Take a photo of a barcode or cover
tkubas1 's review for:
Empire of Silence
by Christopher Ruocchio
The reason I read this book is because I saw Dune Part 2 in theaters and was looking for discussions about the book versus the movie. I found a two-hour video interview with the author of this book, where he discussed the nuances of Dune and why he loved it. He described this book as inspired by Dune, but with his own twist on its core themes. When you read this book, you can tell he is a big fan. The shields are the same, the main character is Paul-esque, there’s mining of a rare element, and an evil Catholic church substitute. It’s all an homage, in my opinion. Some people criticize the book for this; to me, it’s not a big deal. It’s kind of like if you loved Star Wars and characters in your book used “Energy Rapiers” instead of lightsabers. Even though those elements exist, the story is very different.
The story feels like a pilot episode of a series stretched out to 24 hours of audiobook listening time. That is my main criticism of the book. At the end, you will feel a bit like, “Oh, I get it. The whole point of the book is to set up the main story of the series.” I also felt that having the protagonist in a gladiator arena was a bit derivative of Dune. However, once you move to the second half of the story, I found it much more interesting.
I really liked the world-building. It seems like this book is only scratching the surface of the universe. Billions of worlds were mentioned, which was kind of hard to imagine in a good way. I also liked how the romance sections were handled—not very cheesy, but subtle. Even though I only gave it three stars, I definitely want to read the next one at some point.
The story feels like a pilot episode of a series stretched out to 24 hours of audiobook listening time. That is my main criticism of the book. At the end, you will feel a bit like, “Oh, I get it. The whole point of the book is to set up the main story of the series.” I also felt that having the protagonist in a gladiator arena was a bit derivative of Dune. However, once you move to the second half of the story, I found it much more interesting.
I really liked the world-building. It seems like this book is only scratching the surface of the universe. Billions of worlds were mentioned, which was kind of hard to imagine in a good way. I also liked how the romance sections were handled—not very cheesy, but subtle. Even though I only gave it three stars, I definitely want to read the next one at some point.