Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings. Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them. For this latest Waiting on Wednesday, I am going to take a look at an upcoming science fiction novel that I extremely and relentlessly excited for, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini.

Can I just take a minute to express how awesome it is that a new Christopher Paolini book is coming out in the next few months. Paolini is a bestselling author who wrote The Inheritance Cycle, an epic young adult fantasy that featured dragons, magic and battles for freedom in an expansive fantasy world. I have a lot of love for The Inheritance Cycle, as I read the first book in the series, Eragon, when I was quite young and instantly fell in love with the book’s cool story and the vast imagination of the author. I absolutely devoured the next three novels when they were released, and this has long been a favourite series of mine. This love of The Inheritance Cycle has continued in recent years, and it is one of those series that I will take the time to regularly reread (or re-listen to, as I have taken to enjoying the audiobook format of this series). I even did a Throwback Thursday review for the entire series back in 2018, which you can check out here. The Inheritance Cycle ended back in 2011, and Paolini has not released any additional novels since, except for a collection of short stories (The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm) that was published at the end of 2018.

As a result, when I heard that Paolini was releasing a new novel this year, I was extremely intrigued and immediately attempted to find out more details about it. Rather than continuing The Inheritance Cycle (although he’s apparently planning to work on a fifth book next), Paolini has written a brand new story which is set for release on 15 September 2020. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is going to be a lengthy science fiction epic that will explore a disastrous first contact between humanity and an alien race. In addition to a recently revealed cover, there a short plot synopsis is currently available:

Goodreads Synopsis:

A brand new space opera on an epic scale from the New York Times bestselling author of a beloved YA fantasy series.

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.

Based on the way that I gushed about how much I enjoyed Paolini’s previous series above, it’s pretty obvious that I was going to get a copy of this book no matter what. However, I do have to say that I am also quite intrigued by the cool new premise that Paolini is coming up with. A massive space opera is a bold new step for Paolini and I am extremely interested in seeing how he works with this new genre. Paolini has previously shown that he has an incredible and expansive imagination, so I am really looking forward to finding out what wonders and epic sequences that he is able to come up with this time. I am also curious to see how much he has evolved as an author in the last nine years. While I deeply enjoyed his first four novels, Paolini’s writing was a bit rough in places, and I hoping that the time he has taken for this latest novel will help produce a much more well-rounded read.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is set to be a major and fantastic release for the second half of 2020, and it is one that I am particularly excited about. Words cannot express how much I am looking forward to reading a brand new Christopher Paolini book, and I have high hopes that he has produced another expansive and compelling universe to get lost in, equipped with a powerful and adventure-packed story. I really think that To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is going to be an awesome read and I look forward to diving into this book as soon as possible.