On The Nightstand – Empire Of Silence – 9/20/2018

“It Is Better To Fail In Originality Than To Succeed In Imitation”

Herman Melville

Writing critical reviews has, for me, always been a challenging task – balancing the good against the bad – tempering criticism – calling out perceived shortcomings in a measured and constructive manner.  I find it to be particularly challenging when I’m reviewing a debut as I’m always rooting for new writers.  This book is a perfect example of just how challenging it can be.

I’m not going to beat around the bush.  This was not a good read for me and I do not understand the gushingly positive reviews it’s receiving – several of which I’ve copied and pasted below from Amazon with my own comments added in parentheses:

“Empire of Silence is epic science fiction at its most genuinely epic.  Ruocchio has made something fascinating here, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.” —James S.A. Corey, New York Times-bestselling author of The Expanse novels

(No damning with faint praise here – does Corey really feel that Ruocchio’s epic is more genuinely epic than his own massive epic?)

“Christopher Ruocchio’s Empire of Silence is epic-scale space opera in the tradition of Iain M. Banks and Frank Herbert’s Dune, without being a clone of either of them. His is a welcome new voice in science fiction.” —Eric Flint, author of the bestselling 1632 series

(Descriptive but not truly evaluative –  a clever sophistry – I think I can respect this more than the comment Corey provided)

“Empire of Silence has the sweep and political complexity of Dune (though no sandworms). It builds to a blazing climax, followed by a satisfying conclusion. I recommend the book.” —David Drake, bestselling author of the RCN Series

(I found this one particularly interesting – calling out one iconic element of Dune that wasn’t written into this story when so many others were)

“Empire of Silence is a rich tapestry of future history and worldbuilding, a galactic-sized story of a hero, a tyrant, but portrayed as a man.” —Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times-bestselling author of The Dark Between the Stars

(Again – descriptive but not evaluative – given how I feel about the Anderson novels I’ve read, I probably would have been relatively comfortable having him create an equivalence between Ruocchio’s debut and his own “Saga Of Seven Suns” series)

Had I been asked to write the blurb review, it probably would have gone something like this:

An overly ambitious but heartfelt effort that offers the reader rewards in places but disappoints in equal measure.  Ruocchio is to be commended for this monumental first attempt but might have better served himself with a less aggressive maiden voyage.  He leaves me both hopeful and worried about where this might eventually go. 

I’ll call out several aspects of the book that I found challenging:

• It was just too derivative.  In the first 100 pages of this book, you’ll find analogs of The Butlerian Jihad, Mentats and The Litany Against Fear from Dune, lightsabers from Star Wars and The Borg from Star Trek.  Unlike Flint’s comparison to Banks and Herbert, I found the narrative structure to be far more similar to Rothfuss’ “The Name Of The Wind” – lacking the roguish exceptionalism and endearing characteristics of the protagonist.  It almost felt like Ruocchio took a sampling of the more iconic elements of some of the most notable books and movies from the last 40 years and renamed and repurposed them.

• It was far too long – there were entire chapters that contributed little or nothing to the overall story and they detracted from the tale that Ruocchio was trying to tell.  The Author and the book would have benefited from some aggressive editing.

• The protagonist spent far too much time hinting at his dismal end state and his moral and ethical repugnance.  I found Hadrian Marlowe to be a relatively unsympathetic character to whom I was never really able to connect.

• The book was loaded with the purplest of prose – while there were places where this worked, I found myself all too often thinking that Ruocchio fell in love with his own language – hard – and overwrote in a tortured way.  I kept hearing Sergeant Hulka whispering in the background – “Lighten up Francis!”

This is one of those books that broke my heart a little.  I wanted very badly to enjoy it but I just never got there.  There were moments when it shone – Hadrian’s time as a Myrmidon and his relationships with his brothers and sisters in arms was rewarding – I truly appreciated his Jaddian characters, particularly Olorin, and wanted to spend more time with them – Valka was a fascinating character that I enjoyed getting to know.  Overall, I’m encouraged by the fact that many of the characters I enjoyed are – in the last chapter – brought back together as a group that will travel together in the second volume.

It wasn’t bad – it just wasn’t nearly as good as I wanted it to be.  All I can do is write this one off as a minor loss and hope for a better second quarter.