Contemporary Authors

• Empire of Silence ( "Sun Eater Chronicle" series) DAW Books (New York, NY), 2018

• Star Destroyers - 2018 Baen , https://smile.amazon.com/Star-Destroyers-Christopher-Ruocchio/dp/1481483099/ref=sr_1_3_atc_badge_A2N1U4I2KOS032_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1537760592&sr=8-3&keywords=Ruocchio%2C+Christopher
• Space Pioneers - 2018 Baen, https://smile.amazon.com/Space-Pioneers-Hank-Davis/dp/1481483609/ref=sr_1_4_twi_mas_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537760592&sr=8-4&keywords=Ruocchio%2C+Christopher

• Amazon - https://smile.amazon.com/Space-Pioneers-Hank-Davis/dp/1481483609/ref=sr_1_4_twi_mas_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537760592&sr=8-4&keywords=Ruocchio%2C+Christopher

  Christopher Ruocchio is the author of the Sun Eater Chronicle, a space opera series from DAW Books, the first novel of which, Empire of Silence, is available now. He is also the Assistant Editor at Baen Books and a graduate of North Carolina State University. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

• Penguin Random House - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2144557/christopher-ruocchio

  Christopher Ruocchio
  Photo of Christopher Ruocchio

  Photo: © Paul Ruocchio
  About the Author

  Christopher Ruocchio is the author of The Sun Eater, a space opera fantasy series from DAW Books, as well as the Assistant Editor at Baen Books, where he co-edited the military SF anthology Star Destroyers, as well as the upcoming Space Pioneers, a collection of Golden Age reprints showcasing tales of human exploration. He is a graduate of North Carolina State University, where a penchant for self-destructive decision-making caused him to pursue a bachelor’s in English Rhetoric with a minor in Classics. An avid student of history, philosophy, and religion, Christopher has been writing since he was eight years old and sold his first book —Empire of Silence— at twenty-two. The Sun Eater series in available from Gollancz in the UK, and has been translated into French and German.

  Christopher lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he spends most of his time hunched over a keyboard writing. He may be found on both Facebook and Twitter at @TheRuocchio.

• SFE - http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/ruocchio_christopher

  August 28, 2018
  Ruocchio, Christopher

  Tagged: Author

  (? - ) US editor and author whose Sun Eater sequence beginning with Empire of Silence (2018) ambitiously invokes former versions of the long-breathed dynastic epic set in the context of the Galactic Empire. Earlier writers and their work conspicuously addressed include Gordon R Dickson, whose Dorsai series features a central protagonist with similar skills and family-romance complications; Frank Herbert, whose Dune series provides examples of worldbuilding in the context of galaxy-spanning commerce; and Gene Wolfe, the narrative structure and tone of whose Book of the New Sun is intricately assimilated within the coils of Ruocchio's narrative, which is couched Severian-like as a confessional manuscript read at some future time, and whose first-person narrator, avoiding the chance he may become a torturer, undertakes a lengthy hegira (see Planetary Romance) before assuming his autarchical role. The overall story involves a complex centuries-long war between Homo sapiens and the Alien Cielcin, loathed for their anthropophagy (see Xenobiology), but (as typical in epics of this sort) far more complexly worthy of respect than might have been expected. The style of the tale – perhaps rather ponderously emulous of Wolfe's immediately recognizable use of archaic terms to convey thematic and narrative abysses – promises much, as did the timbre of earlier epics whose relationship to their models is similarly close, like David Zindell's Neverness (1988) and Robin Hobb's Farseer sequence. If it is sustained, Ruocchio's sequence may stand comparison with some of its predecessors.

  His work as editor includes an Original Anthology, Star Destroyers (anth 2018) with Tony Daniel. [JC]
  Christopher Ruocchio

  born

  died

  works

  series

  Sun Eater

  Empire of Silence (New York: DAW Books, 2018) [Sun Eater: hb/]

  works as editor

  Star Destroyers (New York: Baen Books, 2018) with Tony Daniel [anth: pb/Kurt Miller]

  links

  Internet Speculative Fiction Database external link

  Previous versions of this entry

  24/08/2018

• Christopher Ruocchio, - http://sollanempire.com/

  About the Author

  Christopher Ruocchio is the author of The Sun Eater, a space opera fantasy series from DAW Books, as well as the Assistant Editor at Baen Books, where he co-edited the military SF anthology Star Destroyers, as well as the upcoming Space Pioneers, a collection of Golden Age reprints showcasing tales of human exploration. He is a graduate of North Carolina State University, where a penchant for self-destructive decision making caused him to pursue a bachelor’s in English Rhetoric with a minor in Classics. An avid student of history, philosophy, and religion, Christopher has been writing since he was eight-years-old and sold his first book —Empire of Silence— at twenty-two. The Sun Eater series in available from Gollancz in the UK, and has been translated into French and German.

