Scan barcode
A review by eiion
Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini
3.5
This was a good book, but it wasn't anything new, and it wasn't anything special. I think Paolini absolutely has it in him to write good sci-fi books, but this one wasn't mindblowing and I did soft DNF his other sci-fi novel, so there's something there that is, unfortunately, missing. Part of it, I think, is that this book doesn't add anything new to sci-fi genre. It's not massively inventive or anything, but it is fun, and the reason the concept of an alien structure that is incomrehensible and intriguing is done so much is because it works so well.
I think the main issue I had with this book is that the characters are all so mindblowingly annoying. They're incredibly one dimensional, I don't care about any of them (including our MC), and even when you do start to get invested in the stakes of what's happening to them, they somehow manage to blow it once you get attached. Every single person made an objectively stupid mistake at some point throughout the story, and every single mistake they made was both infuriating and absolutely unrealistic for a professional team of corporate space faring explorers and contractors.
The only thing that could have justified the things that they did and the stupidity that was some of their decisions was the massive, possibly alien loudspeaker that was shaking the ground beneath them and sending whipping winds and a giant THUD throughout the landscape every 10.6 seconds. But this wasn't explained well. We didn't see their descent into madness, they just sort of... fell off the deep end at one point, and they had been making enough dumb decisions throughout the story even before they encountered this alien object that it wasn't ridiculous to assume that they were all fighting over 1 collective braincell.
It wasn't a bad book. I did enjoy the plot, and I obviously kept pushing through the characters because I knew that I actually did really want to figure out what was going on. The allure and mystery kept me going, and even though this isn't something that adds to genre of sci-fi, it was still well done and well explored.
I had fun reading it, even though I know that it objectively wasn't an amazing book. As frustrating as it was, it was still enjoyable, and casual fans of sci-fi would probably really enjoy it.
I think the main issue I had with this book is that the characters are all so mindblowingly annoying. They're incredibly one dimensional, I don't care about any of them (including our MC), and even when you do start to get invested in the stakes of what's happening to them, they somehow manage to blow it once you get attached. Every single person made an objectively stupid mistake at some point throughout the story, and every single mistake they made was both infuriating and absolutely unrealistic for a professional team of corporate space faring explorers and contractors.
The only thing that could have justified the things that they did and the stupidity that was some of their decisions was the massive, possibly alien loudspeaker that was shaking the ground beneath them and sending whipping winds and a giant THUD throughout the landscape every 10.6 seconds. But this wasn't explained well. We didn't see their descent into madness, they just sort of... fell off the deep end at one point, and they had been making enough dumb decisions throughout the story even before they encountered this alien object that it wasn't ridiculous to assume that they were all fighting over 1 collective braincell.
It wasn't a bad book. I did enjoy the plot, and I obviously kept pushing through the characters because I knew that I actually did really want to figure out what was going on. The allure and mystery kept me going, and even though this isn't something that adds to genre of sci-fi, it was still well done and well explored.
I had fun reading it, even though I know that it objectively wasn't an amazing book. As frustrating as it was, it was still enjoyable, and casual fans of sci-fi would probably really enjoy it.