Fractal Noise

The main character is extremely depressed because his girlfriend/wife died. Now he's going through with a dangerous mission to possibly make first contact with aliens. Someone (the aliens) constructed a massive hole in a random planet that's kilometers deep, kilometers wide, PERFECTLY circular (this is an incomprehensible feat of engineering), and which emits a blast of sound and EM radiation every 10.6 seconds. The MC's crew are a bunch of jerks and the accents are overdone. I may finish it someday. The writing is good but the story is not.

I read this after reading To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. About halfway through, I looked Fractal Noise back up to be sure I was reading the book I thought I was. Indeed, I was. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was a prequel. My library doesn't label things well.

Anyway! The two books could not have a more different feel and still be the same author in the same universe. Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed the story on both storylines. The inner turmoil of the main character was so well written, and his journey was engrossing to me. The physical journey of the away team was also excellently told with very realistic representations of the kinds of stress that would take place in a group that was under such pressures and not carefully selected with psych evals and all. Paolini is firmly on my "always read" list.