  Christopher lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he spends most of his time hunched over a keyboard writing. When not writing, he splits his time between his family, procrastinating with video games, and his friend’s boxing gym. He may be found on both Facebook and Twitter at @TheRuocchio.

QUOTED: "Readers who like a slow-building story with a strong character focus will find everything they're looking for."

Empire of Silence
Publishers Weekly.
265.22 (May 28, 2018): p78. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Empire of Silence
Christopher Ruocchio. DAW, $26 (624p) ISBN 978-0-7564-1300-2
Space opera fans will savor the rich details of Ruocchio's far-future debut, which sets the scene for a complicated series. The Earth is long dead, but humans have spread to many other planets, where they now practice a heavy-handed, dangerous religion. Humans are also at war with vicious aliens. In the frame story, protagonist Hadrian Marlowe, onetime presumed heir to an empire, explains why he is now waiting to be hanged in front of all the worlds. His is a gritty, bloody, mostly sad journey: he starts out wealthy and powerful, wakes up one day on a planet he's never heard of, is reduced to living in the streets, and eventually becomes a lord again. At times the heavy description and flashbacks reduce the momentum, and there's very little action--a bit surprising given the backdrop of interstellar war and religion-mandated torture--but readers who like a slow-building story with a strong character focus will find everything they're looking for in this series opener. Agent: Shatvna McCarthy, McCarthy Agency. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Empire of Silence." Publishers Weekly, 28 May 2018, p. 78. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A541638815/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=aee0e0cc. Accessed 23 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541638815

QUOTED: "The anthology is a worthy addition to a long tradition of ship-based fiction."
"recommended."

1 of 2 9/23/18, 10:40 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Star Destroyers: Big Ships. Blowing Things Up
Publishers Weekly.
265.6 (Feb. 5, 2018): p47. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Star Destroyers: Big Ships. Blowing Things Up. Edited by Tony Daniel and Christopher Ruocchio. Baen, $ 16 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-4814-8309-4
Daniel and Ruocchio, both Baen editors, gather stories of giant spaceships at war, at peace, and in the often-gray areas between. David Drake's "Superweapon" and Mark L. Van Name's "Another Solution" explore the dangers of taking artificially intelligent warships into battle. Michael Z. Williamson's "Hate in the Darkness" is a tense duel in which agonizingly slow attacks across vast distances can still seem all too swift. There are plenty of good military stories to make martial science fiction fans happy, but more ingenious are the tales of (sometimes tenuous) peacetime and other dangerous jobs that keep civilization running. In the excellent "Try Not to Kill Us All" by Joelle Presby, the , most dangerous work in space isn't going into battle, but cleaning up extraterrestrial trash. The anthology is a worthy addition to a long tradition of ship-based fiction, and its authors portray captains, arcane astrogators, and civilian child passengers with equal depth. It's recommended for fans of military SF and space adventure. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Star Destroyers: Big Ships. Blowing Things Up." Publishers Weekly, 5 Feb. 2018, p. 47. Book
Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526810400/GPS?u=schlager& sid=GPS&xid=38c93ef3. Accessed 23 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A526810400
2 of 2 9/23/18, 10:40 PM

• SFF World
  https://www.sffworld.com/2018/05/empire-of-silence-by-christopher-ruocchio/
  Word count: 1176

  QUOTED: "Empire of Silence is clearly a debut, but celebrates all of the joy and the sheer enthusiasm of old-fashioned Space Opera, by mixing up lots of elements that readers will know and love. Whilst there are times when it overreaches itself, and there some contradictive coincidences that may make the reader wince, generally it’s a book that’s a lot of fun, engaging enough to allow the reader to ignore its deficiencies."

  mpire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio
  Mark Yon May 19, 2018 0 Comment

  For those who like big, fat, immersive and meaty SF, combined with touches of Fantasy, this one ticks all the boxes.

  From the publisher: ‘Hadrian Marlowe, a man revered as a hero and despised as a murderer, chronicles his tale in the galaxy-spanning debut of the Sun Eater series, merging the best of space opera and epic fantasy.

  It was not his war.

  On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe started down a path that could only end in fire. The galaxy remembers him as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives–even the Emperor himself–against Imperial orders.

  But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.

  Fleeing his father and a future as a torturer, Hadrian finds himself stranded on a strange, backwater world. Forced to fight as a gladiator and navigate the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, he will find himself fighting a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.’

