Hidden Empire: The Saga of Seven Suns, Book 1

By: Kevin J. Anderson

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 20 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

An explosive new science fiction series by New York Times best-selling author Kevin J. Anderson, Hidden Empire is the first volume in The Saga of the Seven Suns, modeled after the Star Wars and X-Files universes. Anderson has become the foremost science fiction writer of the century, bringing to life vivid characters and worlds that delight his fans across the galaxy.

The Klikiss, a now-extinct alien civilization, left behind vast technological information that has been discovered by two xenoarchaeologists. One discovery, a device that converts gas planets into life-giving suns is quickly put to the test with unimaginable results. Arising out of the test is a new alien species that threatens every human. Mankind is left with the dim reality, either fight the new alien life form or face humiliation, death, and extinction.

This riveting adventure swings you from one wonderous realm to another as the Hidden Empire is sought after and exposed. Anderson has created a gripping beginning to what will surely be his best series yet. George Guidall has returned a stellar performance and brought these characters to life in vivid detail.

Don't miss a minute of the action in Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of Seven Suns.

©2002 WorldFire, Inc. (P)2002 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"In this stellar launch of a new series, bestseller Anderson...delivers action, engaging characters, and credible fantastic worlds." (Publishers Weekly)
"Full of battles, chases, and hairbreadth escapes...this is also an intelligently conceived and executed nailbiter." (Booklist)
"Anderson's skill in delivering taut action scenes and creating well-rounded human and alien characters adds depth and variety to a series opener that belongs in most sf collections." (Library Journal)

Don't get hooked

The first three books in the series are ok even though they are sometimes a little too talky and tend toward pot boiling plotting. And there seems to be too many super beings (good and bad) that keep cropping up in each novel then kinda of left hanging for future episodes. To some extent I rated the series down because Audible is apparently not going to make the complete series available. So don't get hooked unless you plan to go somewhere else to get the other books in the series.

Awesome book

Very intriguing, well read. The story is very captivating, well writen saga. Audible already has two books in these series (1st and 3rd) for all listeners that have or will purchase this book, please make a request to audible for the rest of the books in this saga.

The best of the best!!

I could go on for pages on just how good this and the other two books(2.Forest of Stars, 3. Horizon Storms.) to follow are, but words alone could not express or justify just how good and well written they are. There is a fourth book that Audible does not carry yet. It is Scattered Suns, it was put on the market July 20, 2005. I bought the MP3 disk and the hard cover book. I could not wait for Audible to carry it. The next book comes out in early 2006. If you want the best SiFi reading/listen, and I have read most of them, the Saga of the Seven Suns is miles ahead of anything I have read or listned to. You will truly enjoy this series!!

This one is great!

I normally avoid the great sci-fi multi-volume epics, because the characters usually have names like "Ix'bek'kc'akj" that can neither be pronounced or remembered, and the narrative style is either so ponderous as to send one into a coma, or so flip and cute it makes me feel that the author truly believes his target audience is a group of children or idiots.

This one is different. The scope is huge, (this section of the galactic arm, but not the 'entire universe', which I always find preposterous). The character development is well written and well thought out. You will care about the characters, and you will even care about the robots. The author and narrator share a wonderful skill in being able to take the reader (and listener) from a 'space scene' of stellar proportions to an intense and emotional conversation between individuals, without missing a beat.

The layers of complexity of politics, relationships, and events are handled very well and are easy to keep straight and understand. This can be especially difficult listening to a long audiobook but I only had to back up once or twice to make sure I had a good grasp on the storyline.

I get two books a month with Audible. I'm making sure my two books for this month will be part 2 and 3 of the Saga of the Seven Suns. It's that great!

Slow build up, but good story

The story is told in small bitesized chapters so you feel like you are getting through a lot all at once. But, it’s dozens of chapters before any greater story begins to take shape.

Other than that, solid Sci-fi story.

Starts out slow but wait!!

This story starts out very slow with a great deal of character building. But stick with it because it does all come together and ends up very exciting!

Very imaginative!!

Kevin J. Anderson weaves together the tale of many characters in this galactic tale off adventure and danger. His detailed imagination delights the listener / reader.

