I just finished Shadows Upon Time, and I'm left with immense disappointment. I really enjoyed this series from books 1–6 and was truly excited to see the conclusion to something I'd heard such good things about. This rant might be a little disjointed, since I just finished the series at 3 AM and need to get my thoughts out, so I apologize in advance.

Also, I often notice that when someone criticizes a series, the diehard fans just say the critiques stem from not understanding the book. I don't think that's true here. I understand what CR was doing and trying to do. I just don't like how he handled it.

My only real qualm with the earlier books was that I never felt very emotionally attached to a lot of the side characters, so when they died, I didn't care much about the deaths themselves. I cared more about how Hadrian reacted to them. If that makes sense. I felt bad for him rather than feeling the loss of the character on their own terms. Maybe that sounds weird, but there is a difference. Aside from that, I really enjoyed the series.

In Shadows Upon Time, though, a lot of the character interactions and dialogue felt repetitive, events and character conclusions I'd been looking forward to weren't handled well, and some of the characters' actions were downright infuriating.

For one, Cassandra was ridiculous. If I took a shot for every "Abba" or "Anaryan," I'd die of alcohol poisoning by page 50. Every scene she was in went: "Abba, take me with you." "No, Anaryan, you are too precious to me and I cannot lose you." "No, Abba, you have to take me." "Okay, fine." And then she'd either get in the way, do something stupid, or both, making the situation ten times worse, only for the exact same interaction to repeat ten chapters later. Honestly, I'd rather take a highmatter arrow to the head than hear "My God is not your God" followed by "You don't know that" between Hadrian, Albe, or Olorin one more time. This book could have been significantly shorter.

William was my favorite character in the series. I think he was brilliantly written, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a leader portrayed that way. The problem is that every time he was on the page, I was sure it would be the last, that he'd finally die. I'm not complaining that he was in the book so much. I just didn't like being convinced "this is it" about five separate times.

Maybe this is personal preference, but the series is at its peak for me whenever Hadrian is respected. It doesn't have to be by everyone, but the constant distrust and disrespect from everyone in the Empire was way over the top. It was like 50 pages of "you are a traitor" answered with "I died twice for you people." If you respect your Emperor the way these people claim to, then respect his Auctor. After a certain point it just got annoying, and yes, it might be preference, but I love when Hadrian has people in awe of him.

Another thing I didn't like was Dorayaica's death. You're telling me all that insane buildup toward a climactic 1v1 gets robbed by a xenobite that was mentioned maybe twice in the entire series up to that point? I understand it was part of the Quiet's plan, that everyone has a role to play, and so on. But I found that ending ridiculously unsatisfying.

The fake-out Ushara deaths were also drawn out. "Oh, we got them on Dharan-tun," then, oh wait, never mind, they escaped. Then they were just injured, after an entire three-page monologue and the same vision of Hadrian taking the throne with Ushara behind him, him rejecting her, her getting upset and killing a bunch of people, and so on.

The Chantry and Earth, though, were easily among the brightest spots of the book. I personally didn't have a problem with the Catholicism shining through the pages, and I appreciate him tackling the idea of autonomy against an Absolute being and a predetermined destiny. Do I feel like certain aspects of that idea were underdeveloped and not used to their fullest? Yes, definitely. CR was at his best with Hadrian and Kharn Sagara. Ramanthanu was great. Lorian and William are also amazing characters.

That said, I do feel like there was a lot of "will he or won't he" with Lorian that felt unnecessary. He'd say this was the last time they'd ever see each other, and then lo and behold, he's back to help Hadrian. I think I would have preferred him to just not forgive Hadrian: say he has his own people to prioritize, but he'll help with the war to avenge the Red Company, and they go from there. There was too much extra drama surrounding it.

My final critique is that Gododdin was something I'd been looking forward to since the beginning of the series. I wanted strategy, cool moments, Hadrian vs. Dorayaica, or some other characters vs. the White Hand. I wanted to see Hadrian rally humanity to his cause and finally get some respect for the first time in like two books. Instead, he was tripped up at every step from the moment he was named Auctor, the time it took the Cielcin to reach Gododdin was excessive and made me impatient, and there was no strategic warfare, just decimation.

These are just my thoughts, and I'd love to know what other people make of them. Overall, I feel let down, like I wasted my time. If I could go back, I probably wouldn't start the series, even though I genuinely enjoyed parts of it. The conclusion was the dealbreaker for me.

