Saturday, July 10, 2021

Scott's Take: Empire Of Silence (The Sun Eater: Book One) by Christopher Ruocchio


Empire Of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio is the first book in The Sun-Eater series and revolves around a man known as Hadrian Marlowe. A man who some see as a hero and others see as a monster. This book is the first installment of a series detailing how Hadrian Marlowe killed a dun, wiped out four billion lives, and wiped out an alien race in the process. How does one person do that? How does one become a man like that? How does a good person become that?

 

For one thing, it helps if you can live for hundreds of years. Beyond that, it gets very complicated. It's kind of a cross between a science fiction version of Game of Thrones type read and the fantasy style read of The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. A read that is written from the perspective of after the event with lots of foreshadowing. There are numerous time skips in the read and is constructed as more of a slices of life type read instead of a straight linear read.


 

Empire Of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio is not a book for everyone and not for younger readers. This is a very adult book with references to rape, child rape, and contains numerous violent scenes and torture scenes. Horrible things happen to a lot of people and those things are frequently described in great detail. The universe created by the author is a grim and often downright awful place to live in and that fact is constantly in front of the reader.

 

While I very much enjoyed the book, I certainly understand why many other folks would not like it at all. I am currently on hold for the second book in the series, Howling Dark.


 

Empire Of Silence (The Sun Eater: Book One)

by Christopher Ruocchio

https://sollanempire.com/index.html

DAW Books, Inc. (Penguin)

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/550136/empire-of-silence-by-christopher-ruocchio/9780756413019

July 2018

ISBN#: 978-0-7564-1300-2

Hardback (also available in audio, eBook, and paperback formats)

624 Pages 

 

My reading copy came from the Oak Lawn Branch of the Dallas Public Library System. 

 

Scott A. Tipple ©2021

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