Synopsis
A gigantic hole is discovered on an uninhabited planet during a routine survey mission by the crew of the interstellar ship, the Adamura, and they prepare a team to investigate and find out more about it. It measures fifty kilometers across, seems highly symmetrical, and regularly blasts out a dose of high-powered fractal noise, leading to speculations on the builders being self-aware and sentient aliens, although they’re nowhere to be found.
The landscape is harsh, desolate, and unforgiving, but thoughts of the findings near the circumference of the hole lead the team ever onwards as they grapple with what it might all come to mean for them and the fledgling interstellar human elements as a whole.
Thoughts
How would it feel to know that there are other sentient beings out there in the vastness of space? How would it affect our thinking of the place and import we have in the universe at large and in ourselves? Christopher Paolini answers us with a glimpse of an answer from his brilliantly written and structured novel, Fractal Noise.
The dialogue between the various characters within the novel continually felt like a conversation I was having with myself as I pondered on various hypothetical questions, on love, pain and loss, belief and faith, sentience, and morals… and how different and alike everything (experience, perception, thoughts, etc.) must all feel, subjectively, to other selves.
The writing seemed tense, eerie, and atmospheric, providing an interesting backdrop to the scientific speculations within the plot.
Fractal Noise is a remarkable book. Highly Recommended!
