Fractal Noise

Fractal Noise is a science fiction novel by the American writer Christopher Paolini, published on 16 May 2023 and a prequel to his novel To Sleep in a Sea of Stars.

The book is set in 2234, when the crew of a survey ship called the Adamura discovers something on Talos VII, a planet that appears to have no inhabitants: a circular pit fifty kilometres wide, whose curve looks like a design rather than a feature of the landscape. A small team is sent down to walk across the surface to the edge of it, which means days of travelling over ground that offers nothing in the way of shelter. Paolini wrote the novel around that walk, the physical difficulty of it, the equipment the team depends on, and the arguments that develop between people who have to keep going. It is a quieter book than the one it precedes, and it is about what a crew does when the objective cannot be reached quickly.

Paolini is best known for a fantasy series, and this is his second novel for adults.