“Sift the sand of every world and sort the dust of space between them, and you will find not one atom of fear, nor gram of love nor dram of hatred. Yet they are there, unseen and uncertain as the smallest quanta and just as real.”
EMPIRE OF SILENCE BY CHRISTOPHER RUOCCHIO
When Empire of Silence first came out, I instantly grabbed and devoured it and completely loved it. But since I’m in the habit of starting series and taking forever to finish them, the rest of the books fell by the wayside as I continued to plunge deeper and deeper into other series. But the Sun Eater series has recently been completed, and the story has stuck with me all of these years, and I have been wanting to finish it. So I ended the year finishing a re-read of Empire of Silence, and I started the year finishing my first read of Howling Dark.
What I really love about these books are the incredible scope and size of the world that Christopher Ruocchio has created. This is space opera at its finest, layered with unique worlds, races and politics. And the story is centered around Hadrian Marlowe, a nobile who shirks the cuffs of what is constantly expected of him to live as he chooses, even though we later see him say that there is such a thing as too much freedom (one of my favorite conversations in Howling Dark).
Hadrian Marlowe has grown up believing he will inherit and follow in his father’s footsteps. But one day, his father very clearly tells him just because he is the eldest son doesn’t mean he will inherit. Hadrian can’t fathom the thought of his brother Crispin leading in his father’s stead. Hadrian dreams of being a scholiast but his father instead tells him he is destined to become one of the Chantry. This is a fate so horrible to Hadrian, he decides to do anything he can to escape it.
But in attempting to escape the life that is being forced upon him, Hadrian is forced to lose someone very important to him, and the life he imagined for himself unravels as he realizes there are consequences to every choice he makes. Hadrian gets a quick lesson in growing up, and he is forced to live a hard life, rife with the ups and downs of someone who may become more powerful than he ever imagined.
I love watching Hadrian grow through these first two books. He is a really unique character in that so much of what he does is imperfect, flawed, but he is always moving ever forward because as he states in Howling Dark, it is hard to die but it is even harder to live.
This series is once again solidifying itself as a fast favorite for me. I am completely in love with the story and the world building, and I have to know where Hadrian is headed next and what he might discover as he continues on his journey through life.
This series is truly not one you want to miss. It’s positively brilliant and perfect epic. A great way to start off your reading year.
Of Worlds Forgotten 
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