  This is one of the most enjoyable SF debuts I’ve read in a long while. Think Dune mixed with Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer series, but for a contemporary readership. The book sprawls though Hadrian’s youth and shows us his slide from nobility to warrior, adventurer and antihero and brings us up to the point where he earns the name ‘Sun Killer’.

  The first part of the book shows us Marcus as a young man being tutored with his brother Crispin in the family home – a huge castle type edifice, obviously. Like Dune, it’s a science-fictional world but with a fantasy-esque setting – characters are referred to as ‘Sir’, there’s scholars, clerics and warriors, but also atomic weapons and signs of an AI takeover in the past, which reminded me rather of Frank Herbert’s series. In Empire of Silence there’s also a three-hundred year old war going on between humans and the alien Cielcin. Whilst the war seems to be far away, Marcus’s father is attempting to continue his extraction of uranium for spacecraft fuel, a profitable enterprise but one with little regard for the slave-type workers. As the eldest son he rather expects to be the family heir but, to his shock, finds that his more compliant younger brother is being groomed instead. Disillusioned, Marcus runs away to space to escape the family and make his own way in the world rather than rely on the family business.

  This then leads to the second phase of the novel, as our hero finds himself in the wider world. Before being exiled to a position in the religious Chantry, which he hates, Hadrian’s mother arranges for him to be smuggled away to a new life. Of course, things do not go well, and Hadrian finds himself abandoned and penniless on a backward planet. The only way he can manage to leave the planet is by earning enough money to buy a spaceship. He does this by fighting in the local gladiator arena, and whilst there encounters his first real Cielcin, a prisoner in the arena’s cells.

  The Cielcin are not the horrors that propaganda would portray. Instead, in the final part of the book, Hadrian finds that they are intelligent and complex, wanting peace in the centuries-long war as much as the humans. Hadrian finds himself defending the enigmatic aliens against their human enemies, which leads to a set up with a cliffhanger ending.

  This is a book not afraid to mix things up. There are Roman-esque fights with laser weapons, space battles, strange aliens, swordfights and capes, strange aliens and space marines. Old fashioned weapons mix with new, and this future history combines Renaissance-style societies with Romanesque architecture, and hints at future AI apocalypses and ancient cultures. Whilst it is related to that old idea of civilizations falling and rising over a long history, and the societal fragmentation that can occur over light-years, it does seem at times that this is a plot with everything thrown in.

  You like medieval-esque Fantasy? How about a society that still has knights, Dukes and call each other ‘Sir’, surrounded by Renaissance-baroque architecture? That fights with swords and blasters?

  Or for SF fans, how about seeing planets at war, with aliens and armoured soldiers, so beloved by lovers of Star Wars?

  OK. The book scores low on originality, although it’s done fairly well. I might go as far as saying that it’s actually rather impressive, even if there are times when seasoned readers may recognise themes from other films and novels (Dune’s battle shields, Star Wars’ interrogator machine, more than a touch of Alien) and the side-stories become rather convenient. But for readers who want battles in space with swords, buddy bromances, space aliens, galactic politics and yes – even romance, this is a heady concoction. Whilst it may be a little too self-conscious, it’s also ambitious and, though it overreaches itself at times, the overall cumulative effect is rather good. The ending leaves it clear that things are about to get bigger and messier.

  It’s been a while since I’ve been able to immerse myself into a big SF book. Whilst not without issues, Empire of Silence is so engaging that I’ve been able to overlook its faults. It won me over. This is one not to think about too deeply, but instead just enjoy the ride.

  Empire of Silence is clearly a debut, but celebrates all of the joy and the sheer enthusiasm of old-fashioned Space Opera, by mixing up lots of elements that readers will know and love. Whilst there are times when it overreaches itself, and there some contradictive coincidences that may make the reader wince, generally it’s a book that’s a lot of fun, engaging enough to allow the reader to ignore its deficiencies.

  Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio

  Published by Gollancz, June 2018

  624 pages

  ISBN: 9781409168195

  Review by Mark Yon

  Share this post:
  https://www.sffworld.com/2018/05/empire-of-silence-by-christopher-ruocchio/

• Civilian Reader
  https://civilianreader.com/2018/07/02/interview-with-christopher-ruocchio/
  Word count: 2289

  QUOTED: "Empire of Silence is the first book of four recounting the story of Hadrian Marlowe, a man who saved humanity from a race of genocidal aliens called the Cielcin—but at the cost of several billion human lives (to say nothing of the dead aliens)."
  It’s written in memoir fashion ... as a much older Hadrian recounts his journey through this massive, interstellar empire as he contends simultaneously with the corruption of his own society and the greater threat of the Cielcin invaders. There are also hints that his entire life and the war itself may only be part of a larger, higher game that Hadrian himself still doesn’t fully understand."
  "My Sollan Empire is part Trajan’s Rome, part Justinian’s Byzantium, and part Victoria’s Britain, with a smattering of Qing, Mauryan, and Imperial Japanese influences."

