 What is the Sun Eater series? Are you always this dramatic? We even know where Earth is anymore. It doesn't matter. Shut up. You're taking the fun out of it. It's weird for me where I'm like, oh, this is really good. You're wrong. Hey guys, it's Liana and I'm here today to talk about the Sun Eater series by Christopher Rockio. So should you read the Sun Eater series by Christopher Rockio? I would say yes. What? More specifically, more in detail, a whole video on it. What is the Sun Eater series by Christopher Rockio? So this is not yet a completed series. So with this video, I hope to encourage you to pick it up so that you can catch up by the time the next book comes out, which is next year in the spring. I believe in March is when the fourth book comes out and there will be five in total. So now's a good time to start your Sun Eater journey. But so far, what is published in the Sun Eater series is Empire of Silence, the first book, then Howling Dark and Demon in White. There is also a novella called The Lesser Devil that takes place kind of in the midst of book one, like in chronologically in terms of the story of this universe and this overall arc. The events of The Lesser Devil are from a different character's perspective and it would take place kind of around, like in the middle portion elsewhere for when Empire of Silence is taking place. What is this series from the covers you can probably tell and if you've heard anything about it, you probably know that it is a sci-fi series. It is a space opera. And I hate to do this. Me and Alex have been doing this throughout all of our live shows where we talk about these books, which by the way, when you're caught up because they're entirely spoilery lives. So when you're reading these books as you read them, I encourage or invite you to go back and rewatch Me and Alex's Lives on his own channels. And so when he and I have kind of fallen into about how I'm doing is comparing these books to Red Rising. Now, if you don't like Red Rising, I don't want to put you off. If you do like Red Rising, I mean, I think there's very little chance that you would not like these books. However, if you did not like Red Rising, I still think there's a good chance that you will like these books, which I suppose makes it sound like I think the series is better than Red Rising. And I don't think I could say that I think the series is better than Red Rising, but I do think that Empire of Silence, the first book is a far stronger debut and far stronger start to a series than Red Rising the book is. So that's how I feel. But in any event, this is a space opera, a grand epic sweeping space opera that has a lot of kind of classical elements. So again, this is why the comparison to Red Rising is almost inevitable because Red Rising leans heavily on influences from like Greek and Roman, both political and military structure, as well as just kind of like naming conventions and some of the mythology and the not just naming conventions, but names of things. So, I mean, our solar system, which is where Red Rising takes place, unlike Empire of Silence, which takes place far flung outer space. But so, I mean, our planets are already named Mars and Jupiter and Venus, which are Roman names. And so in addition to that, then you just kind of have a lot of Roman names floating around for the characters and for some of the institutions. And so there's just like a heavy Roman influence. And for that reason, there's kind of an archaic classical kind of style to the speech and to the social structure. And it kind of feels like this like classical Roman setup. This is Red Rising, but in a futuristic space opera type setting where you have high tech and spaceships, et cetera, but the society feels kind of very old school. And for that reason, Red Rising almost kind of reads almost like historical fiction or fantasy where it kind of has this elevated, highfalutin noble houses vibe, which I tend to associate more with fantasy and historical fiction more so than with sci-fi. So, similarly, Sun Eater books, while they do draw on Greek and Roman things, it also draws on just generally kind of a lot of classical kind of stuff. There's illusion and reference and homage page to things like the Crusades. Their reference is made to other classical literature to Shakespeare. And the book self, the book self will rarely call themselves out on this because some of this has to do with how the society is structured in it, how the world building is handled, but also the main character himself just kind of leans that way himself. He tends to be dramatic and melodramatic about things and reference classical literature a lot of the time and make kind of these sweeping grand statements and other characters around him will be like, are you always this dramatic? And he's like, yes, I'm always this dramatic. Again, that kind of blending of a more, I don't know if highfalutin is the right word, but it just has that vibe, this more old school nobles, noble houses honor and the value of your name and your reputation and the family's honor. And I think these are kind of very like old school ideas in the way I think of it, which is again why I associate it more with fantasy, which tends to have a more like historical vibe or with his straight up historical fiction. But again, this is set in a far flung future and in Empire of Silence and in the Sunneater books, it is an even more far flung future book because it is further in the future and further from us. Like the solar system that we are in presently, they are way far away from that. Like Earth itself has become a thing kind of almost of like ancient history myth and legend. Like they know that there was an Earth that we all came from. That's kind of like, do we even know where Earth is anymore? Like it doesn't matter. But there's a lot of kind of origin myth associated with Earth. So there's reference made to even like King Arthur and this kind of thing. So again, but you have like spaceships and high tech and there's things, again, homage is and I don't want to make it so like these books are just copy paste of other