Reviews - Empire of Silence

3.29k reviews for:

Empire of Silence

Christopher Ruocchio

3.98 AVERAGE

mariebigot1997's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

So here is my review of the whole book: 1) I love the book. I loved the writing, I loved the mystery with the different aliens. And I love the set up for the conflict I found it was really interesting and I’m really interested in getting to know more of this word. 2) Hadrian is the only main character where I find myself arguing with him. I will like him one chapter and then two chapters later I want to punch him in the throat and then five chapters after that I feel so bad and then six chapters after that I’m arguing with him and I’ve never experienced that before. Usually, I’ll have a main character where I either love them or hate him or I’m rooting for them or rooting against them. I’ve never been so flip-flopping with any other character in any other book I’ve read. 3) I sort of wish some things were cut out of the beginning of the book, because I felt like they really had nothing to do with where their story ended up. For example, cats and his first 2 to 3 years on this planet it had no connection. But it’s sort of built up Hadman as we know it and why he is the way that he is right now. It makes sense for us to know about Kyra and cat so we can understand how he acts with Valka. And I like how it’s not so much it to Brandon Sanderson. It’s not a 1200 page but I still feel connected with Hadrian even though it’s not 1200 pages. 4) i’m really interested to see where the rest of the stories going. I thought we would get to the main event which is him blowing up the sun in this book, but I’m very glad that we didn’t, because I don’t know if my heart can handle that. 5) I’m sort of sad that we didn’t get to see more of Anaïs or her brother. They didn’t ask for this. They didn’t ask for this life, but I don’t know they’re still a person and I know I hated her for how she was treating Hadrien like some mule to be bred to her, but she’s just a product of her environment, and I sort of wish she had a resolution to her story. Her dad just wanted the best for them because they’re so far from the center of the Empire that they’re basically forgotten and he really just wanted the best for them so I hope that she gets that. Hadrian is removed enough from her that I now feel sympathy for her. 6) i’m so sad about what happened to Gibson, and I hope at some point later down the line we at least find out what happened to this man because he didn’t deserve to go out like that. I’m so happy that is finally off this awful planet and is one step closer to leaving this stupid empire behind even though, we don’t know him.

arreis_archive's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 17%

May consider reading a recap then jumping into the next books. This is primarily background and while interesting, a bit too aimless overall. It keeps referring to future interesting events but feels like we'll never get to them.

cnnrwlf's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark slow-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

nicocaballero's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous 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

yammy42069's review against another edition

3.25

slow-paced

keggreads's review against another edition

3.0

Empire of Silence was a good read overall, and I think this series has a lot going for it, but I'm still not totally sold on it yet.

This book definitely wears its inspiration on its sleeve, there's a LOT of Dune and a LOT of Star Wars in this book, intact there was one seen early on that felt almost verbatim from the first Dune book. This isn't entirely a bad thing because so far this book has taken some of the best elements from those other sources and built on them in a very fun way, and because of that I pretty quickly got immersed in Ruocchio's world and wasn't even thinking of the comparisons.

Ruocchios shows skill at writing characters that are fleshed out with their own flaws, weaknesses, and strengths. Many of the characters in this book have already made an impression on me, and I found myself genuinely excited to read more about them. A lot of this anticipation is built from the books expert use of the Journal entry POV that is used to provide dramatic and direct foreshadowing and teases for the future.

A major weakness in this book for me was the writing of the female characters in the first ~75% of the book. Of the handful of named female characters during the majority of the book, 3 of them are love interests for the main character, and 1 Is his mother. SPOILERS FOR THE NEXT SENTENCE: Of these 3 love interests. One of them, the main character accidently takes advantage of and grows from it, and later comes to regret it, and the other dies in order to provide the main character with some cheap character growth through trauma. SPOILERS END. The later part of the book has less of this though and I'm really hopeful it will not be a problem as the series progresses, but it bothered me a bit during my read.

My only other problem with Empire Of Silence was the pacing, there were some parts where I was deeply invested and immersed in the story and other stretches that were slow and felt a bit uninspired. However I think a certain level of that needs to be expected and forgiven in a project of the scale this series sets itself out to tackle.

These truly were my only 2 major gripes with this book, and I am genuinely eager to read more, I've heard nothing but good things! Over all a 4.1 for me I think!