Join us for a lively discussion of Fractal Noise by Christoipher Paolini

The crew of the Adamura discovers the anomaly. On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos VII: a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide. Its curve not of nature, but design. Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and why. But they all carry the burdens of lives carved out on disparate colonies in the cruel cold of space. For some the mission is the dream of the lifetime, for others a risk not worth taking, and for one it is a desperate attempt to find meaning in an uncaring universe. Each step they take toward the mysterious abyss is more punishing than the last. And the ghosts of their past follow.

Library Journal Review:

This pulse-pounding science-fiction novel pits human curiosity and technology against alien tech deep in the cosmos. The story follows Alex Crichton, a xenobiologist whose ship, the Adamura, comes in contact with evidence of sophisticated alien intelligence when they discover a massive cylindrical hole cut into the surface of a faraway planet which is transmitting a message into space. The sonic force that the hole exerts on the plant is so massive that the ship can’t land safely. The crew decides to send a small away party to discover what they can, crossing the planet on foot. The majority of the novel describes this grueling trek, which, with its tents and sleds, reads as a story ripped from the pages of Antarctic exploration. The away mission does not go as planned, with equipment failures, unexpected encounters, and the growing threat that the ever-present “thud” from the alien machine will make them lose their grip on reality. VERDICT Those daunted by the 800+ pages of the first in this series, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, will find this a comparably brief read, and it works well as an excellent starting point for the series as a whole.–Jeremiah Rood

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