Empire of Silence

I started off with an immediate disliking to this book. It just had an initial feeling of superiority, like Christopher Ruocchio was constantly trying to use the ten longest words that he could find to describe something and then quirk an eyebrow at you as you try to unravel what exactly he meant. It wasn’t a good start, and if I’m honest, it nearly made me quit and go back to something a little more palatable. That said, I stuck with it, and oh golly gosh I’m glad that I did.

I’m a man that prefers good commercial fiction to prose-heavy literary fiction, and I’m not afraid to say it. I listen to books to be entertained, and by a couple hours into the very wordy Empire of Silence, entertained I most certainly was. Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll say a little about the novel. It’s the start of a first-person saga, told by the main character himself as he writes his memoirs many many maaaaaaany years later. So from the start you know our protagonist, Hadrian Marlowe, is going to be important… like, in the galactic sense. The book starts with him as a young man desperately trying to escape the fate his politicking father has planned for him, and after that, things start taking a series of unfortunate turns.

Now, what I like about Hadrian is that he’s smart without being infallible, strong without being a superman, and he is a man who is really trying his best to dig himself out of his situation in a very believable manner. However, it’s the host of other characters that really bring the story to life. The people that Hadrian meets along the way come from all walks of life, and Hadrian’s perspective on them and this futuristic/theocratic/feudal fuelled world that Ruocchio has created gives our hero a sense of… well, if not true righteousness, but at least enough respect from us to be rooting for him at every step. Moreover, with the book being written as Hadrian’s memoir, we keep getting little snippets of information about characters we’ve just met relating to their future exploits both in this novel and in what I pray will be the rest of the series. This is done in such a clever way that you’re often just left salivating at the potential futures that these characters could have every time they are mentioned afterwards. It’s a damned fine technique for keeping a listener hooked if done correctly, and here it worked like a charm on me.

The book has excitement, a few decent action scenes to keep your blood pumping, and is all kinds of tense at just the right moments. The extra-terrestrial species that we meet are a particular delight, with both the utterly alien and the disconcertingly similar shown to us in contexts that leaves you entirely unsure as to who the goodies and baddies are. Well, you’re pretty sure you know, but then you think about it some more and then you’re not so sure. The stand-out moment of this book, for me personally, was the ending. And no, I don’t mean an action-packed, all guns blazing climax to a thrill-toting adventure, because that wasn’t the case. I mean the relatively calm epilogue. Just the way it comes together with such simplicity, weaving in so many aspects of things that we’ve seen throughout the novel in the most (here comes my gold star term for any book) SATISFYING and yet understated way. The whole novel is class, from just after the slightly hoity-toity start all the way to the last word. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, far more so than I thought I would after the first 20 minutes.

As for the narration, John Lee’s near-thespian style of speech didn’t help with my initial thoughts on the book, but once we got into the swing of things he completely made it his own, and the more I listened, the more I realised that he was the absolute perfect man for the job.

Personal rating: 4 stars

Professional rating: 4.25 stars

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