Review: Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini

Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an audio ARC of this book via the publisher through Netgalley, all opinions are my own. Thank you to Macmillan Audio for providing me an audio ARC. Jennifer Hale once again did an amazing job with the narration. Her ability to voice each of the characters uniquely shows her talent for voice acting, and we get a glimpse of her musical talent as well in this book as she sings in this installment. If you aren't a fan of sound effects in this book, this might not be the book for you. This has a thudding noise that is present throughout the book that I thought added to the storyline, because it makes sense to what's happening on the planet and to the characters. In my opinion it really did add to the experience, but it is also going to annoy some readers and be a turn off. There is a point to the thudding an it puts you in the moment and emotional state with the characters. There is also some music and other sound effects as the chapters transition, which some listeners love and others very much dislike.

This is a prequel novel to To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which you do no have to read first. I feel you can read them in either order, they are set in the same universe but not so closely connected that you have to read one before the other. I loved To Sleep, and I think if you enjoyed that you will like Fractal Noise as well. This also has a bit of The Martian vibes to it, but there is a group of characters isolated on the planet not just one person. While this is a sci-fi, space opera it is so much more than that. It explores grief, existence, faith, and one's ability to keep going when it doesn't feel like there is anything left to live for. It is so much more than a science fiction story on a far away planet that might hold untold secrets. I thought the world building was done well and the character dynamics really came through. I do wish we had gotten a little more back story on the characters, but we mainly get to know them from main character Alex's point of view and Alex himself.

This follows xenobiologist Alex and a crew of scientists as they investigate a strange anomaly on Talos VII, an uninhabited planet. The anomaly appears to be a giant hole in the ground emitting a pulse every 10 seconds. The larger ship can't land for safety reasons so the smaller crew lands and loads up their gear with a plan to walk to the hole, taking samples as they would on any other mission to discover what they can about the planet. The closer they get the 4 person crew suffers setback after setback, but they are determined to reach their goal. With every step closer they get the more dangerous the mission becomes.

As with To Sleep there is a nice glossary that Hale narrates at the end to help you with terminology
that would probably be more helpful in the written text but it was nice to listen to after the fact to put some things in context. The author also recorded a nice note about the book and the writing process for this book. I always enjoy when those are included as an added bonus.

Overall I enjoyed this journey and exploration into the mysteries of the universe. I'm looking forward to Paolini's future works in this universe and others.

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