  Interview with CHRISTOPHER RUOCCHIO
  July 2, 2018 Civilian Reader Interview, UncategorizedChristopher Ruocchio, DAW Books, Empire of Silence, Gollancz, Most Anticipated 2018, Sci-Fi, Sun Eater

  RuocchioC-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Christopher Ruocchio?

  I am the author of Empire of Silence, a new space opera/epic fantasy out in July. I am also the Assistant Editor for Baen Books, where I have edited the military SF anthology Star Destroyers and the upcoming Space Pioneers. I sold my first novel — this novel — at age 22. I graduated from North Carolina State University, where I studied English Rhetoric and Classics. I am a boxer, and former fencer, and the owner of half a suit of replica first century Roman armor. I worked as a waiter for seven years, during which time I wrote and paid my way through college at the expense of any sort of social life. I remain an enthusiastic student, and am blessed with what I consider the world’s greatest family, a lovely girlfriend, and better friends than one of my stormy disposition perhaps deserves.

  RuocchioC-SE1-EmpireOfSilenceUK

  UK Cover

  Your debut novel, Empire of Silence, will be published by Gollancz in July. It looks really interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

  My goal was to write a space opera with the epic style and scope of a high fantasy. My publishers have compared it to Dune and The Name of the Wind, which is staggeringly high praise and I hope that I can live up to even a tenth of it. Empire of Silence is the first book of four recounting the story of Hadrian Marlowe, a man who saved humanity from a race of genocidal aliens called the Cielcin — but at the cost of several billion human lives (to say nothing of the dead aliens). It’s written in memoir fashion, hence the comparison to Mr. Rothfuss, as a much older Hadrian recounts his journey through this massive, interstellar empire as he contends simultaneously with the corruption of his own society and the greater threat of the Cielcin invaders. There are also hints that his entire life and the war itself may only be part of a larger, higher game that Hadrian himself still doesn’t fully understand.

  What inspired you to write the novel and series? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?

  History and literature mostly. I’m a great admirer of history, by and large (so many people seem to despise it these days). As a classics student, I am deeply influenced by Greek and especially Roman history and literature. My Sollan Empire is part Trajan’s Rome, part Justinian’s Byzantium, and part Victoria’s Britain, with a smattering of Qing, Mauryan, and Imperial Japanese influences. I read a lot of classic literature, as well. I’m one of those dinosaurs who still holds to the idea that there is a literary canon (although I simultaneously despise those cretins who would limit that canon to works of European extraction). I’m a great fan of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, but also of works like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Ramayana.

  In addition to these and to SF/F writers like Tolkien, Herbert, and Bujold, I grew up playing a large number of Japanese RPGs and reading a lot of manga. The Legend of Zelda was a gateway for me, but video games like Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, and Lost Odyssey were a huge influence on my development as a storyteller, and one which I think sets me apart from many of my contemporaries.

  RuocchioC-SE1-EmpireOfSilenceUS

  US/Canada Cover

  How were you introduced to genre fiction?

  My parents showed me the original Star Wars films when I was about three. I wasn’t allowed to watch most television programs growing up, so I would watch the original trilogy night after night. Then The Lord of the Rings films started coming out when I was about 8 and I was doomed. I struggled to read the book so young, so my parents got me the audiobooks, which — like Star Wars — I would immediately restart the moment I finished. I honestly must have listened to Tolkien’s work 60 or 70 times growing up.

  How do you like being a writer and working within the publishing industry?

  Well, it makes for some long days, but it’s been extremely educational. Publishers can seem like black boxes to new authors, and having worked now for Baen Books for three years I’ve gotten an excellent look at how things work inside that box, which has helped to temper any anxiety I might have over the process. I’m trying to be the kind of author I’d like to work with as an editor, and vice versa. Mostly, though, I’ve enjoyed meeting all sorts of people. It’s been an absolute privilege to work with writers like Lois McMaster Bujold, David Weber, and Eric Flint. It was all a bit crazy at the beginning, though. I sold my book and got my job in the same week, which was almost too much excitement, as you might imagine. Still, it’s been a remarkable experience and I hope I’ve come through it a better professional for having it.

  Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?

