To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

Christopher Paolini is well-known for his fantasy novels, most notably Eragon and its subsequent sequels, which became New York Times bestsellers. With To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, the first novel in what the author calls the Fractalverse, Paolini moves into the science fiction genre and goes to great lengths to differentiate the Fractalverse works from his earlier fantasy novels. Science fiction is a broad category with many subgenres, and Paolini has used the conventions of the “space opera” to distinguish the series from previous works and organize his plot.

The term space opera is not derived from musical opera but from television soap operas, and the content is correspondingly dramatic, featuring sprawling epics that span space and time. The Star Wars movie series is possibly the most well-known example of a space opera, featuring political intrigue as well as large-scale interstellar war—both genre conventions that Paolini uses in his novel as well. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars features an interstellar war that involves at least three species and dominates the action of the novel. In addition, many of the issues that concern space operas, including imperialism and colonization, drive the action of the novel, as well as the decisions and beliefs of the characters.