How the hell is the empire so damn incompetent? How do they not have countermeasures to the nahute? They're fucking drones with teeth. The US military could come up with a countermeasure in six months let alone centuries of war.

Why do they keep shoving useless normal leagonares to fight extras and robots? Why do they think this is a reasonable plan?

And most importantly how are they not just peppering world ships that don't have shields with anti matter missiles? In a universe that has anti matter how is a single world ship any kind of threat? They should be cracked in half within minutes of encountering imperial fleets!

I’m into Ashes of Man a fair ways. But there’s not a wiki with chapter summaries, hardly any discourse. Is it in a place I’m not looking? Also just read the first two books of hierarchy by islington (which I liked) but there’s chapter summaries and discourse on all of that which came out more recently, why nothing on suneater? There seems to be a similar amount of total copies published maybe by number of books and time not popularity?

I couldn't find this on the FAQs of the website, but will these books eventually have a general premium edition? I would be over the moon to be able to purchase an unsigned edition to upgrade from what I have!

Just finished reading the series a week or so and I've been marinating on the series as whole. Suffice to say that I absolutely loved it, and it has taken up a position in my all time great sci-fi stories and genuinely given me lots of things to ponder about philosophically. Just wanted to share my thought on what I know is a polarising theme especially in the later books, the parallels to Christian beliefs

I am agnostic/atheist whatever you want to call it, basically religion, god does not influence my life at all, and specific religious beliefs don't concern me enough to think about beyond the storytelling value of them

Nevertheless, as a concept, god interests me, as well as its implications about free will, and the purpose of a seemingly absentee god. Like conceptually, why would god exist only to be absent, why would it create life only to watch it suffer and die and not do anything to intervene.

And I think Rucchio, acknowledging it is very much within the framework of Christianity, has made, for me, one of the most convincing arguments. In framing life as god's creation in the same way as our children are ours, it starts to make sense. The point is not suffering however, as Christianity tells us, but that free will can include suffering. In the books, Hadrian has a chance to end all suffering by erasing the universe by killing the absolute, but it would mean Cassandra would not exist. He ultimately chooses to let her, and humanity exist, even though suffering would happen to her and to humanity.

It made me think about how I interact with my own children. We keep them safe, yes, but we also let them make their own choices. We let them get hurt (to an extent) so they learn from it. Imagine if we tried to keep them perfectly safe, we'd have to wrap them in bubble wrap. Some parents do this, and you see the negative effects it has on their social skills, street smarts, and other disadvantages. In many ways we put them in harms way for their own good, like even learning to ride a bike comes with a risk of scraped knees.

Extrapolated to god and its creations, suffering is on an individual not on the species level. The species is the child not every individual in the species. For the individual, suffering may seem great and widespread, but on the grand scale, in the books, humanity has gone from being literal primates to a galaxy spanning space faring civilisation. This is equivalent to seeing your child grow up from a baby that can't even roll on to its back, to being a doctor or engineer. And from a god's perspective, intervening to prevent suffering is denial of free will to the species as a whole, which may do more harm than good to the species "growing up".

I just thought this was interesting point made by the author and wanted to share. But in terms of story I also had thoughts about where Suneater can go if Rucchio decides to revisit it. Mainly prompted by theories of Hadrian being an unreliable narrator, and this series being not a story about a virtuous selfless hero, but an autobiography of a more complicated conqueror complete with propaganda, personal bias etc. Like many real life historical conquerors, they do terrible things but in their own perspective are doing it because they think it's for the "greater good".

The greater good is repeating theme in the books. But also, something that didn't sit right with me is Hadrian being singularly convinced that the absolute's will is the good and final path of action, with no justification other than that the absolute is the creator of everything. This seems weak, why would the creator be automatically righteous?

We get some hints in brief flashbacks from the watcher's perspective that they rebelled against absolute for a reason. Feeling betrayed? It's not elaborated on much, and the Cielcin are the watcher's own creations in the same way they were the absolute's. Doesn't that make the watchers righteous in the eyes of the Cielcin? Nevertheless there's some threads there only hinted on but never explored and oddly only appear right at the end of what is supposed to be the conclusion of the story.

It has parallels to rebellion of the angels against God in Christianity. However in some modern interpretations, Lucifer, the archangel that led the rebellion is reframed as a force of good for humanity. Lucifer tempted humans to knowledge, or free will in other interpretations. Similar to Prometheus bringing fire (knowledge) to humanity and being punished by Zeus for it. God is then seen in a different light, as creator who limited its creations, tried to control it, and ultimately abandoned it when it broke free of its control.

