Published: March 22, 2022
Publisher: DAW Books
Series: Sun Eater #4
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 544 (Hardcover)
My Rating: 5.0/5.0
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
The fourth novel of the galaxy-spanning Sun Eater series merges the best of space opera and epic fantasy, as Hadrian Marlowe continues down a path that can only end in fire.
Hadrian Marlowe is trapped.
For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing. Mankind is losing.
The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen.
And the Empire stands alone.
Now the Emperor has no choice but to give Hadrian Marlowe–once his favorite knight–one more impossible task: journey across the galaxy to the Lothrian Commonwealth and convince them to join the war. But not all is as it seems, and Hadrian’s journey will take him far beyond the Empire, beyond the Commonwealth, impossibly deep behind enemy lines.
CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS
WHY, Why must authors break their readers’ hearts so?? I KNEW this book had terrible things in store for my beloved characters (I mean, how else does a character end up deep behind enemy lines?) but I. AM. SHOOK. At least there wasn’t a cliffhanger.
The synopsis is exactly what you get for the first portion of the book – Hadrian and the Red Company are finally allowed to leave Nessus and are sent to the Lothrian Commonwealth to negotiate an alliance. The Lothrians have a rather disturbing society where no one has names (or at least they aren’t supposed to) and the only acceptable language is that printed in the Lothriad – speaking anything else is sedition. A mere month after their arrival, the Lothrian “rebels” try to assassinate Hadrian and in his attempt to escape (along with Valka, Pallino, Crim, and Corvo) he is captured and eventually handed over to the Cielcin. The Lothrians have committed the ultimate betrayal of humankind by allying themselves with monsters. A significant portion of the book is ultimately Hadrian’s seven years of isolation and torture by Syriani Dorayaica and the culmination of this seemingly inescapable trial.
This book is absolutely visceral and will shred your heart into small, bloody pieces just like the poor Red Company was shredded by slavering monsters before the skull of a Cielcin god. I was listening to the last four hours of the audiobook during work and I was sitting in my office all teared up while trying to pull data!!! It’s rare that a book can wring tears from me but this one did on a few occasions for sure. I mean, man, why’d you have to go kill Elara like that right as she got to Pallino? And then poor, brave Pallino went out saving Hadrian which is really the only way he could have gone (I’m tearing up again writing this, dammit!). This book is an emotional rollercoaster in which it seems the only way is down, right until the very last few chapters and it begins to look hopeful again.
If you haven’t read this series, I’m really not sure why you’ve read a review containing huge spoilers like this, but you should go pick it up! It’s one of the best series I have ever read and is severely underhyped. If the narrative style of The Name of the Wind met the bloody space battles of Red Rising and had a love child, it would be the Sun Eater series. The quality of the storytelling is unparalleled and the world has such a lived in feel. It warms my heart even as it breaks it. I am beyond stoked to see that Ashes of Man, the next book, will be released in December 2022!
Powder & Page 
So, it’s really really good, even though it hates you? That’s interesting lol
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