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bibliomania_express's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini is a prequel to To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, and I was not at all prepared for what this book would be.
This is a book about pain, grief, hope, religion, love, and humanity's unceasing desire to know. I don't think I've ever read a book like this where I so viscerally felt the atmosphere. Paolini's writing brings the barren sand of Talos and its rhythmic "thud"s vividly alive. As Alex descends into himself, I could feel his fragmenting mind and the progressively louder THUDs.
I'm impressed that this book, while full of pain and gore and anger, ultimately has a lot of say about hope and coming out of grief. That sometimes answers are impossible, reasons unknowable, and everything we think we know wrong, but we keep going, keep trying, and keep caring about each other. Alex is set against himself, his team, and the physical environment, and yet he persists - sometimes foolheartedly, sometimes irrationally.
I think what makes this book so good is that Alex's interal struggle is reflected in the physical struggle to reach the beacon, coupled with the debated about human nature and religion in the face of potential alien lifeforms. The inherent contradictions of it all play out against the backdrop of an unwaverily empty and monotonous world.
This book needs major trigger warnings for death of a spouse, depression, grief, suicidal ideation, religious zeal, physical assault, death, body horror, blood, and medical content.
This is a book about pain, grief, hope, religion, love, and humanity's unceasing desire to know. I don't think I've ever read a book like this where I so viscerally felt the atmosphere. Paolini's writing brings the barren sand of Talos and its rhythmic "thud"s vividly alive. As Alex descends into himself, I could feel his fragmenting mind and the progressively louder THUDs.
I'm impressed that this book, while full of pain and gore and anger, ultimately has a lot of say about hope and coming out of grief. That sometimes answers are impossible, reasons unknowable, and everything we think we know wrong, but we keep going, keep trying, and keep caring about each other. Alex is set against himself, his team, and the physical environment, and yet he persists - sometimes foolheartedly, sometimes irrationally.
I think what makes this book so good is that Alex's interal struggle is reflected in the physical struggle to reach the beacon, coupled with the debated about human nature and religion in the face of potential alien lifeforms. The inherent contradictions of it all play out against the backdrop of an unwaverily empty and monotonous world.
This book needs major trigger warnings for death of a spouse, depression, grief, suicidal ideation, religious zeal, physical assault, death, body horror, blood, and medical content.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
astrangewind's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Fractal Noise is an example of what science fiction should be. Any techno-babble is defined properly in the appendix, and the story doesn't rely on the reader's understanding of math. The science felt realistic and interesting without being overly jargony. The writing style makes the book accessible and interesting.
The plot follows a group of scientists as they make their way towards a big ol' hole on an unoccupied planet, and... that's it. The entire book starts from being in orbit, moves to landing, and then to trekking across the inhospitable plains of a foreign planet. Despite that, I found Fractal Noise to be un-put-down-able. The characterization, the interesting parts of the science, Alex's struggle with himself and losing his wife, the underlying philosophical themes, and the mystery of the hole were compelling.
I loved that there was an appendix to define in-universe terms, but there is a major spoiler in there ("The Great Beacon"), which bugs me. At the very beginning of the book, a lot of characters are introduced to the reader with some identifying characteristic or another, but most of these characters are not even remotely relevant for the remainder of the book, and it was a lot to follow. Also, the beginning of the book had some weird fatphobia towards Pushkin. (The protagonist referred to people on his planet as "starving gorillas.") I think the book would've been just as good without it.
Besides those things, which are largely nitpicks, I greatly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone, even people who aren't science fiction fans.
The plot follows a group of scientists as they make their way towards a big ol' hole on an unoccupied planet, and... that's it. The entire book starts from being in orbit, moves to landing, and then to trekking across the inhospitable plains of a foreign planet. Despite that, I found Fractal Noise to be un-put-down-able. The characterization, the interesting parts of the science, Alex's struggle with himself and losing his wife, the underlying philosophical themes, and the mystery of the hole were compelling.
I loved that there was an appendix to define in-universe terms, but there is a major spoiler in there ("The Great Beacon"), which bugs me. At the very beginning of the book, a lot of characters are introduced to the reader with some identifying characteristic or another, but most of these characters are not even remotely relevant for the remainder of the book, and it was a lot to follow. Also, the beginning of the book had some weird fatphobia towards Pushkin. (The protagonist referred to people on his planet as "starving gorillas.") I think the book would've been just as good without it.
