Empire of Silence cover art

Empire of Silence

The universe-spanning science fiction epic

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Empire of Silence

By: Christopher Ruocchio
Narrated by: John Lee
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Hadrian Marlowe, privileged first son of a Duke, was destined for greatness, and he has become a legend. The Sun-Slayer. The Breaker of Sieges. The Crusher of Civilisations. His is a story which defined the course of worlds.

This novel is not that story - not the only laid out in the history books, charting the 300 years of his life. Rather this is Hadrian's story, told in his own worlds. Of being passed over by his father for rule in favour of his younger brother and sent to a military academy against his wishes. Of being kidnapped in transit to that planet and sold into slavery on a planet at the edge of our war against the Cielcen...and of how he used their eventual attack to claw his way back into the dangers and opportunities of politics.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2018 Christopher Ruocchio (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group Adventure Dystopian Military Science Fiction Space Opera Fiction Space Cyberpunk

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Of Blood and Fire cover art
The Will of the Many cover art
Red Rising cover art
The Ember Blade cover art
Gunmetal Gods cover art
The Censor's Hand cover art
Red Rising: Sons of Ares, Volumes 1-3 Bundle (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art
The Darkness That Comes Before cover art
Antimage cover art
We Are the Dead cover art
Dune cover art
Unbound cover art
Winter's Reach cover art
The Midwest Witch: The Revelations of Oriceran cover art
The Emperor's Blades cover art
The Fire's Stone cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
I got this book after a recommendation for the series. I was told the first book was slow and that the rest of the series gets much better. And the first book is very slow to get going, it almost feels like a huge prologue. The first half of the book is quite boring in all honesty, at times I thought about giving up. The second half although still hard going started for get more interesting as the stakes rose. It does give me hope for the rest of the series though because it shows a lot of promise. The author has a very flowery prose that is reminiscent of name of the wind. The universe in which is set is very interesting. And the main character is good intentioned but very flawed. So it has left me wanting to try the next book despite some of the flaws it has.

Slow burner with some promise

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Decent enough story line apart from the fact it feels like only a set up for the rest of the story

Decent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautiful, epic language. Of all the books I’ve read or listened to to date, this and Shantaram are the ones that made me wish I could write as beautifully.
The story implies greatness off the get go and that really pulls the reader in. The world seems large and interesting.
The main problems to me are that for readers who are enticed by greatness - we should get some tastes of it. In every encounter the protagonist is just normal and full of flaws and no genius. Also, the ‘poet’s exposition’ is nice in general, but when there’s a big fight scene for example - the fight scene bleeds out the adrenaline because it feels broken up into multiple episodes because of the tangents I’d thought and narrative.
I’m definitely going on to book two and hope the author just gets better at these points - if so this could really be something great.
As I said before I’ll say again - absolutely stunning and beautiful writing.

Scents if The Name of the Wind but not enough peaks

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The whole read felt like a set up that never happened. I enjoyed it all the same.

Intriguing but nothing new

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book has jumped to the top of my most favourite series and I have only read book 1

amazing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you've read Red Rising of are a fan of space opera with that fantasy edge, this is the one for you. I loved it.

fantastic space opera/fantasy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
futuristic fantasy in syfi worlds galaxies and planet.
firstly i love john lee as a narrators which is what drew me to this book to start with.
i love mr roucchios sense of humour. without giving and spoilers away .if you know your ancient civilizations you will get the play on names from messopatainia to the normands but also other tv references to names like the vulcans (but totally unrelated)theres even a luke of the stars or something that reminded me of starwars.
this is a fabulous book .

different

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Slow burner but some epic moments! Can't wait for the next books! I read Dune earlier this year... really enjoyed it however I'm more excited to continue this series.

Beautiful character building. Epic Sci-Fi Fantasy!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A unique take on a space epic brought to life by an amazing narrator who captures the spirit of the book perfectly

A superb first installment

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Whenever I played this audiobook in the car or just on loudspeaker while cracking on with jobs around the house, it was too quiet even when cranked up to max. As you can imagine, not being able to hear an audiobook really impacted on the experience and I frequently found myself only getting pieces of the story. I would then have to go back to re-listen. There were parts of this story where I was really engaged and interested in what was going on, and other times when I was a bit bored. It's hard for me to say how much of this was due to not being able to hear it properly and where there may have been simply slow parts of the story.

That being said, it was pretty enjoyable, I'd give it a 7/10.

Too Quiet!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews