The first book of Ruocchio’s seven-book Sun Eater saga lays out the early life of Hadrian Marlowe, the son of a noble family cast down and forced to make his way in a decaying, theocratic late-stage interstellar empire.
It’s comforting to occasionally lose yourself in an epic space opera — the worldbuilding, the sprawling cast, the deep characterisation. The story’s framing evokes Gene Wolfe — a memoir recounted by an older Hadrian, replete with frequent philosophising, lyrical reflections, and copious foreshadowing of future books. Hadrian’s unloving but privileged childhood is suitably grim, culminating in his disinheritance and flight from familial obligations. Things don’t go as planned, and the feudal lord-in-waiting becomes a destitute mendicant, scratching out a living on the streets with the plebeian masses.
Hadrian’s gradual recovery is chronicled in numerous slice-of-life chapters, dipping in and out over years as he faces the loss of his identity, escapes the streets, and begins his climb back to power. The world and its characters emerge slowly one anecdote at a time, resulting in a long low-momentum middle that often lacked the page-turning plotting to propel me into the next chapter.
Frustratingly, the main plot driver is usually Hadrian’s own idiocy rather than any external conflict or crisis. He’s his own worst enemy, a character you root for, but also want to slap some sense into. Happily, in the last couple of hundred pages the narrative gains pace, establishing the bigger story arc as the alien Cielcin appear, and we’re introduced to the central mystery of the extinct race known as The Quiet.
Empire of Silence succeeds as an epic blended SF-fantasy space opera. It spends hundreds of pages worldbuilding and introducing our protagonist, in a way that will only pay off if you’re prepared to go further. Hadrian is shaping up to be a complex character, set in direct tension with the monstrous figure he claims he will one day become, and I’m looking forward to exploring the rest of the series to see how he develops.
