快猫短视频

Christopher Paolini

Tor

I wrote Fractal Noise because of a dream.

During it, I saw a rocky planet turning endlessly in the depths of space. On the planet, three lone people were trekking across a barren plain towards an impossibly large hole. I heard the hole pulse like a massive speaker, and in the sound I sensed a fractal pattern that wound deeper and deeper within itself. An infinity of detail from a finite beginning.

The vision was so powerful that, when I woke, I knew I had to write about it.

Fractal Noise is that fever dream in a novel. A wind-whipped excursion into a hostile land where minds and bodies fail, and each person must decide if they have the strength to carry on in the face of overwhelming adversity. It is perhaps the most personal story I鈥檝e written and I鈥檓 excited for folks to read it.

In creating the setting and story for Fractal Noise (and its predecessor, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars), I was greatly inspired by a number of the space operas I鈥檝e enjoyed over the years.

They are:

by Frank Herbert. A classic of the genre, Dune features little on the 鈥渟pace鈥� side of a space opera, but it more than makes up for that in the complexity of the world-building and the sheer strangeness of Herbert鈥檚 vision. (To better understand his prose style, one only needs to look at Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia.) Dune is one of the few novels I return to every few years, and with each read, I find something new to think about.

Babylon 5. Although the CGI is pretty janky, as a result of a number of unfortunate studio choices over the years, the writing and storytelling of this series remain incredibly solid. One of the first TV shows to tackle multi-season arcs鈥� and to make them work. Babylon 5 has some of the greatest characters found in science fiction, and some of the most moving and epic moments.

. Speaking of memorable characters, Mass Effect has them in spades. It鈥檚 hard to explain to someone who hasn鈥檛 spent the hours required to play the games how deep and meaningful some of the storylines become or how much you may come to care about the different characters (human and otherwise). In some ways, it feels as if the Mass Effect series was Star Wars for the video game era. Yes, Halo was bigger, but Mass Effect has a depth that Halo can鈥檛 even approach.

Marathon, Marathon 2: Durandal, . The series that Bungie made directly before Halo. Inferior when it comes to the graphics, but far superior when it comes to the lore, world-building and general story. There are a lot of similarities between games, and it鈥檚 easy to miss whole chunks of the story (especially in Infinity), but if you like digging through a matryoshka doll of existential time-travel shenanigans, this series is for you. Though confusing, Infinity has one of the best representations of branching timelines I鈥檝e encountered. It鈥檚 a testament to the series that I鈥檓 still thinking about it 27 years after the final installment. Plus, the AI Durandal is a blast.

The Culture series by Iain M. Banks. Sprawling, violent, eccentric, inspiring and frustrating 鈥� the Culture novels have it all. One of the main inspirations for Halo (along with Ringworld by Larry Niven), but Banks鈥檚 vision goes far beyond mere space stations. His tech often verges on magic, but it鈥檚 all to serve his ideas, and what ideas they are! He鈥檒l show you wonders and horrors and strangeness on a galactic scale. It鈥檚 hard to recommend any one book because each is so different, so it鈥檚 worth trying several to see if they鈥檙e to your taste. (His non-Culture sci-fi is also top-notch.)

Honorable mentions go to Hyperion, Starship Troopers, Warframe (seriously!) and the reboot of Battlestar Galactica.

Christopher Paolini鈥檚 is out now