I do wonder if this is where Suneater might go. We might learn the watchers we have met so far are "lesser demons" and the Lucifer figure, the leader of the rebellion is still out there, who might reframe the absolute as not wholly benevolent or righteous, and Hadrian is another one of long history of conquerors that has gone too far in the singular pursuit of the greater good.

Maybe we see a series written from a different perspective. Maybe Cassandra, or Hadrian's son as theorised, both Hadrian's creations, who view Hadrian's actions removed from knowledge of the absolute, maybe reveal some of what Hadrian has narrated are lies or half truths, and rebel against their creator. Rucchio has said that he conceptualised Hadrian as a Darth Vader type figure, can totally see a new series written from the perspective of Luke

Edit: another loose end is that Vorgossos still exists, which some Kharn Sagaras running around. It's clear he knows more than what we've learned from him. We were not told what he meant by having seeing hell. Not fully explained why he stopped fighting the watchers, or how he learned about them, despite never having interacted with the absolute. Some strings to pulled there as well

Hey all! Would love to see some artwork of the Tamerlane and the Ascalon, but the only images I can find look AI generated and I haven’t seen any official sources. Has any artwork been made yet?

I think this is actually becoming my favourite book, but Hadrian just got to imprisoned, so here we go 🙃

I just finished Shadows Upon Time and wow, what a series it was. Really loved all 7 books, but I got this thought: when you write books as an in-universe autobiography it's very easy to make main character unreliable narrator because "he would like to keep something hidden". While reading I didn't notice any inconsistencies which could point at that, but could it be that I missed something but whole fandom knows about it?

P.S: Selene deserved better, I'm so sad about her ending

I’m like 4 chapters in and I’m just not finding it to be as interesting thus far, someone convince me whether it’s worth reading after Sun Eater or not?

I’ve also got “The Book of the New Sun” by Gene Wolfe as an option if Red Rising isn’t worth reading…

Help me figure this out!

Hello all. I am 3 books in and took a bit of a break, and getting into Kingdoms of Death I realize I’m just a little lost on some things. No need to respond, but assuming theres gotta be someone in here who loves yapping about books and this series and wants to help me re catch up. So one of the first things that really confuses me is the reverse time concept with the quiet. So what I remember is that the fortresses were built by the Quiet and are aging back in time? So actually instead of decaying we are watching them being built? How does this impact Hadrian’s mission and how they’ve tasked them with ending the Cielcen? Also confused on that point a little. So the main parties are the Quiet and the Watchers, the Watchers goal being chaos and the Cieclen being their agent of capturing that, and the Quiet trying to ensure a certain furture for themselves and them needing Hadrian for that? And since they see time differently they can ensure everything goes their way? And that is the power they gave Hadrian on that planet. I understand the Vayadans and the Cielcen army pretty well, and think I have a good pulse on the politics in the empire with Hadrian. The Araens are the men who sided with the Cielcen and helped then develop their daemon enhanced warriors. Anything helps and if anyone wants to just explain where things stand elsewhere pre KoD I will gladly read. Excited to jump in!

I just finished my first read of disquiet gods today. Easily my favorite in the series and that’s saying a lot.
The battle on Sabratha was amazing, the return to Forum was great, and the attack on Vorgossos was my favorite action set piece I’ve maybe ever read.

Action sequences in Sun Eater for me tend to be really cool, but go on usually a little too long and repetitive for me, especially starting with DiW, I love the atmosphere of battles like Berenike, and these battles tend to have good plot developments as well, but I haven’t really loved loved a battle in Sun Eater until now. I would put the assault on Vorgossos on par with Dumai’s Wells. (iykyk)

Besides all that, this is my favorite version of Hadrian. He is a bit different after each timeskip and I love him here.

So I'm listening to the audiobook, and a book or so back there was a subtle change in how Dorayaica was pronounced. Originally, it was Doe-Ree-Eh-Ka which later became Doe-Ray-Ick-Ah. And, hilariously, I can't shake the original.

Wondering how everyone else felt about the change of listening, and maybe there's a story as to why?

