Empire of Silence

Book review for Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio. I rated it 4.5 stars Empire of Silence is a sci-fi / space opera set in the distant future, where humans have colonised the galaxy and are now fighting a war with an alien race known as the Cielcin. At the book’s opening we get a pretty strong hook - the protagonist Hadrian Marlowe is set to do terrible things in the future, killing a star and gaining the infamous moniker “The Sun Eater”. Quite amazingly this book was author Christopher Ruocchio’s debut novel, who was only 22 at the time, which is hard to believe considering the dense scope of this book. It’s the first of a 7-book series published between 2018 and 2025, and it seems it has had a more recent resurgence in popularity after being picked up on BookTube. Personally I had never heard of it, which is kind of surprising to me for how good it is. Hadrian is only in his 20s in this first book, so I suppose you will have to read the whole series to find out where it all…