  Not terribly. To be frank, I’m always a bit mystified by these novelists who can only write in a specific chair in a specific room with a specific device to specific music by the light of a specific moon. I set a word count per day (1,500/2,000) and I don’t do anything else until I hit that mark. Some days I’ll work at my desk, on others I’ll move to another part of my apartment, and on others I’ll go to a bookstore or cafe. Perversely, I find I write extremely well while traveling.

  As for research, I’m always listening to lectures online or watching old History Channel documentaries that have wandered onto YouTube. It’s amazing that we live in a world where respected and credentialed experts share their courses for free online. You never know what new information might be helpful in writing science fiction.

  When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?

  I can’t actually remember. It was a decision I made very, very early. I started writing when I was about eight. My friends and I used to play make believe on the playground at school. They played Dragon Ball Z, but were gracious enough to let me be Batman (I had no idea what Dragon Ball Z was at the time). Over time, my character took on new traits and a life of his own as I grew older and a shade more sophisticated. My friends all moved on, taking up football and the like. I wrote instead. I would start a novel, grow to hate it, and pitch it. Then I’d rework my ideas a bit and start over. Eventually, that became Empire of Silence, so in a sense I’ve been writing this story in some form or other since I was a child, though it has changed completely since those early days.

  What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?

  I think that the explosion of the various kinds of stories and genres we’re experiencing has been wonderful and fascinating, but also a bit of a double-edged sword. It seems to me that fandom has fragmented into camps (along genre and ideological lines) and there’s very little communication between said camps, and that what communication there is seems mostly aimed at making things worse. I think that’s an absolute catastrophe and a real shame. We were all the weird, outcast kids in school. We shouldn’t lose sight of that.

  SW07-LastJedi-PosterAs for my work, I shall say this: I abhor deconstruction. The postmodern obsession with subverting, deconstructing, or critiquing traditions in fiction (and in everything) is played out, in my view, and is often deliberately hurtful or mean-spirited. The Last Jedi deconstructed Luke Skywalker and critiqued the Jedi Order so badly that I can’t bring myself to watch it again. You don’t kick your fans like that. I want a story readers can believe in, a hero they can root for, even if he’s a little complicated and broken. Because complicated and broken isn’t the same as bad, which is the treatment too many antiheroes get these days. I want to reconstruct the hero narrative, because — in a certain sense — it’s true.

  Do you have any other projects in the pipeline, and what are you working on at the moment?

  Well, I just turned in the sequel to Empire of Silence, which I’m very, very excited about, and I’m launching into the outline for book three. Hadrian’s story is so big and complicated that I haven’t really stopped to look past it yet.

  What are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?

  In fiction, I just finished reading through Kentaro Miura’s Berserk, a grimdark manga series that is astonishingly good but very much not for the faint of heart. Now I’m working my way through Witchy Eye by my good friend D.J. Butler; a flintlock fantasy set in Jacksonian America. It has some of the best worldbuilding I’ve ever, ever seen, especially if you’re as fond of history as I am. Both get hearty recommendations from me!

  RuocchioC-Reading

  In nonfiction, I’ve been picking my way through Jordan B. Peterson’s Maps of Meaning, which is an attempt to marry Jungian depth psychology with modern biological science and evolutionary psychology. It’s truly groundbreaking stuff, and I’d recommend it to anyone trying to write epic fiction of any stripe.

  If you could recommend only one novel to someone, what would it be?

  MillerWM-CanticleForLeibowitzUKA Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. It’s a bit of a cult classic, but it won the Hugo in ‘61. It’s absolutely one of the finest pieces of prose ever produced in science fiction. It’s about a Catholic monastery that preserves a bunch of scientific documents and other literature through a nuclear holocaust, and about the slow rebirth of civilization in the American southwest. It’s part Fallout, part Name of the Rose, and utterly tragic in its beauty. If you like post-apocalyptic novels and Cold War nuclear paranoia, there is no finer book.

  What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

  I don’t actually read very much! I can’t sit still long enough to read like I used to, so most of the reading I do is via audio book. It’s been that way since I was about 10 years old. I adore books as artifacts, but I cannot make the time to sit down with them. This has turned out to be to my advantage. I strongly believe that the key to good writing is that it must sound good, and so my preference for audio books has, I hope, made me a better writer. I also greatly prefer to reread books I enjoy than to try something new. Not that I don’t love new stories, but although I’ve read Tolkien dozens of times I find my appreciation for his work only deepens with closer examination.

  What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?

  DarkSouls-remasteredThe release of Empire of Silence, for a start! It’s my first novel, and a big change in my life, and it’s bringing a lot of changes with it. I’ll be attending my first Worldcon in August and my third Dragon Con in September. There are a couple new Star Wars films to look forward to (or dread), and the Dark Souls remaster. But most of all, I’m looking forward to spending time with my girlfriend, who lives in Florida and whom I don’t get to see nearly enough.

  *

  Empire of Silence is published this week by Gollancz in the UK and DAW Books in North America.

  Follow the Author: Goodreads, Twitter

• British Fantasy Society
  http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/reviews/empire-of-silence-by-christopher-ruocchio-book-review/
  Word count: 510

  QUOTED: "The ending is precisely the way it needs to be when considering all that has come before. With an opening that promised a saga of ages, by the ending Ruocchio has certainly delivered something touching and unique."

  Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio. Book Review

  Posted on July 6, 2018 in Reviews

  EMPIRE OF SILENCE by Christopher Ruocchio
  Gollancz. h/b. 624pp. £16.99
  Reviewed by Elloise Hopkins

  First son of the great Archon Marlowe, his family rich from uranium mining and powerful as all noble rulers are, Hadrian Marlowe is neither as coldly efficient or as traditionally dedicated to his society’s expectations as his father. Until now, he had not really grasped how much of a disappointment he is in his father’s eyes. Only one son can rule after Lord Marlowe, and Hadrian’s younger brother seems determined to have the position for himself. The question is, does Hadrian mind if he does not inherit? And if he does not, is it for the right reasons?

  He who began life as that first son, has worn many other names during his long years. He has killed, and nearly been killed. He has destroyed, and nearly been destroyed. He has loved and lost, and watched others love and lose. He has had his morals tested and his beliefs pulled from under him. He has travelled, suffered, borne heartache and privation, risen and fallen again, and he lives yet.

  With a truly captivating opening giving the sense of a grand, old saga of the ages, Empire of Silence is full of promise from the start. The story of Hadrian’s adventures is told entirely from his point of view as he relates his fall from grace and the tragic steps his survival takes from that point on. To classify this story we are certainly in the vicinity of a Space Opera, firmly in a science fiction universe, but historical settings and themes along with an epic fantasy feel to the main character produce something a little different to the norm.

  This weighty tome does take some slight labour to begin with but once the reader becomes used to the narrative style and jumps in time, Hadrian becomes an endearing protagonist. His compassion and ability to understand others adds greatly to the reader’s feelings towards him, and the episodic chapters make the story easier to digest as it moves forward.

  Just as Hadrian takes the reader through his long life and his adventures, the story is deep with the pains and burdens such a long life carries. To say Hadrian’s trials come to a satisfying end via a satisfying journey would belittle his experiences and the investment in relating and reading his tale. Rather the ending is precisely the way it needs to be when considering all that has come before. With an opening that promised a saga of ages, by the ending Ruocchio has certainly delivered something touching and unique.

• Geek Nativw
  https://www.geeknative.com/61881/competition-an-interview-with-empire-of-silences-christopher-ruocchio-and-a-chance-to-win/
  Word count: 2626

  QUOTED: "Empire of Silence is a deliberately classic space opera adventure. My goal was to make something like the original Star Wars, but with the grounded seriousness of something like A Game of Thrones. For gamers, I’ve been told that if you’re a Warhammer 40K fan (which I’ve never played, funnily enough) or one of those people who plays as the Empire in any Star Wars game: this is a book for you."
  "I wanted to tell a story that seemed true to me the way the original Star Wars seemed true when I was a kid, but that was also dark and serious because that’s more fun for me! I will say this, though: this is not going to be the story anyone expects it is. It may not even be the genre anyone says it is. I’ve finished book two already and to say things take a sharp turn by the end is an understatement."

  Competition: An interview with Empire of Silence’s Christopher Ruocchio and a chance to win!

  July 5, 2018 by Andrew Girdwood 3 Comments

  [Empire of Silence]
  This post is a two-for-one. We have an interview with Christopher Ruocchio who’s debut novel, Empire of Silence, is impressing reviewers and a chance to win a hardback copy of it!

  The main character is a hero and a murderer. On the wrong planet, at the right time, Hadrian Marlowe ends up being remembered as the devil who destroyed a sun and wiped four billion human lives and an entire alien race.

  The Kindle edition, softback, hardback and even audiobook is out today (available as part of Audible’s 30-day free trial) so let’s first look at how you can win your copy and then speak to author Christopher Ruocchio about this powerful first book.

  To win you need to enter the competition widget below and be our one lucky winner. Answer the poll question to earn an entry point. Really want to win? Check the widget for a second time to see if there are additional ways to earn points.

  An interview with Christopher Ruocchio

  Q: What’s the elevator pitch for Empire of Silence? Imagine you only had 30 seconds to convince a gamer to pick up the book and give it a read. How would you describe it?

