To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a 2020 science fiction novel by the American writer Christopher Paolini, published by Tor, an imprint of Macmillan. It has no connection to his earlier Inheritance Cycle.

The book is set in the year 2257 and opens on a planet being assessed for human settlement, where Kira Navarez finds a relic left by a species known as the Vanished. Inside it is a nanotechnology called the Soft Blade, which bonds to her, and from that point the story widens from one survey team to a conflict involving colonies and other species across the galaxy. Paolini wrote it as a standalone novel for adults rather than as another young adult series, and the audiobook is read by the actress Jennifer Hale.

The novel is long even by the standards of the space opera it belongs to. Its story moves between human factions, alien powers and the question of what the relic Kira found was built for, and the Soft Blade turns out to be both the thing that saves her life and the reason it is in danger.