Reviews - Empire of Silence

3.24k reviews for:

Empire of Silence

Christopher Ruocchio

3.98 AVERAGE

asvistoun's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

kdprice's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 5%

Too slow for me.

allcapspyrex's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is a very very strong debut. Although the similarities and inspirations from Dune and other places were a bit blatant some of the time, the universe of Empire of Silence really feels unique with its own flavour. Rucchio has a clear talent for writing characters and social systems to feel human in a way I haven't often seen. This is one I strongly recommend to anyone who enjoys space opera style stories.

sleepysb's review against another edition

3.5

dark tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

davien_b's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

theoverbookedshelf's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

thechampion007's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark funny reflective slow-paced

I have been putting off this book for a while. Every time I heard about this series it was wildly mixed reviews. Either it was going to change my life and be the next Red Rising or I’d dnf the first book.

Well, I finished the first book and it was an effort. The prose was fantastic, Hadrian’s inner voice is delightful. He is thoughtful and refreshingly bad at as many things as he is good. But damn, the plot. Usually you’d want a graph of a plot to look like a healthy heart rate monitor. Moments of extreme excitement and moments of calm. This book was a graph of radio waves. Barely any bumps and long between the moments of excitement. For the majority of it we have no idea what the goal is for Hadrian or where he’s going. When I put the book down, I had no inclination or incentive to pick it back up beyond just finishing it.

The setting was interesting but rather jarring with how frequently the worlds are mixed between old fashioned sword fights and then takeout containers with sandwiches and potato chips, or the Spanish Inquisition having a KGB like presence. Not to mention the space travel being more of a hindrance to the plot than a tool.

“Are you a walking literary cliche?” “Yes,” I snapped, “Ask anyone who knows me.”

The characters beyond Hadrian weren’t all that exciting and don’t even get me started on the various botched romances with this poor boy. Hadrian doesn’t have consistent friends and he can’t talk to a pretty woman to save his life, let alone keep one in his life (through death do they part or unfortunate circumstantial separation). The romance was painfully written and should have been left out, both for the lack of plot relevance and awkwardness. Though the first one was hilarious.

The last 100 pages felt like we finally had a direction, but it came after 600 pages of build up. While I’m not opposed to this style, a la BrandoSando, a Sanderlanche this was not. The pacing just finally hit a decent pace and we attained a goal going forward. There were not hints laid out from the beginning of the book, there were not pieces coming together. It was just simply a step along the journey, finally more entertaining than vague melodrama.

Overall I don’t know if I will continue with the series, many say it picks up at the end of book 2. But that’s another 700 pages to get through.