  Empire of Silence is a deliberately classic space opera adventure. My goal was to make something like the original Star Wars, but with the grounded seriousness of something like A Game of Thrones. For gamers, I’ve been told that if you’re a Warhammer 40K fan (which I’ve never played, funnily enough) or one of those people who plays as the Empire in any Star Wars game: this is a book for you.

  Q: Others are summarising Empire of Silence as Dune meets The Name of the Wind? How does that make you feel?

  Grateful and unworthy, for the most part. Dune was very much an influence on me growing up—it seemed like the logical next step for a kid drunk on too much Star Wars. I did borrow some worldbuilding cues from Frank Herbert’s work, especially at the beginning. I wanted the reader to feel they’ve come to something familiar, if only because I plan to be taking you to some very different places as things go along. The Rothfuss comparison, I think, has more to do with style. Both Empire of Silence and The Name of the Wind are written as first-person recollections of the main characters’ lives. That’s not an uncommon kind of story, but it is kind of them to compare me to one of the best! Being compared to either writer is a truly humbling experience. I very much respect Mr. Rothfuss—who is one of the finest prose stylists working today—and Mr. Herbert’s work has meant the world to me, so to hear my writing mentioned in the same sentence as these books is a tremendous honor, and I hope I’m worthy of it.

  Q: James S. A. Corey, the author of The Expanse, described Empire of Silence as ‘genuinely epic’. Does that pile the pressure on or leave you feeling great?

  It’s an honor! The Expanse is marvelous and it was very kind of them to do a blurb for me. It’s a bit stressful, to be sure, but I’m far more concerned about having to stand in front of my family and friends at my local book store and talk about my work without sounding like an absolute madman. Really, I’ve been overwhelmed by the warm reception I’ve gotten for the book so far, and I just hope the people who read it will come away agreeing that it was indeed “genuinely epic!”

  Q: Have you read Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind? If so; any guesses at plot twists?

  Only once, and several years ago now. The books have a special place for me because they’re the books that really got my younger brother, Andrew, back into reading again. As to theories: A piece of me hopes that Kvothe will pull himself back together and learn to be a hero again, but I suspect that the real ending will be terribly bleak. I will say also that from the second book it seems fairly obvious that Kvothe’s mother was one of the Lackless family, and so Kvothe is bound my blood to this whole myth with the doors and all, and I’d be very surprised if that’s not a factor in the series moving forward. Whatever comes, I’m sure Mr. Rothfuss will break our hearts. I don’t envy him his challenge, but I have faith that he’ll blow us all away. I only wish his fans would back off and give him room to breathe. It can’t be easy to write with all those thousands of people peering over one’s shoulder.

  Q: Is change good and have you gone out of your way to try to do something different in Empire of Silence?

  Change is morally neutral. Some of it’s good. Some of it’s bad. Never change and you end up fading like the elves in The Lord of the Rings: decreasingly relevant in a world that no longer has a place for you. Change too much and you’re Saruman: burning the world in the name of progress and bringing forth monsters to destroy all that’s good. A hundred years ago, change too often meant paving over rainforests. It’s less obvious what we’re paving over today, but I’m not convinced it’s any less worth defending. Where this connects to writing is that it seems to me most writers—most creative types in general—are obsessed with doing something original. My observation is that audiences seem less interested in seeing something original than they are in seeing the truths they already know but can’t express told as well as possible. I wanted to tell a story that seemed true to me the way the original Star Wars seemed true when I was a kid, but that was also dark and serious because that’s more fun for me! I will say this, though: this is not going to be the story anyone expects it is. It may not even be the genre anyone says it is. I’ve finished book two already and to say things take a sharp turn by the end is an understatement.

  Q: Geek Native HQ is in Scotland. These questions are coming to you from a place not a million miles from Hadrian’s Wall. Does Rome’s most famous Hadrian have any influence on Empire of Silence? Is this Scottish blogger going to struggle to get over the book?

  Well, I hope no one who reads the book ever really gets over it, if you take my meaning. But yes, there’s a connection, if only a loose one. We know very little about the character of the historical Hadrian. Only fragments of his writing survive, and Roman historical accounts are notoriously biased, and much of what we have is conflicted. But Hadrian did inherit the Roman Empire at its height from the Emperor Trajan, and his reign saw the empire begin to shrink (in no small part because he couldn’t handle you Scots). My Hadrian is born into the Sollan Empire at its height, but whether his actions shall see it decline or flourish…well, we’ll see. There are some smaller details the two share as well: Hadrian seems to have had an uncomfortable relationship with rank, for example. He often dressed as a common soldier, not in the imperial purple, and had the respect of the soldiers more than the aristocrats. He was also a great admirer of history and the arts, and was considered something of a Renaissance Man in that age long before the Renaissance. My Hadrian has some of these, but in truth I think Hadrian Marlowe is more Lord Byron than anyone else.
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  Q: Many of Geek Native’s readers are tabletop gamers – Dungeons & Dragons is cool (again?) – are you a gamer? Do you ever see Empire of Silence becoming an RPG?

