Empire of Silence: The Sun Eater: Book One

by Christopher Ruocchio

Book Overview

"Empire of Silence is epic science fiction at its most genuinely epic. Ruocchio has made something fascinating here, and I can't wait to see what he does next." --James S.A. Corey, New York Times-bestselling author of The Expanse novels

Hadrian Marlowe, a man revered as a hero and despised as a murderer, chronicles his tale in the galaxy-spanning debut of the Sun Eater series, merging the best of space opera and epic fantasy.

It was not his war.

The galaxy remembers him as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives--even the Emperor himself--against Imperial orders.

But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.

On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe starts down a path that can only end in fire. He flees his father and a future as a torturer only to be left stranded on a strange, backwater world.

Forced to fight as a gladiator and navigate the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, Hadrian must fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0756419263
• ISBN13: 9780756419264
• Release Date: September 2023
• Publisher: Daw Books
• Length: 624 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful

There's just something about this book that grabbed me by the throat and didn't let go. It gave me nearly everything I look for in fiction; provides escapism while being thought provoking, interesting and flawed characters, and palpable descriptions of emotion. The blurb on the back of the book, a quote from Library Journal, says it better than I can: "Although stretched across a vast array of planets, the story line is often more focused on the intimate than on the expanse[...]". And y'all, that is my sh*t. That being said, the book is not without it's flaws; there are too many references, a handful of overwritten sentences, and the literary inspirations for the story make themselves very obvious, toeing the line of being almost derivative for the first quarter of the book. But I find these flaws to be quite charming! They do not take away from the story or affected my enjoyment at all. Overall, it's an excellent story written by a very talented author and has become a favorite of mine. I hear the rest of the series is even better!