An intro more than a compelling story on its own

So, this book... I’m so on the fence on whether or not I liked it. I can’t remember the last book that left me so puzzled as to if I actually liked it or not. Anderson isn’t the best writer in the world, and his prose can sometimes get on my nerves, he definitely tends to over-explain stuff that is perfectly deductible from the context of the story at that point. On the other hand though, he knows how to build a story. This book has one big problem though, it was written as the introduction to a seven-book series from the get-go. As such, most of this book consists of introductions. There are many Point-of-view characters and the chapters are short. The first half of the book it took me half a chapter to get settled back into a character, which was definitely distracting. I would have preferred less POV’s at the beginning, some of them definitely could have been introduced at a later point and at least one I could have done without completely. It’s likely this issue is less prevalent when reading, instead of listening to the Audio Book as I did, but it’s a lot to take in.

That said, the world that is being build is definitely interesting. Set in the far future, the human race is now a space-faring civilization, having launched several generation ships a couple of centuries before the start of this book, they encountered an ancient alien race called the Ildirans. These aliens teach them how to build stardrives that use a fuel (Ekti) that is mined from gas giants. After this event, humanity splits up into three factions, the Earth’s Terran Hanseatic League (better known as Hansa), which is basically a huge company run by a chairman, that uses a figurehead King to rule the humans. There’s the roamers, nomadic humans that live on starships and spacebases, mainly populating the many Ekti mining operations. And finally there are the green priests from the planet Theroc, who have discovered sentient trees (known as the Worldforest) and merged with them, changing their skin to green (and using photosynthesis) and allowing them to communicate with the trees through thought. These trees can communicate instantly over large distances, allowing green priests to communicate instantly with one another on different planets.

The story starts with the Hansa using an ancient artifact from a mysteriously extinct insectoid race, called the Klikiss, to turn a gas giant into a sun. They do so to make the moons around the gas giant habitable worlds to live on. Even though there are plenty of habitable worlds to live on, many of which still have ruins from the Klikiss race. The Ildirans, being an old and set-in-their-ways race, do not understand the human’s ambitions and reasoning, causing much conflict. Often seeming like a parent -> child relationship. From there the story slowly builds, mostly focusing on politics. The relations between the different factions is strenuous at best, none of them trusting the others. The Hansa are looking to replace their aging puppet king with a younger model, elsewhere, researches are exploring Klikiss ruins to find out more about the race and what led to their doom. Helped by three ancient insectioid Klikiss Robots, left behind but with no memory of what happened to their builders.

All in all, as we jump from one character to another, we learn more about the Hansa, roamers, Ildirans, green priests and the fate of the Klikiss race as the story progresses and the world that unfolds is deep and feels lived in. While a slow build at the start, the book ends on a high note, building to a good climax that leaves you wanting more. Further emphasizing this book’s role as an introduction to the world and the players in it, instead of more-or-less confined story with a clear three-act lay-out. This makes the book very hard to rate on its own. I could definitely understand people giving up on it before the midway point based on this, but once you make it past that, it definitely picks up.

In the end, I’m giving this book 3 out 5 stars, the world is interesting, and the latter half is interesting enough to keep on going with the story and delve further into the world. However, it takes very long to get there and the prose is not without flaws. Based on that I would have probably rated it 2 out of 5, but I have a feeling this book gets better once you head further into the story, so based on its potential, I’m adding an extra star, it left me interested enough to keep on reading the next book, so I can’t with good conscience give it too low a rating.

As for the narration, though not the best narration I've ever heard, the narrator does a good job at making the world come to life, giving each character their own personality and voice. A pleasant listen, even if its not overly remarkable.

Good...But Not Exactly Rocket Science

If you could sum up Hidden Empire: The Saga of Seven Suns, Book 1 in three words, what would they be?

Galactic Soap Opera

Would you recommend Hidden Empire: The Saga of Seven Suns, Book 1 to your friends? Why or why not?

Simply answered yes. The story as a whole was enjoyable. A very good introduction to the cast of characters and context in which the rest of the books will play out. The narration elevated what I believe to be a somewhat simple story with mildly interesting plot twists and predictable elements. The human race is fragmented into groups that don't get along. There are the big bad aliens who seem to be inherently evil. One of the major sources of conflict is over natural resources, whether it be star drive fuel or green priests (albeit an interesting natural resource as they themselves are human). There is a group of mysterious ancient robots who claim to not remember anything from their now extinct creators. Overall I enjoyed the story as a lengthy light read. There was not a great deal along the line of challenging my way of thinking or philosophy, but sometimes the books that don't make you think are the best indulgences.

Which character – as performed by George Guidall – was your favorite?

Mage-Imperator Cyroc'h

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

[Spoiler Alert!!!!!!!] The death of Louis Colicos

Slow start, but worth the wait!

I almost gave up on this book in the first few hours, but I'm so glad I didn't! "World building" ans setting up a story like this takes some time then it really takes off!