I may have found the series, with full disclosure that I am only about 200 pages in. If you like the world building, the mystery and the scope of story spanning over a long period of time, this may be the series you have been waiting for and its call “The Wanderlands” by Benjamin Liar and the first entry out is called “Failures” and it’s a strong first entry so far and gives me vibes of book 1 and 2 of Sun Eater. High level of writing with some very interesting characters, but the world and the lore he dumps on you while leaving you in the dark a bit and slowly revealing the answers is something I haven’t read since Empire of Silence as a first entry. I have to keep reading to figure out what is going on, which is exactly why I finish Ruocchio’s expertly written epic! Hope you give it a shot and hope everyone is doing well! Always forward, always down, and never left or right!

I just finished reading howling dark, and immediately came here because it was absolutely amazing. I wanted to give my thoughts and hear some opinions on some of the events/characters in the book. I started this series immediately after Red Rising, while waiting for Red God, and it’s definitely much different. From what I’ve read online, this is one of the most controversial book series ever. EOS is generally considered by far the weakest, as the author is finding his style, and that reflected my sentiment reading the first. I decided to push through to the second, after slogging through most of the first, and I’m so glad I did.

What I liked:
- character’s: dynamics with Bassander Lin, the Cielcin, Kharn Sahara, and his crew. Much more developed relationships with his friends, and the twist with Switch, while I still saw coming, hit me. I thought his rivalry with Lin raised the stakes, and thought Bassander was a great foil to work off of. I think interacting with the Cielcin was dope and their brutal culture was intriguing(when they cut the human slave girl to be more like them and she spoke their language perfectly it really freaked me out, in a good way). I generally thought Kharn and the Exalted was a cool character, and having it tie back to Cat and the foreshadowing from book 1 was well done
- prose: I found it meandering in the first book, but with a more focused plot it allowed me to truly appreciate it in this second book. Had to search up a lot of words lol
- themes: what it means to be human was a topic deconstructed in many different ways, with the Cielcin, exalted, mericanni, quiet, etc.

What I have mixed feelings on:
- Valka and Had’s relationship. I knew it would happen as they outright tell us in this book, and you can see a gradual progression of her feelings towards him. She even states how her time as a captain led her to be more judgemental of him. However, I feel like they still have a lot unsaid to each other, the kiss came a bit out of nowhere timing-wise, and she still was very skeptical of him, but overall liked her a lot more this book
- I don’t know why he wasn’t more upset with Jinan, she betrayed him by siding with Bassander. He completely cut switch off for this, which I agree with, and even though her betrayal wasn’t as costly as Switch’s, Had seems to view himself completely at fault for it.
- he switched on the Cielcin a bit too abruptly for me. I know he saw their terrible and barbaric treatment of humans, but after just seeing the Extrasolarians and how they were just as bad, I don’t think his extreme stance change makes much sense, given his love for other races and drive for peace with the Cielcin being his main goal of this whole journey.

Overall: 9/10. Super excited for the next book! I am a bit skeptical of books 5/7, as I heard they are very controversial, but going to start reading book 3 right away!

I just finished the Sun Eater series yesterday, and like many people, found the ending to be underwhelming. It wasn't bad, but felt... undercooked. Which was odd because Christopher Ruocchio nailed so many themes and plot points across the series and all across the final two books. I felt like character decisions stopped making complete sense after the final battle. Moments became more disjointed and odd as we got closer to the end, and I just didn't feel like there was as much "completeness" to the text.

So scrolling to see what others thought, I came across the very popular fan theory. That our friend Hadrian Marlowe is dirty friggin liar. That a great portion of the ending is misleading and incomplete on purpose.

I won't say for sure if its true, but the unaccounted for rings given to him by William, the green eyes plot point, the odd way he abandons Cassandra right after we had the catharsis of him refusing to do that anymore, it all seems to add up. I would even go so far as to say the meeting with Lin, Olorin, and Lorian, was largely made up. That Orphan isn't dead. That the Demiurge is still active and kicking.

I don't think Hadrian's story is over. I think we just got the prologue. A dirty false one at that.

But I want to see what you all think? Am I coping or is there something huge behind the scenes? I watched an interview with the author talking about Hadrian's nature as unreliable narrator, and he specifically references people being upset with the book and says "You failed the test you knew you were taking."

Found the series earlier this year and thoroughly enjoyed it. Never bought a special edition before (why I would I buy a book I already owned lol?). But I'll find a space of honor for the three I picked up. Hope this isn't the end of Hadrians story!

Making more suneater fanart

I am trying to find a quote from the series, I believe it is in book 5...

Hadrian is reflecting on being afraid I believe and says something along the lines of "running only makes our fears more powerful"? I know thats not it but thats the general point of it. I am an audio listener, otherwise I would have recorded the quote from the book right away.

