The Empire of Silence is Book one of Christopher Ruocchio's epic space opera The Sun Eater. It's a pretty strong debut, but also feels very much like a "first book in a very long series" book.

The premise is fairly simple. Hadrian, our main character, is the oldest son of a powerful lord and doesn't want to be a priest like his father has decided. He wants to be a scholar and explore the world. Hijinks ensue and Hadrian ends up on a backwater planet living on the streets. This novel takes a very, very long time to get going and could have used a heavier hand during editing. The buildup is important for Hadrian's character development, but there are many pages here where the story simply does not move forward.

Once it does get going though, it's pretty fun. The setting is nothing crazy, you have your standard Empire that rules most of the human-settled universe (which Hadrian is a minor noble in), your various breakaway human states, your church that everyone is afraid of, and your looming alien threat. There's not much new here in terms of worldbuilding, but it's done well enough and is fun. If you've read something like Red Rising before, there is a similar level of worlbuilding on display here.

Hadrian himself as a character is just okay. He's kind of whiny, and that permeates throughout the book, but he grew on me by the end. There's a lot to like in this novel if you like epic space fantasy. It's clearly building up into a strong series, but this first novel definitely has some growing pains. It's never bad, but it does drag and I wouldn't call it terribly original. I'm interested to see how the story moves forward as future entries seem to have higher ratings.