  I’ve never been much of a tabletop gamer myself. With one notable exception, none of my friends growing up were much into tabletop gaming, and so I missed the boat there. That being said, I did play a ton of online forum-driven roleplaying games—a few even set in earlier versions of my book’s world—all through middle and high school. I did have a brief fling with Magic: The Gathering between the Mirrodin block and on through Innistrad, but I waited tables every night in college and it was very, very difficult to be at all competitive with that schedule. Maybe I’ll have a chance to learn at a convention someday!

  And I would love to see Empire and Hadrian’s universe turned into some sort of game. Having the opportunity to spell out the world’s lore more deeply would be a joy, as would setting folks loose in the universe to write their own stories. Who knows? We do live in the age of Kickstarter, after all.

  Q: What about computer roleplaying games? Do you have a favourite computer game?

  I grew up a Nintendo kid, and the old Mario and Legend of Zelda games are still near and dear to my heart, especially The Wind Waker. Most of what I play tends towards the more single-player, RPG experiences, and my current favorite game of all time is The Witcher 3, which is an absolute masterpiece. I’m a huge fan of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and of the Tales series of Japanese RPGs. I have some obscurer favorites, like Lost Odyssey, the Baten Kaitos games on the Nintendo Gamecube, and the Golden Sun series. Recently I made the mistake of buying Civilization 6—I’ve always loved strategy games—and I’ve spent a little too much time playing that. I’m very excited about Imperator, the Roman Empire game from the folks who made Crusader Kings. Roman history, as you might imagine, is a passion of mine and the game looks to be incredibly faithful to the source material, which isn’t something that can be said about many things.

  Q: Are there any geeky influences, be that games, anime, TV shows or comic books, that are reflected in Empire of Silence?

  Oh yes. Despite the relatively serious nature of the book, I’ve hidden references to all sorts of things in it—some of them more subtle than others, and some of them not even on purpose. Some character names are references to other things, for example, or some throwaway detail might evoke some piece of video game lore or classic literature (or both). I loaned one of my copies to our intern at the office, and he caught a reference to a certain Fourth/Twelfth Doctor moment from Doctor Who, of which I used to be a great fan. There are definitely references to Star Wars, Alien, and even games like Dark Souls and Tales of Symphonia hiding away. One blogger even noted more Dragon Age Easter Eggs than I’d intended, which was embarrassing. It’s funny when I do it on purpose! As I alluded to above, I was and am heavily influenced by Japanese storytelling, be that anime, manga, or video games. Cowboy Bebop is an old favorite, and the canals of Emesh in my book contain echoes of Watanabe’s Mars and Ganymede. Both Ghost in the Shell and Berserk have been major influences on me—and that last one should worry you for the sake of my characters. All in all, it’s a very ecclectic mix of influences, Easter Eggs, and stupid internet memes, but I hope that the people who catch on will feel like they’re in on some secret joke rather than annoyed with me.

  Q: I know it’s early but let’s make the last question about the (possible?) sequel. Do you have a title in mind yet? Having set a core narrative with the first book has that now set the trajectory for the second?

  The sequel is very much happening! I’m contracted for four books at present and have already turned in the first draft for the second novel. It does have a title, but I’m uncertain whether or not it will change, so I’ll keep that to myself for the moment. I will say that there are a couple databases online that list the second book as In Vanished Light in their metadata. That’s not the title. That was the title when I sold the series in 2016, but it has since changed. As to the trajectory of the series, it’s locked in. Hadrian tells us on book one, page one where this thing is headed, and the drama is in surprising you along the way. That being said, one of the criticisms some people have levied against me is that I’ve failed to be original. I don’t think much of this fetish for originality, as I say, but my plan was to lure people in with the promise of something familiar before tearing the rug out. Book two is very Gothic, oddly cyberpunk in places, and even a bit eldritch. There’s an aspect of Empire of Silence that almost no one has talked about in any of the reviews I’ve seen…which is very odd given that it’s what the title itself refers to. That aspect (and I’ll leave it to you to decide what that is) is far more important than anyone suspects, and will take us to places that I think will surprise my few critics who have balked at the more familiar aspects of my worldbuilding. But until then, we’ll just have to wait and see.