Empire of Silence

Sun Eater, Book 1

De: Christopher Ruocchio

Narrado por: Samuel Roukin

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. On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe started down a path that could only end in fire.

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. Fleeing his father and a future as a torturer, Hadrian finds himself stranded on a strange, backwater world.

Forced to fight as a gladiator and into the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, he will find himself fighting a war he did not start, for an empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.

©2018 Christopher Ruocchio (P)2018 Recorded Books

Epic Space Opera... Instant classic

A lot of what i've read in reviews compares this book, fairly or unfairly, to Dune. A small homage, sure, but I may have not made that connection to Dune if others had not pointed it out. I mean it's a HUGE book, a HUGE world/Universe, but this book is its own and in my opinion, an instant classic. That's the real comparison between the 2, Classic... That said, for me, the original Dune is slow and drawn out... I know that makes me unpopular. I enjoyed it and recommend people read it but wont read it a second time. I would read/listen to Empire of Silence a second time. The slow points of the book are needed and not just filler, the pacing is current and keeps you engaged wanting to know more about the Sun Eater universe and it's characters.

The world/universe building and character building is FANTASTIC! You really care about Hadrian in spite of knowing from the book blurb the atrocities to come. This book is emotional and touches lightly but with intent on politics (new and old). It's frustrating at times, even to the point of making you angry. You cheer and route and during my commute more than once I fist pumped in the air with joy. It draws you in, brings you up and down and side to side with it.

Final thoughts:
1) I tried to do this review in a way that it doesn't give spoilers so sorry for the broad strokes!
2) This is my first time listening to the narrator Samuel Roukin and really enjoyed his narration. It always takes a bit to get used to a knew voice, but shortly after starting you settle in and just enjoy the ride. He does an excellent job and i'll definitely listen to him again.
3) It's a great book, cant wait for book 2... and If you read this and haven't listened to or read book 1... then you are seriously missing out... get it in the queue or get it in the cart and enjoy!

WHOA! Amazing Debut Novel

I bought this based on the recommendation of sci-fi authors David Webber and David Drake who gave the author a round of applause at Libertycon 2018.

Truly impressive world-building, great characters, and cosmos-spanning action.

This is going on my regularly relisten pile.

So good!

I greedily await the next books in this series. Please keep them coming. Thank you for spending the time to create this quality of work.

Slow, but good... but slow... it’s very slow.

I know I’ve used this phrase before, but it applies even more so here: A long walk for a short drink of water. Now Empire of Silence isn’t overly long, but it’s long enough to be unnecessarily long. Especially when looking back at how much ground the story actually covered (not a lot). I feel like everything could’ve been covered in about 2/3 the length.

Its biggest downfall is that it’s VERY slow. It’s got engaging characters, unique locations, a lot of political intrigue, conspiracy, murder, gladiator fights, and what's quickly becoming one of my favorite quotes:

"It is a mistake to believe we must know a thing to be influenced by it. It is a mistake to believe the thing must even be real."

But the problem is that everything is so drawn out that they lose their impact (I don't need to know an entire planets hierarchy when 90% of them have nothing to do with what's going on). Come to think of it, this is really its only downfall. I don’t think it’s a bad book by any means, but the pacing just kills it. I almost feel like you could keep pretty much everything exactly how it is, plot, characters, relationships, set pieces, everything, just pick up the pace a little bit and it would be so much better.

This book reminded me a lot of Red Rising in a couple different ways. Most notably in terms of the dialect and writing style. But also that Empire of Silence felt like it was primarily just an introduction to the characters and the world, and is simply setting the stage for things to come. While I don’t know how many books are going to be in this series, I just hope the sequels have more substance.

Amazing Sci Fi

Best science fiction series to be released in decades. Just buy it now. You won’t regret it

well written

great sci-fi book with an air of old dune books.

I have to write more words cus 15 word minimum so yeah here are my extra words... thanks audible...

a rollercoaster of social world's

the best part of this book in my opinion was the narrator. I felt as if some important scenes where cut too short while trivial ones where too long.

Worth It

Some small plot holes in the world building that stood out to me at the time but I can't recall now. Excellent performance, I can see myself finishing the series and beyond on the strength of the reader alone.

Similar to NOTW and Dune but give the author some credit

This audiobook was really good. Like really really good. I can see the inspirations but the story is great. The pace changed midway through but I still liked it and I like that the character is not a perfect character. He makes a lot of mistakes and suffers for them but he’s trying to learn and his inner dialogue shows that. I’m excited for this book and with people would lay off the comparisons and just enjoy the great story the author has written! It really is a great read!

A great, but slow start to a sci-fi series

This is how the story of Dune would have gone if you had technology of Star Wars, the morals and religion of 40k, and the politics of Game of Thrones.