To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

AFTERWORD & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1.

Greetings, Friends.

It’s been a long journey. Come in, have a seat by the holo, take the weight off your feet. You must be tired. There’s some Venusian scotch on the shelf to your side.… Yes, that’s it. Pour yourself a glass, if you want.

While you recover, let me tell you a story. No, not that one, another. One that begins all the way back in 2006–7 (the dates grow vague with time). I had finished my second novel, Eldest, and was nearly done with the third, Brisingr, and I was straining at the bit, frustrated that what had once been a trilogy had expanded into a tetralogy and that I would have to spend several more years working on the Inheritance Cycle. Mind you, I loved the series and was happy to finish it, but at the same time I wanted—no, I needed—to try my hand at something else. Discipline is a necessary prerequisite to creative success, and yet the value of variety should not be dismissed. By trying new things we learn and grow and maintain excitement for our craft.

So, while I spent my days in the land of Alagaësia, writing about elves and dwarves and dragons, I spent my nights dreaming about other adventures in other places. And one of those dreams involved a woman who found an alien biosuit on a moon orbiting a gas giant.…

It was a rough idea, more of a sketch than anything. But even from the very beginning, I always knew how the story would start (with Kira finding the suit) and how it would end (with her drifting off into space). The difficult bit was figuring out all the parts in between.

After finishing Brisingr, I took a stab at writing the beginning of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. If you saw that early version, you would laugh. It was half-baked, underformed, but the bones of what would become this story were still there, waiting to be unearthed.

I had to put it aside to write and promote Inheritance. That took me until mid-2012 (touring for a popular book/series is no small thing). And after that, after finishing a series I had been working on from the age of fifteen to twenty-eight, I needed a break.

For six months, I didn’t write. Then, the old itch to create took over. I knocked out a screenplay (which didn’t work). I wrote a number of short stories (one of which was later published in The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm, a sequel to the Inheritance Cycle). And I began to research the scientific underpinnings to my future history.

That research occupied most of 2013. I’m not a physicist, nor a mathematician—I never even went to college—so I had to put in a lot of work to reach the level of understanding I wanted. Why go to such lengths? Because, as magic is to fantasy, science is to, well, science fiction. It sets the rules to your story, defines what is or isn’t possible. And although I envisioned To Sleep as a love letter to the genre, I wanted to avoid certain technical conventions that would undermine the setting. Mainly, I wanted a way for ships to travel FTL that didn’t allow for time travel, and that didn’t blatantly contradict physics as we know it. (I was okay with bending a few rules here and there, but outright breakage didn’t sit right with me.)

Of course, all the world-building in the universe doesn’t matter if the story itself isn’t sound. And that, I’m afraid, is where I met my greatest difficulty.

For various personal reasons, writing the first draft of To Sleep took until January of 2016. Three(ish) years of hard, hard work. Upon finishing, my first reader, my one and only sister, Angela, informed me that the book just. didn’t. work. Upon reading the manuscript myself, I realized she was, unfortunately, correct.

The year 2017 passed in a frenzy of rewrites. None of which fixed the underlying issues. The rewrites were, to put it metaphorically, like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, which did nothing to change the fact that the ship’s structural integrity was compromised.

The problem was this: after working on the Inheritance Cycle for so long, my plotting skills had gotten rusty from disuse. The problem-solving muscles I had built while developing the story for Eragon and sequels had atrophied in the decade since. And, I won’t lie, after the success of the Inheritance Cycle, I had, perhaps, been a bit cocky when starting To Sleep. “Well if I could do that, surely this won’t be a problem.”

Ha! Life, fate, the gods—call it what you will, but reality has a way of humbling us all.

The situation came to a head at the end of 2017 when my agent, Simon, and then-editor, Michelle, gently informed me that the rewrites just weren’t cutting it.

At that moment, I nearly gave up. After so much work and time invested, to be back at nearly square one was … demoralizing. But if I have a defining trait, it’s determination. I really hate to give up on a project, even when common sense tells me otherwise.

So in November 2017, I stopped rearranging the deck chairs and, instead, went back to the basic blueprint of the story. And I questioned everything. In a week and a half, I wrote (by hand) over two hundred pages of notes dissecting character, motivation, meaning, symbology, technology … You name it, I looked at it.

And only then, only once I felt I had a new and stronger skeleton to hang this story upon, did I start writing again. Most of part one, Exogenesis, remained the same. And some of part two. But everything after that, I wrote from scratch. There was no Bughunt in the original version of To Sleep. No visit to Sol. No trip to Cordova. No nightmares, no Maw, no Unity, no grand adventure beyond 61 Cygni.

In essence, I wrote an entirely new book—and not a small one—over the course of 2018 and the first half of 2019. During the same time, I also wrote and edited The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm, toured for it in the U.S. and Europe, and continued to tour the U.S. for the entirety of 2019 as Barnes & Noble’s writer in residence. Whew!

Writing and editing To Sleep has been by far the hardest creative challenge of my life. I had to relearn how to tell a story, rewrite a book I’d been laboring over for years, and overcome a number of personal and professional challenges.

Was it worth it? I think so. And I’m looking forward to putting the skills I’ve learned/reacquired to use on a new book. One that, if all goes well, will take substantially less than nine years to write and publish.