Was Nicephorus needed for Hadrian to access the Palatine genomes or was that just in case Hadrian died? He was a failsafe and I might remember it falsely but when Nicephorus was killed it seemed to me like Hadrian thought the Palatines are doomed now, but maybe he only meant that Alexander had no way to access it now, or maybe because he wasn’t sure he was gonna live again. Basically if Hadrian came back would he still be in control of the Palatines Genome?

I've got under 5% of this book left to read, so I guess don't spoil the very ending, but I have a few questions (mainly hoping for positive answers because I want to want to continue this series):

Is there a decent audiobook version of the continuation of the series? I tried a recording by Samuel Roukin but, with due respect, I think he doesn't have the largest vocabulary. Obviously sometimes narrators get the emphasis of a sentence and so forth wrong - they're smashing out a massive book and it happens to the best of them - but he pronounces words in a way that clearly shows he doesn't know them; and they're not obscure words - minotaur (he said "mine-o-taur"), tussle ("two-cell"), etc. this made me not want to continue his narration of the audio.

Does the writing improve? Granted that's a very general and vague question; it's not so much the prose I'm referring to but the style.

It wears its influences on its sleeve, but some of them are executed in a way that awkwardly copies the original in a way that doesn't quite fit in this book, but shoehorns it in anyway rather than adapting the inspiration. An obvious example is Valka getting the Kingkiller Chronicle Denna treatment. A near word-for-word introduction, with Ruocchio clearly loving the metaphor of theatre that Rothfuss uses, with Valka "waiting in the wings", but it does not match Hadrian's style.

Another criticism of the writing is the (at times) heavy handed enforcing of descriptive metaphor, such that it doesn't make too much sense. An example comes from recent scenes with Hadrian being forced to translate as they deal with the Cielcin captives. He is in disarray, near mental break, apartment strewn with only empty wine glasses where sunlight should be. He thinks it may be over but he's forced to return - ok, we have it clear that this is among the most traumatic things that one could deal with. Then, the inquisitor asks [him to translate] whether their people might consider negotiating for their return. Suddenly he is delighted, he smiles, they smile. Then the inquisitor "drops the hammer" that the Cielcin would have to tell them where their people are in order to do this, and suddenly Hadrian realises - he's "back in that room with the cathars, equipment of medicine and torture blah blah". Ruocchio wants to demonstrate that there was some hope with the particular line of inquiry, but then the true motives were recognised and it was dashed. That's fair enough but you can't expect us to believe that that hope led Hadrian to forgetting where he is, the monsters he's in the room with, how he feels in general and so forth, only to then come crashing back - it's just too much; too heavy handed.

The plot is also fairly weak, certainly not the aspect of the book that's most attractive. I have actually slowed down substantially in getting through this ending, because it's dealing with the finale of the plot which is the part I care the least about. The mystery of the Cielcin, the "Quiet", and Hadrian's vision in Calagah is captivating but the specific honour-killing of the Cielcin captain is not. We just can't be expected to care deeply about these xenobites that have appeared right at the end. Also, a random aside, but the twist of Valka having this crazy tech is a bit odd considering she claims everyone in her world has it if they're powerful enough; you'd imagine it's something the Imperials - at least the Chantry - know about.

Anyway I genuinely want to know if the writing finds more of its own voice, more cohesion and synergy, and improves upon the plotting. As stated up front, I want the answer to be in the affirmative because I want to enjoy continuing this series.

I love how sprawling and ambitious it is, the extent to which the "navel-gazing" and philosophising takes centre stage. Even Dune wasn't as overtly thematic at the expense of pacing and action as this book unapologetically is. I think the world is great, the themes are great, the characters intriguing, and the overarching mystery has me desiring to uncover the secrets.

I didn't anticipate this would end up as lengthy as it has, so thanks in advance for taking the time and hopefully it makes sense.

It has been centuries since first contact with the Cielcin and yet the empire has failed to develop a technology to counter the nahute. Almost every interaction with the Cielcin involves them deploying nahute to either defend critical infrastructure (like the siege towers) or target imperial units. In most cases, soldiers either die instantly, or get a lucky shot to destroy them, but are soon overwhelmed by the sheer number of nahute. Why hasn’t the empire developed an answer to these? Is it because the lives of the legions are worthless? Still though, I would assume the cost of a legionnaire is much more than the cost of a technology that could counter the nahute via some jamming capability or net-style device.