This has been one of my most anticipated books/series for a while now. I've previously had massive expectations, but recently became unsure if I would actually like Ruocchio's space opera based on some mixed reviews. I really didn't want this to be another case of a tremendously hyped series letting me down (Jade City). However, I'm happy to say the hype seems merited for Sun Eater. 

The first page and half or so immediately grabbed my attention. I was honestly chuckling in amazement because it presents so much promise and intrigue for Hadrian's arc throughout the course of the series. I was already fairly invested in seeing the following books through just to experience the kind of devastating deity Hadrian comes to be. Sun Eater seems exactly like the kind of grand and intricate sci-fi I've been craving recently.

My favorite part of this book is overwhelmingly the worldbuilding. Christopher Ruocchio has a brilliantly creative and expansive mind. He's set such a massive scope for this universe and I felt it immediately. The universe is lived in, futuristic, treacherous. You see enormous class differences, the operations and traditions of royalty. The political machinations and subtlety is fantastic. The tech is cool and echoes other sci-fi worlds that Ruocchio clearly took inspiration from. I LOVE the Cielcin and all the obscure extraterrestrial elements explored and introduced. The Chantry is interesting in their censorship and violent enforcement of religion. All of the worldbuilding is simply so so sooooooo good. I was completely captivated by it.

And to further address Ruocchio's inspirations...many people have deemed this series highly derivative or too closely inspired to other works of fiction. Dune, Book of the New Sun, and Name of the Wind being the ones I hear the most about. There's surely some Star Wars and the film Gladiator in here too. But it really doesn't feel derivative to me. Sure, Ruocchio has his own version of "Fear is the mind-killer" from Dune, but this book is definitely not Dune. It feels thoroughly different to me, nor does it feel derivative of Star Wars and Gladiator. Now I have yet to read Book of the New Sun and Name of the Wind, so I can't speak on how closely written this book is to those. It surely could be more derivative in regards to those, but it seems highly unlikely.

As for Ruocchio's actual writing, he is quite the wordsmith sometimes. His prose was overall quite good, and I found myself copying down several passages in my notes as I was reading. I did find the dialogue to be pretty clunky early on, mostly when Hadrian was talking with Crispin. But the dialogue smoothed out nicely for the most part as the book progressed. I also had a few instances where perhaps Ruocchio's prose was a bit too distracting from whatever he was trying to describe, making it difficult for me to visualize the scene in my head. That was mostly during the Calagah section though, otherwise he was great at painting the picture of a scene. And sometimes that difficulty is just a general sci-fi/beginning-new-series type of thing for me where I'm trying to absorb everything I can (and I certainly was, I read this very slowly lol).

Ruocchio's character work was good as well. Hadrian is the standout as he should be considering he's the narrator. And it's clear in his narration that he's a different person than his younger self. While younger Hadrian is a good character, full of warm intentions but plenty of flaws, it's really the clear growth of his older self that propelled me through the story. It made it easier to handle younger Hadrian's stupidity and naivety. Even through his melodramatics, narrator Hadrian showed self awareness, humility, and regret that promises me he'll be someone who matures and thoroughly sees the world. Someone that will be shaped by tragedy and triumph to come. It promises me that I will root both for and against him. I was quite impressed by Ruocchio's manner in assuring this type of complexity from Hadrian, and I'm confident he'll deliver. Now besides Valka, who's amazing, the side characters are not quite as strong. But there are some standouts like Pallino, Switch, Sir Elomas, and especially Gibson and Uvanari. I also greatly look forward to getting to know Bassander Lin and Jinan Azhar as Hadrian points out in his narration that these two are eventually a large part of his journey.

As for some other criticisms, the pacing was a bit erratic. There was a slower portion around the middle that was not the easiest to read because of the meandering and slower nature of the writing in that section, but it was still an important piece of Hadrian's development in this book. And this all makes sense considering Ruocchio never plotted the book out. But I did eventually find myself simply so enthralled by the worldbuilding and Hadrian's narration that the pacing didn't bother me. Additionally, parts of the ending kinda lost me. Perhaps there was a little convenience involved. But it was still a good ending; I couldn't put the book down for the final 100 pages. So many revelations and some tricky maneuvering by Hadrian.

Altogether, Empire of Silence is a great first book to the Sun Eater series. Rolling with a 4 star rating for now, but it could go up in the future, maybe as soon as tomorrow (it did). I think I've said most of what I wanted to for this review, although it feels like I'm leaving something out. And this whole thing might be more disorganized than I was hoping. Oh well. I'm just extremely excited to continue the series and exceedingly fascinated to see what becomes of Hadrian. Plus I hear Ruocchio's writing only improves going forward, which I very much look forward to. Onto Lesser Devil and then Howling Dark (have I mentioned how awesome the titles of these books are?).