a place in the magnanimous darkness that surrounds it, in which we are simply a light. among millions more.

And from that restlessness another infinity arises. Theories are woven around the unknown, realities are built in hypothetical scenarios and futures are proposed to elevate us as a species to a different plane. And from concerns like these, the idea that the American writer Christopher Paolini had, known worldwide for his saga of fantasy novels Eragon, was born, which today is translated into the science fiction epic that represents his book Sleeping in a sea of ​​stars , published in Spanish by the Umbriel label of Ediciones Urano.

The story begins in the year 2257, in a destination in which humanity has managed to colonize other corners of space and continues to search for new places to settle. The xenobiologist Kira Navarez and the research team of which she is a part come to the moon of Adrastea in search of the conditions that allow them to settle there. In one of the explorations of this site, Kira finds an artifact whose appearance becomes the first contact of our race with aliens. However, things turn out very badly, more than anyone could imagine, since the fact sets up the start of an interstellar war in which the future of our species is threatened.

This space opera follows Kira’s journey around the universe to avoid a terrible armed conflict and to understand what he discovered. The journey in turn embodies a truly pleasant and easily identifiable path of personal discovery for the reader. Together with the protagonist and the incredible group of characters that inhabit this future, conversations are created around grief, individuality, responsibilities, teamwork, the purpose of life or happiness, among others.

Of the characters, there is one who steals the scene and is a rather peculiar and chaotic artificial intelligence called Gregorovich, thanks to which the writer allows himself to delve into two very recurring elements in our daily lives: loneliness and confinement, and in this sense the relationships we establish with them and the way they end up transforming who we are.

Another interesting factor in this regard is something that, although we want to hide, is easily presumed. Many things have happened over the course of history and as a species we are still exactly the same, making the same mistakes. And, unfortunately, it is difficult to imagine that this could change. That erratic and voracious humanity is what Paolini gives us, the one that seeks to colonize, dominate and destroy everything within its reach.
But the writer also shows us the other side of the coin and reflects the most playful spaces of our actions, those in which we think of the other, we work to build better scenarios for everyone and we take steps in the search for something other than what the inertia of history would write as possible.

The construction of this novel took Paolini many years and that is clear from the result. The author presents a well thought out book, worked in detail, complex and tangible in excess. Every thing put into it has a reason for being, and the immensity in which it plunges us simply leaves us breathless. To give more force to the result, the book is accompanied by addenda that explain the terminology, technology and time lines present in the narrative.

The action is not missed either, since it is a constant presence in the different trips that the protagonist makes and in the encounters with other races that inhabit the universe. The most interesting thing about it is that these moments are tremendously vivid; It seems that instead of reading we are in front of a giant screen that shows us an epic battle with blasters, iridescent jellyfish and creatures that expand beyond reason.

To go through this novel is to visit great classics of the genre in film, television or literature such as Alien, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Ender’s game, Martian Chronicles or The war of the worlds, not to go further . This book is built page by page as an epic adventure that pays tribute to these stories that set a precedent, that revolutionized the narrative of science fiction and that took their place as references in the matter.

Christopher Paolini’s first novel for adults is an exceptional journey full of action, adventure, emotionality and reflections on the present and the future, on who we are as a species. A book that becomes a door to an inexplicable, dense, coarse and full of possibilities that will surely be revealed in new installments of this creation that the same author has called Fractalverso.