By: Christopher Ruocchio
Narrated by: Samuel Roukin
Length: 26 hrs and 6 mins
Series: Sun Eater, Book 1

Oh my, what a wonderful world to enter into. I continue to find myself drawn to stories that consciously echo the Roman Empire; Empire of Silence uses that familiar imperial frame to great effect, providing a stable foundation on which a vast, imaginative, and believable universe can be built. The setting feels at once ancient and futuristic, formal yet alive.

The book is expansive in scope. In practice, it reads almost like three novels woven into one: an origin story, a coming of age narrative, and the opening movement of a much larger epic. Above all, the prose is beautiful. Ruocchio writes with care and rhythm, clearly in love with language, and that affection shows on nearly every page. The result is a novel that invites not just immersion in its world, but appreciation of how that world is expressed.