Empire of Silence cover art

Empire of Silence

The universe-spanning science fiction epic

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Empire of Silence

By: Christopher Ruocchio
Narrated by: John Lee
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About this listen

Hadrian Marlowe, privileged first son of a Duke, was destined for greatness, and he has become a legend. The Sun-Slayer. The Breaker of Sieges. The Crusher of Civilisations. His is a story which defined the course of worlds.

This novel is not that story - not the only laid out in the history books, charting the 300 years of his life. Rather this is Hadrian's story, told in his own worlds. Of being passed over by his father for rule in favour of his younger brother and sent to a military academy against his wishes. Of being kidnapped in transit to that planet and sold into slavery on a planet at the edge of our war against the Cielcen...and of how he used their eventual attack to claw his way back into the dangers and opportunities of politics.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2018 Christopher Ruocchio (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group Adventure Dystopian Military Science Fiction Space Opera Fiction Cyberpunk

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All stars
Most relevant  
Beautiful, epic language. Of all the books I’ve read or listened to to date, this and Shantaram are the ones that made me wish I could write as beautifully.
The story implies greatness off the get go and that really pulls the reader in. The world seems large and interesting.
The main problems to me are that for readers who are enticed by greatness - we should get some tastes of it. In every encounter the protagonist is just normal and full of flaws and no genius. Also, the ‘poet’s exposition’ is nice in general, but when there’s a big fight scene for example - the fight scene bleeds out the adrenaline because it feels broken up into multiple episodes because of the tangents I’d thought and narrative.
I’m definitely going on to book two and hope the author just gets better at these points - if so this could really be something great.
As I said before I’ll say again - absolutely stunning and beautiful writing.

Scents if The Name of the Wind but not enough peaks

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The whole read felt like a set up that never happened. I enjoyed it all the same.

Intriguing but nothing new

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This book has jumped to the top of my most favourite series and I have only read book 1

amazing

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If you've read Red Rising of are a fan of space opera with that fantasy edge, this is the one for you. I loved it.

fantastic space opera/fantasy

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I got this book after a recommendation for the series. I was told the first book was slow and that the rest of the series gets much better. And the first book is very slow to get going, it almost feels like a huge prologue. The first half of the book is quite boring in all honesty, at times I thought about giving up. The second half although still hard going started for get more interesting as the stakes rose. It does give me hope for the rest of the series though because it shows a lot of promise. The author has a very flowery prose that is reminiscent of name of the wind. The universe in which is set is very interesting. And the main character is good intentioned but very flawed. So it has left me wanting to try the next book despite some of the flaws it has.

Slow burner with some promise

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the narration sounds pompous and over theatrical, the tempo and volume variations in almost every other sentence was distracting and irksome.

variation in speech rate and volume are distracting

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Decent enough story line apart from the fact it feels like only a set up for the rest of the story

Decent

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futuristic fantasy in syfi worlds galaxies and planet.
firstly i love john lee as a narrators which is what drew me to this book to start with.
i love mr roucchios sense of humour. without giving and spoilers away .if you know your ancient civilizations you will get the play on names from messopatainia to the normands but also other tv references to names like the vulcans (but totally unrelated)theres even a luke of the stars or something that reminded me of starwars.
this is a fabulous book .

different

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Slow burner but some epic moments! Can't wait for the next books! I read Dune earlier this year... really enjoyed it however I'm more excited to continue this series.

Beautiful character building. Epic Sci-Fi Fantasy!

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A unique take on a space epic brought to life by an amazing narrator who captures the spirit of the book perfectly

A superb first installment

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