Kingdoms of Death

Kingdom of death is the fourth outing into the deep, dark universe of the Sun Eater series, and this one really does hit that dark aspect hard. The story follows Hadrian Marlowe as he continues his war against the monstrous Cielcin and tries to help humanity organise themselves into an effective defence. This book has some highs, and some lows—a lot of lows—but altogether is another brilliantly written book in a series that writes at the level of literary fiction but (for the most part) keeps firing at a brilliant pace.

The book gets off to a great start, throwing us straight into a battle between the imperial human forces and a Cielcin. As I have said in reviews of this series before, the combat is written fantastically, both in the foundations upon which it is based and the actual skill with which the scenes are penned. This is a universe where personal shields are common, meaning that a lot of ranged weapons simply bounce off the combatants, meaning melee combat is back on the cards. We get this wonderful mix of sci-fi guns and futuristically feudal blades, and the sci-fi elements aren’t just a classic blaster or ray gun. No, they are believable weapons that have had a lot of thought put into both the way that they would be constructed and the methods through which they would be employed. The combat in this series is some of the most plausible I have ever found in sci-fi without being bogged down in overly technical jargon. It’s great. I love it.

The next standout aspect of this series is the universe creation. In this book we are introduced to another realm of man, the Commonwealth, and I have to say, this is a wonderfully fleshed out polity that is both recognisable in its overtly communist nature but entirely original in the way that that nature has been turned up to a million. The Commonwealth doesn’t just provide a great backdrop for some dazzling storytelling. It is in of itself a wonder of a thought experiment given tangible form. We also get to see a lot more of the ins and outs of Cielcin society in this book, and I can honestly say that they may be one of the most truly yet entirely believably evil races I have come across in fiction. They aren’t just evil for evil’s sake. No, there are reasons for everything they do, and even when those reasons don’t make sense to us or simply seem too abhorrent for us to believe to be part of a spacefaring civilisation, those actions here are entirely believable because of the fact that Ruocchio has crafted their utterly alien culture in such a way as their actions make sense from their perspective. The society of the Cielcin has been crafted with such care and diligence that no matter what terrible, horrific things they do, I completely believe that they are doing them and doing them for a practical reason within a society that shares just enough aspects of our own to be recognisable but in so many other ways is entirely anathema to everything that any human would consider moral or good. They are superb bad guys. Bad guys you don’t just hate but actively fear, and for good reason.

Regarding the story itself, it is very much a tale in three pieces. A fantastic beginning, a brilliant, heart-warming ending, and… the middle. Oh god, that middle, and it takes up about half of the book. Let me explain. First off, I love this series. The writing if phenomenal. It makes you feel things on every end of the spectrum, from nail-biting action to deep hammer-blows of loss and love. Truly, Ruocchio is a master of his craft and may well be one of the modern sci-fi greats. That said, I have some serious issues with this book. As ever, I want to avoid spoilers, so I am going to be as vague as possible. So as I said, the start is brilliant, and not just the opening but the first third or so. It is great. Nice slice of action, a fair amount of galactic politicking, just the sort of sci-fi fuel that gets my nerd engine revved. Great. Then we get the middle, and the middle is, quite frankly, horrific, and I mean that in the sense of the events that occur, not the quality of writing or structure of the story. We get what amounts to maybe eight hours (maybe more) of this audiobook effectively being Hadrian being tortured. No let-up. No breather. Just when you think things might get better, nope, it was all a lie and things are actually worse. It was emotionally exhausting to the point where, despite loving this series so much, I gave real consideration to giving up on it. It was awful. It made me feel awful. Everything about it was awful. Now, I get that having a good lick of darkness in a book can really add to its worth. I understand that completely, but for a third of the entire book being constant emotion gut punches over and over again, it was too much. Does it make the eventual highs that come after taste all the sweeter? Well, honestly, no, or at least not enough to justify the how emotionally damaged I felt for hour after hour after hour. And more than this, when some really bad things happen afterwards, things that should have gotten a deep, painful emotional response from me, I felt next to nothing. I was so emotionally drained from the constant pain that the parts that were clearly supposed to be pivotal, emotionally charged heartbreak afterwards got the psychological equivalent of a shrug from me, so not only did this massive section of the book prove to be unenjoyable, it actually sabotaged the events afterwards. This middle section was very well written from a technical stance, and if it weren’t crammed full of additional information that fleshed out the Sun Eater universe in brilliant ways, I would have stopped listening to the book. But the long and short of it was that the middle section of the book nearly ruined the entire experience for me. The ending of the novel was lovely though, so there’s that I suppose.

In short, this book was brilliant at the start and finish, but I feel that if Ruocchio had decided to cut that middle section in half, then it would have not only saved we listeners from the emotional exhaustion that it caused but also not numbed those psychological neurones so much that we also would have felt a lot more when Ruocchio clearly wanted us to. A good book, and a decent addition to the series, but that middle section undermined what would have otherwise been the truly great listen I was expecting considering the calibre of the previous novels.

As for narration, once again Samuel Roukin knocked it out of the park. There were times when I completely forgot that all those amazing voices were coming from one may. The Cielcin in particular were phenomenal.

Personal Score: 4.0 stars

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