Besides those things, which are largely nitpicks, I greatly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone, even people who aren't science fiction fans.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death, Drug use, Gore, Violence, and Medical content
Minor: Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, and Colonisation
boglord's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Colonisation, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Addiction, Confinement, and Excrement
eliaa's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Cursing, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, and Blood
Minor: Domestic abuse and Drug use
prynne31's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Medical content
geny444's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I came to read this after reading to sleep in a sea of stars. If you compare this book to hid other work, this will let you down. While not bad, this reads more like a short story about the daily life of a scientific crew. Interesting at times, but not thrilling.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
krysley's review
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to listen to this digital audiobook in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.
While I thought the first book in the Christopher Paolini's Fractalverse, his foray into adult sci-fi, was too long, Fractal Noise ends up being too short. It's a journey novel, but nothing is resolved at the end or explained.
Things I did like:
The narrator, Jennifer Hale. While I questioned the reasoning behind having a female narrator for a book written entirely from the point of view of a man, I liked the continuity from To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. Hale is an excellent narrator and performs great once again.
The thuds. I know other readers found these unnecessary and repetitive, but I loved the thuds interspersed throughout the story. Just when you forget about it - thump - its insidiousness is back. It makes you really think about how that sound/feeling could drive a person insane with it's constant repetition.
There are a few things that really work for me here, but, ultimately, most of it doesn't.
While I thought the first book in the Christopher Paolini's Fractalverse, his foray into adult sci-fi, was too long, Fractal Noise ends up being too short. It's a journey novel, but nothing is resolved at the end or explained.
Things I did like:
The narrator, Jennifer Hale. While I questioned the reasoning behind having a female narrator for a book written entirely from the point of view of a man, I liked the continuity from To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. Hale is an excellent narrator and performs great once again.
The thuds. I know other readers found these unnecessary and repetitive, but I loved the thuds interspersed throughout the story. Just when you forget about it - thump - its insidiousness is back. It makes you really think about how that sound/feeling could drive a person insane with it's constant repetition.
There are a few things that really work for me here, but, ultimately, most of it doesn't.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Blood, Medical content, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
spec_tacles's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Murder
heartbrekker's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
“Suffering was its own form of absolution.”
Not gonna lie—switching from an 880 page sci-fi epic to a 300ish grief journey, while traveling to a mysterious beacon hole on a new planet, was not the turn I expected for Paolini within the Fractalverse. Yet Fractal Noise is not about this weird hole; it's the journey to get to it, similar to Frodo's to Mount Doom. The journey wreaks havoc on the protagonist and his peers, but they were already broken before the trip began. Overall, FN is a relatively basic grief story, but once you throw in this planetary hole and possible aliens, the chaos starts to set in.
“What possible evidence do you have that this universe is anything but cruel and heartless?”
Alex Crichton is an interesting choice as a lead. His internal monologue is incredibly negative, and he’s constantly berating himself for his life changing mistakes. Plenty of readers will find him off-putting for those reasons. You would think a xenobiologist would be the strictest scientist on an expedition to find alien evidence, but we see pretty early on that his grief has made his work subpar. It’s hard to root for him, and if this book had been any longer, I probably would have begun disliking him. Alex doesn’t realize it at the time, but this trip will bring some version of healing—for better or for worse, you’ll have to read to find out. When leads are stripped to their very bones, physically and emotionally, I think their reactions and decisions are the most fascinating and that’s what we have here.
“It was unfair… that you no longer got to name your own discoveries. Not if you were working for a company or government, that was.”
Lastly, I want to touch on the physical formatting of this book. Paolini disrupts the flow of the book to not only physically jar our senses like the characters but also write a better story. You will notice very quickly the relevance of the “thud.” As you delve deeper, the thud's frequency increases, mocking not only the characters sanity but the readers too. You’ll be annoyed: why is this thud taking page space when I could be learning other things about the characters, the environment? The thud even cuts off characters/their thoughts mid-sentence to physically represent the disruption. In college, I lived near a military base that would do drills where we could feel the ground shake once every month or so, and that slight vibration of the ground immediately became my point of connection to the thud in Fractal Noise. It made me think of a metronome on steroids because it is not only affecting your ears but also the physicality of your body. When I mentioned the psychological changes to the characters earlier—the thud is the worst and biggest problem for the physical terrain because the repetition and intensity affect the characters.
“Alex thought he was beginning to understand why so many religions started in the desert. The emptiness of the land did something to a person’s brain, focused it on the strangeness of one’s inner life.”