In looking back over the history of this project, it feels in no small part like a dream. So much time has passed. So much angst and effort and ambition. I finished the first draft while spending the winter split between a dingy apartment in Edinburgh and a slightly brighter apartment in Barcelona. Revisions were carried out where I live in Montana, but also at a dozen different locations across the globe as work, and life, took me about. The final edits were carried out during a pandemic.

When I first got the idea for To Sleep, I was in my mid-twenties. Now I’m in the latter half of my thirties. When I started, there was no white in my beard. Hell, I didn’t even have a beard! Now the first streaks of frost have appeared. I’ve even gotten married, and that’s been an adventure all its own.…

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars isn’t perfect, but it’s the best version of this story I could write, and I’m proud of the final result. To quote Rolfe Humphries from the foreword to his translation of The Aeneid: “The scope of an epic requires, in the writing, a designed variety, a calculated unevenness, now and then some easy-going carelessness.”

All very true. I’m also fond of what he says further on:

“The last revisions are always the most enervating, and Virgil, one can well believe, having worked on the poem for over a decade, had reached the point where he felt he would rather do anything, including die, than go over the poem one more time.… Who wants an epic poem absolutely perfect, anyway?”

My sentiments exactly. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed the imperfections of this novel.

So. Now I’ve told a story about a story. The night grows late, and your Venusian scotch is nearly gone. I’ve spent long enough rambling on. But before you retire, a few final points.

One: those of you who are fans of the Inheritance Cycle may have noticed some references to the series in To Sleep. You weren’t imagining things. And yes, Inarë is who you think she is. (For those unfamiliar with that name, I recommend looking up Jeod’s letter on my website, paolini.net.)

Two: if you wish to dig deeper into the universe of To Sleep, I suggest paying attention to the use of the number seven in the story (where possible, all numbers are either multiples of seven or may be added up to equal seven). You may also find it interesting to locate places outside this novel where seven might be input.

Three: the table of contents contains some acrostic fun.

Enough. I’ve said my fill. The air is cold, the stars are bright, and this tale has reached its end, both for Kira and for me.

Eat the path.

2.

In creating this novel, I was fortunate to have the support of an enormous number of people. Without them, To Sleep would never have seen the light of day. They are:

My dad, for keeping things running when I was buried in the manuscript for months on end. My mom, for patience and editing (so much editing!) and continual support. My sister, Angela, for never letting me settle for second-best and for giving me the kick in the pants needed to fix Gregorovich’s story line (among many others). Caru, who created the awesome logos (aside from Shin-Zar’s) that appear in the terminology section, as well as tons of other concept art. My wife, Ash, for her ongoing support, humor, love, and various artistic contributions (including the logo for Shin-Zar). And a big thank-you to my whole family for reading this book more times than any sane person ought to.

My assistant (and friend), Immanuela Meijer, for her input, support, and some gorgeous pieces of artwork. She’s the one responsible for the map of Sigma Draconis, 61 Cygni, part of Bughunt, and the really awesome fractal endpaper/map.

My agent, Simon Lipskar, who—from the very beginning—has been a tireless champion of this book and what he knew it could be. Thank you, Simon!

My dear friend, Michelle Frey, who read several early versions of the book and who had the unenviable task of telling me that they weren’t working. Without her input, I never would have taken the leap and written a version that did work.

At Macmillan: Don Weisberg, who knew me during his time at Random House, and because of it, was willing to take a chance on an adult novel from someone previously only known for YA. Thank you, Don!

At Tor: my editors, Devi Pillai and William Hinton. They pushed me far harder than I expected … and the book is better because of it. Also in editorial: assistants Rachel Bass and Oliver Dougherty, and copy editor Christina MacDonald.

In publicity/marketing: Lucille Rettino, Eileen Lawrence, Stephanie Sarabian, Caroline Perny, Sarah Reidy, and Renata Sweeney. If you’ve heard of this book, they’re the ones responsible!

In design/production: Michelle Foytek, Greg Collins, Peter Lutjen, Jim Kapp, Rafal Gibek. Without them, the book wouldn’t have been published on time, and it sure wouldn’t have looked as good. And thanks to everyone else at Tor who has worked on this book.

Also thanks to Lindy Martin for the gorgeous cover image.

On the technical side of things: Gregory Meholic, who was kind enough to let me use his Tri-Space theory as the basis for my FTL system (as well as several of his graphs, which were redrawn for Appendix I). He also answered scores and scores of questions as I struggled to understand the specifics of how it worked. Apologies to him for bastardizing his theory in one or two places in the interests of fiction. Sorry Greg! Also Richard Gauthier—who originated the idea of TEQs—and H. David Froning Jr., who invented the technical groundwork for conditioned EM fields, which I used as the basis for my Markov Drives. And last but not least, Winchell Chung and the Atomic Rockets website (www.projectrho.com/rocket/). The best resource for anyone wanting to write realistic science fiction. Without it, the ideas in this book would have been far less interesting.

A special mention goes to the family of Felix Hofer, who were kind enough to let me use his name in this book. Felix was a reader of mine who, tragically, was killed in a motorcycle accident soon after his eighteenth birthday. We’d had some correspondence, and, well, I wanted to mark his passing and do my best to help Felix’s name live on.

As always, the biggest thanks of all go to you, dear reader. Without you, none of this would be possible! So again, thank you. Let’s do it again soon.

Christopher Paolini

September 15, 2020