things, but there's a great deal of homage and reference. So to anybody who's a fan again, historical things, like Greek and Roman things, other historical time periods. Like I said, the Crusades, other classical literature and the Shakespeare, but also references made to sci-fi, to classical sci-fi. So there are things about it. They're reminiscent of the book of the new son by Gene Wolfe. There are things reminiscent of Dune by Frank Herbert and there are also things reminiscent of Star Wars. And I believe the way the series is kind of hitched by the author himself is this is kind of the story of what if Anakin becoming Darth Vader was the right choice. So you kind of know at the outset of these books that the main character, the protagonist is going to go dark by the end of this series. You don't know how, you don't know why, but he's the one telling the story and he's telling it from the future and telling you his life story. So you already know where this is going to end up. In broad strokes, you know that it's not going to go well. You know that he's become like the villain of the solar system or I guess beyond the solar, the villain of the universe because the world of these books spans across multiple solar systems. They have the technology to travel huge distances. So it has elements of kind of like space magic, that sort of sci-fi fantasy blend where like that's another thing that's kind of reminiscent of Star Wars where you have basically like wizards in space but it's much more complex than Star Wars. It's much, the theming is deeper, the world building is better. It's not just kind of like this wibbly wobbly force thing that is like basically magic. There's a lot more care into the construction of all this but again, that feeling of it's not just lasers and guns and spaceships. There's kind of the elevated culture that is old fashioned, the seeming and there's also kind of magical-ish elements or at least things that are so bizarre and so defying explanation for both the reader and for the characters that they are basically magic. I mean, my dad killed magic for me when I was a kid because he was basically saying how like there's no such thing as magic because the idea of magic is that through magic you have accomplished this thing that was previously impossible but if you've found a way to make this thing possible then now we have a way to do it and it is no longer impossible. Therefore magic isn't necessary or needful. So like very like basically technology is magic because the fact that we're able to like wait the user emote to like make the TV do something that is basically how magic would have when you think of as magic, previously you thought there'd be no way to affect something that you're not touching but we found a mechanism to do that and now that is technology but that's basically what magic is. Is this catch all term for something that for which we have no explanation however people are using it that means they have found a way to do this and they are able to control it so it's not magic anymore. And I was like, shut up, you're taking the fun out of it. So in that sense, like the Sun Eater books have magic because there's things going on that the phenomenon is observed but they do not know how it's working or why it's working or how that was accomplished. So for all intents and purposes, I mean, it would be like showing a time traveler a remote to use for a TV. They don't know how you're doing that and for all intents and purposes to them, that's magic. So similarly. So anyway, these books, Empire of Silence is knockout debut, five out of five stars. And when people told me and Alex that the first book is the weak one, we were like, jeez. It was pretty fantastic. I don't know that I could say that it's the weak one. I mean, I still think it's great and all the books so far have been great. So I have nothing but high expectations for the rest of the series. It is not a series, it is for the faint of heart. It has some fairly troubling and graphic imagery. There are extra, or I guess you can't call them extraterrestrial means it comes from beyond our earth. But since we have gone beyond earth anyway, extraterrestrial does not mean anything. But there are life forms other than humans, which we are interacting with. Intelligent life that is not native to earth that we are interacting with in these books. And so there is kind of an anthropological component to these books. If you know me, if you watch my channel at all, you know that that's immediately like a buzzword for me where I'm like, oh, this is really good. The encounters with alien life, not dissimilarly to how when humans first started sort of going beyond the borders of their nation and into other continents and they encountered people they'd never seen before, cultures they'd never seen before, languages they'd never heard before. You had to work to understand what these people are, how they function, what their language means in order to communicate with them. Because it's not a simply a matter of translation because there's cultural components and connotations to language that you have to be cognizant of. Otherwise you're going to miss the meaning of what this person is trying to say because to their culture, like saying this might have so many more meanings than you're aware of. So similarly encounters with alien life in these books, there is a lot of attention paid to that in the text to understanding how this alien life means what they are saying or what they are conveying through other forms of communication beyond just language, body language or implication of the choices they've made, what assumptions that alien life might be making that are different from the assumptions that humans might make, how they understand what you're trying to say, basically like how they interpret that based on how they structure themselves, how they function, what their biology is like, how they live and what they seem to want. So they're just like a lot of, again it's very anthropological and particularly like linguistic anthropology, differences in language and differences in communication. So that is handled excellently well. Just like overall, there's just a lot of care and attention paid to every detail in these books which again as a reader that gets very nitpicky about things like world building, I found myself well satisfied because the world, well certainly it's not perfect because I don't think it's possible to write a perfect world and there's pics to be knitted I'm sure but overall there's just, it's excellent world building with a lot to it. It feels layered and complex, expansive and mysterious. Like there's a lot that it's explained and there's a lot to unpack and understand and learn about this world that is known to the character and to the reader but there's a lot that is unknown and that's what keeps it fascinating and that's what keeps it feeling real because the idea that you would know everything there is to know about a universe is like, I don't buy it. So anytime I read it like in particular fantasy where I'm basically told everything, everything there is to know about this world and like that makes it feel as real because the idea that you'd know everything about a world, we don't know everything about our own world. So leave something to be mysterious or unexplained. That'll automatically make it feel more real to me. So this universe, while complex and deep and having a lot to learn that is known, there remains things, which again, where we tap into kind of what seems almost magical, unexplained phenomena or things that, which is also fun for me, mysteries that are not necessarily unexplained phenomena, they are just like secrets kept by people who have a reason or an agenda to keep this from common knowledge. So kind of the conspiracy and investigation type of plotlines, the competing interests of political factions versus religious factions versus people with a bountiful xenophobia when it comes to alien life. There's just like so many different agendas at play and any one of them might be instrumental in keeping information from you or keeping something secret or it might be in their interests to keep something under wraps or to mislead you about the nature of something. So there's just like constantly questions that you're asking throughout these books at all times. Nothing is certain and because you know things are going to go badly for the main character then you're always kind of wondering what is gonna cause that to happen and when you're gonna start to see that change and why, again, since it's pitched by the author as why turning to becoming Darth Vader was the right choice, then while he will inevitably do, I guess extreme violence is I guess the assumption that you can make that this will in some way be called for or justified or become necessary because you have that in the back of your mind the entire time, it colors the way that you experience these books because you're always wondering that and it's just an all-around fantastic time. I'm absolutely devouring these books. I can't wait for the next one to come out and then when I've read the fourth one and then we're waiting for the fifth one, I will certainly reread all of these books again because there's so much to them. Having now read them, I know I didn't get it all because there is so much to these books and so many bizarre things that at times it is so bizarre that you are too kind of a gog at the bizarreness of it to really internalize or unpack all the implications of this thing that you learned because you're too just kind of like, what about it? So I would have to reread it in order to be less shocked about it and actually absorb what it's telling me and what the implications of that could be and it's absolutely fantastic series. I have pretty much nothing negative to say about it whatsoever. I was gonna, I mean the only negative I have and it's not even a negative, it's just that there is a love story in it and it's like, I don't hate it by any means. There are love stories that I hate. This is just a love story where I like, I don't feel anything particularly, but most people do. Most people seem to be very invested in this love story. I'm just not one of those people and I'm a monster. Don't take my word for it. And I absolutely love the characters that are involved with this love story. It's not a problem like where I don't like the characters. I like them both. I just don't send any chemistry between them. So like, if there's a weak point in these books, it's that and even that is like, it's fine. So in general, overall I would just say, if you have not read these books, do yourself a favor, find them, pick them up, read them, and you will not be disappointed. If you are, you're wrong. And also, I just would like to briefly draw attention to the glorious cover art because that alone, these books are just stunning. Just what a sci-fi space opera should look like. And honestly, I think my favorite cover is Howling Dark because it's just such a wild and unsettling cover. And I have to say over the books so far that I've read Howling Dark is probably the wildest and most unsettling. But yeah, Sunneater series, read it, do it, so good, so, so good. And yeah, if you like any of the things that I described, if you like an amazing story, if you like amazing characters, if you like insanely good world building, if you like exciting, mysterious, thought provoking plots, basically if you like good books, usually the Sunneater books. Again, I would like to give cons because that would make this feel more balanced. I just, I'm sorry. I don't have cons to give you. And you know, maybe you don't know, maybe this is your first video of mine you're watching. But if you watched any of my other videos, you know how picky I am, how hard I am to please. So if that alone doesn't tell you that these books are probably worth picking up, I don't know what else I can say. Let me know in the comments down below. If you've read the Sunneater books, if you plan to read the Sunneater books, if you agree or disagree with me about what I've said about the Sunneater books, whatever you wanna let me know. 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