I’m hoping someone can give a good breakdown between Fractal Noise and To Sleep in a Sea of Stars because I do not remember how these books connect. It’s been too long since I read the latter, so I essentially treated these books as separate entities. For time purposes, Alex’s experience takes place in 2234 whereas Kira’s is twenty-three years in the future in 2257. I assume the alien relic in TSIASOS is from the same civilization that brought us this giant hole that is sending a message out into space, but again, my memory is not the best for this series. That’s the closest I can come up with in terms of how they connect. Also, I want to know if Alex or any of his experiences/crew members are ever mentioned in TSIASOS. I’ll probably have to comb through my copy for their possible names, but I’d LOVE for someone to find the answer for me haha.
“Everyone’s life is on the line… Do you know what will happen if they attack us? We’ll lose. Humanity will lose. All gone. Dead. Planets blasted bare. Men, women, children, and the screaming, the screaming.”
Now I have plenty of spoilery thoughts to include in this review, so I’ll be posting those here after its release date.
“It’s all so beautiful.”
Thank you to Tor Books for sending me a review copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Not gonna lie—switching from an 880 page sci-fi epic to a 300ish grief journey, while traveling to a mysterious beacon hole on a new planet, was not the turn I expected for Paolini within the Fractalverse. Yet Fractal Noise is not about this weird hole; it's the journey to get to it, similar to Frodo's to Mount Doom. The journey wreaks havoc on the protagonist and his peers, but they were already broken before the trip began. Overall, FN is a relatively basic grief story, but once you throw in this planetary hole and possible aliens, the chaos starts to set in.
“What possible evidence do you have that this universe is anything but cruel and heartless?”
Alex Crichton is an interesting choice as a lead. His internal monologue is incredibly negative, and he’s constantly berating himself for his life changing mistakes. Plenty of readers will find him off-putting for those reasons. You would think a xenobiologist would be the strictest scientist on an expedition to find alien evidence, but we see pretty early on that his grief has made his work subpar. It’s hard to root for him, and if this book had been any longer, I probably would have begun disliking him. Alex doesn’t realize it at the time, but this trip will bring some version of healing—for better or for worse, you’ll have to read to find out. When leads are stripped to their very bones, physically and emotionally, I think their reactions and decisions are the most fascinating and that’s what we have here.
“It was unfair… that you no longer got to name your own discoveries. Not if you were working for a company or government, that was.”
Lastly, I want to touch on the physical formatting of this book. Paolini disrupts the flow of the book to not only physically jar our senses like the characters but also write a better story. You will notice very quickly the relevance of the “thud.” As you delve deeper, the thud's frequency increases, mocking not only the characters sanity but the readers too. You’ll be annoyed: why is this thud taking page space when I could be learning other things about the characters, the environment? The thud even cuts off characters/their thoughts mid-sentence to physically represent the disruption. In college, I lived near a military base that would do drills where we could feel the ground shake once every month or so, and that slight vibration of the ground immediately became my point of connection to the thud in Fractal Noise. It made me think of a metronome on steroids because it is not only affecting your ears but also the physicality of your body. When I mentioned the psychological changes to the characters earlier—the thud is the worst and biggest problem for the physical terrain because the repetition and intensity affect the characters.
“Alex thought he was beginning to understand why so many religions started in the desert. The emptiness of the land did something to a person’s brain, focused it on the strangeness of one’s inner life.”
I’m hoping someone can give a good breakdown between Fractal Noise and To Sleep in a Sea of Stars because I do not remember how these books connect. It’s been too long since I read the latter, so I essentially treated these books as separate entities. For time purposes, Alex’s experience takes place in 2234 whereas Kira’s is twenty-three years in the future in 2257. I assume the alien relic in TSIASOS is from the same civilization that brought us this giant hole that is sending a message out into space, but again, my memory is not the best for this series. That’s the closest I can come up with in terms of how they connect. Also, I want to know if Alex or any of his experiences/crew members are ever mentioned in TSIASOS. I’ll probably have to comb through my copy for their possible names, but I’d LOVE for someone to find the answer for me haha.
“Everyone’s life is on the line… Do you know what will happen if they attack us? We’ll lose. Humanity will lose. All gone. Dead. Planets blasted bare. Men, women, children, and the screaming, the screaming.”
Now I have plenty of spoilery thoughts to include in this review, so I’ll be posting those here after its release date.
“It’s all so beautiful.”
Thank you to Tor Books for sending me a review copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Mental illness, Violence, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Cursing, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical content, and Gaslighting