Empire of Silence
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 fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.
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Christopher Ruocchio
Christopher Ruocchio is a writer whose name is now firmly etched in the minds of science fiction and space opera enthusiasts, thanks to his Sun Eater series, which blends the epic sweep of fantasy with the vast, intricate worlds of science fiction. Born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Christopher's passion for storytelling began at an early age. But it wasn’t just any story that captured his imagination; it was the ancient epics, the grandeur of history, and the sprawling universes of speculative fiction that pulled him in, setting the stage for what would become his literary career.
The Sun Eater
In The Sun Eater series, Christopher Ruocchio crafts a universe that feels both ancient and far-reaching, where the weight of history is always in motion, and every choice reverberates across millennia. Set in a future where the stars themselves seem to burn with the fury of gods, this epic saga blends the grandeur of space opera with the deep philosophical undertones of classic literature.
The Sun Eater consists of seven primary books, and includes one additional book that complement the series but is not considered mandatory reads — considered a complete series. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Reviews and Comments
It's odd to feel so hyped to start a series, that while it's been talked about it is still slightly smaller known. Starting this book, even a few chapters in, I noticed that this one was feeling slow. Not for lack of things happening just the amount of detail put into it it has made the pace feel that way, to me at least.
Our story follows and is told to us by Lord Hadrian Marlow. He is writing the story of his life and experiences from a very late point in his life. Older Hadrian does not seem to shy away from the rashness or ignorance of his youth. He is a bright man to be sure but doesn't have the calculating mind needed for most lords. By this I mean he only plots a few steps ahead of most of his actions. Hadrian doesn't know much of the universe outside of books and is thus naive to several things.