I honestly was simultaneously skeptical and curious about this book Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio, wanting it to really hit me hard, fearing it would really disappoint me.
I found so much of a thrill in this book. So much laughter and tears. So many things that echoed the anger I feel at the injustices in the world.
This book did for me almost unilaterally what I hope all books do for me: it made me wiser and made me feel in the process of growing in wisdom.
I cannot recommend this enough to fans of science fiction, Roman history (good LORD there is so much Latin in this book), genetics, and xenobiological ethics like in Speaker for the Dead.
Whatever Ruocchio does, he makes you care.
It was pitched to me as Name of the Wind IN SPACE. After reading it, I have two thoughts on this pitch:
(1) Early on, Ruocchio, or his editor, STRAIGHT UP CRIBBED from Rothfuss. It seems to me the big part of the frame narrative — the names, the myths, the feeling of lies being unmasked — all sounds like Chapter 7, Name of the Wind. Though as the writer of Tap and Die I’m fine with parody, both comedic and Nabokovian — even Rothfuss, strictly speaking, is Nabokovian parody — I do think it’s worth quoting the passage and let you draw your own conclusions;
(2) The rest of the novel bears very little resemblance to Kingkiller other than something sort of like a frame narrative and something like a book of deeds.
If you don’t want any spoilers, probably stop reading there.
The book’s great, though.
I would describe it as something like the plot of Gladiator, with the political trappings of Dune, and the ethics of Speaker for the Dead all crammed into a rags-to-riches rogue. Honestly, other than those two novels and Canticle for Leibowitz, I’m hesitant to say this, but since nothing else comes to mind, I think I’d say it’s probably my… wait okay, I’d add Man in the High Castle. Okay now I’d say it’s my fourth favorite scifi novel of all time.
It’s fair to say I’ve read a few of them, right? Considering the interviews and reviews I’ve done here. Is that fair?
I think it’s fair.
First, I want to do the side-by-side comparison with Rothfuss. I could do this one of two ways, show you the Ruocchio passage and then Pat’s or the other way around. I think I’ll show you Pat’s first because not all of you have read Kingkiller and I want you to feel what I feel when I read this:
Kvothe held up a hand to keep Chronicler from writing, and spoke, “I’ve never told this story before, and I doubt I’ll ever tell it again.” Kvothe leaned forward in his chair. “Before we begin, you must remember that I am of the Edema Ruh. We were telling stories before Caluptena burned. Before there were books to write in. Before there was music to play. When the first fire kindled, we Ruh were there spinning stories in the circle of its flickering light.” The innkeeper nodded to the scribe. “I know your reputation as a great collector of stories and recorder of events.” Kvothe’s eyes became hard as flint, sharp as broken glass. “That said, do not presume to change a word of what I say. If I seem to wander, if I seem to stray, remember that true stories seldom take the straightest way.”
— Rothfuss, Patrick. The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle Book 1) (p. 53-55). Astra Publishing House. Kindle Edition
Kvothe held up a hand to keep Chronicler from writing, and spoke, “I’ve never told this story before, and I doubt I’ll ever tell it again.” Kvothe leaned forward in his chair. “Before we begin, you must remember that I am of the Edema Ruh. We were telling stories before Caluptena burned. Before there were books to write in. Before there was music to play. When the first fire kindled, we Ruh were there spinning stories in the circle of its flickering light.” The innkeeper nodded to the scribe. “I know your reputation as a great collector of stories and recorder of events.” Kvothe’s eyes became hard as flint, sharp as broken glass. “That said, do not presume to change a word of what I say. If I seem to wander, if I seem to stray, remember that true stories seldom take the straightest way.”
My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as “Quothe.” Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I’ve had more names than anyone has a right to.
The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it’s spoken, can mean “The Flame,” “The Thunder,” or “The Broken Tree.” “The Flame” is obvious if you’ve ever seen me. I have red hair, bright. If I had been born a couple hundred years ago I would probably have been burned as a demon. I keep it short but it’s unruly. When left to its own devices, it sticks up and makes me look as if I have been set afire. “The Thunder” I attribute to a strong baritone and a great deal of stage training at an early age. I’ve never thought of “The Broken Tree” as very significant. Although in retrospect I suppose it could be considered at least partially prophetic. My first mentor called me E’lir because I was clever and I knew it. My first real lover called me Dulator because she liked the sound of it. I have been called Shadicar, Lightfinger, and Six-String. I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them. But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant “to know.” I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned. I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me.
.
Okay, have that in mind?
Now Christopher Ruocchio:
LIGHT.
— Ruocchio, Christopher. Empire of Silence, 1-2.
The light of that murdered sun still burns me. I see it through my eye-lids, blazing out of history from that bloody day, hinting at fires indescrib-able. It is like something holy, as if it were the light of God’s own heaven that burned the world and billions of lives with it. I carry that light al-ways, seared into the back of my mind. I make no excuses, no denials, no apologies for what I have done. I know what I am.
The scholasts might start at the beginning, with our remote ancestors clawing their way out of Old Earth’s system in their leaking vessels, those peregrines making their voyages to new and living worlds. But no. To do so would take more volumes and ink than my hosts have left at my disposal, and even I, who has more time than any other, have not the time for that.
Should I chronicle the war, then? Start with the alien Cielcin howling out of space in ships like castles of ice? You can find the war stories, read the death counts. The statistics. No context can make you understand the cost. Cities razed, planets burned. Countless billions of our people ripped from their worlds to serve as meat and slaves for those Pale monsters.
Families old as empires ended in light and fire. The tales are numberless, and they are not enough. The Empire has its official version, one that ends in my execution, with Hadrian Marlowe hanged for all the worlds to see.
I do not doubt that this tome will do aught but collect dust in the archive where I have left it, one manuscript amongst billions at Colchis.
Forgotten. Perhaps that is best. The worlds have had enough of tyrants, enough of murderers and genocides.
But perhaps you will read on, tempted by the thought of reading the work of so great a monster as the one made in my image. You will not let me be forgotten because you want to know what it was like to stand aboard that impossible ship and rip the heart out of a star. You want to feel the heat of two civilizations burning and to meet the dragon, the devil that wears the name my father gave me.
So let us bypass history, sidestep the politics and the marching tramp of empires. Forget the beginnings of mankind in the fire and ash of Old Earth, and so too ignore the Cielcin rising in cold and from darkness.
Those tales are recorded elsewhere in all the tongues of mankind and her subjects. Let us move to the only beginning I’ve a right to: my own.
I was born the eldest son and heir to Alistair Marlowe, Archon of Meidua Prefecture, Butcher of Linon, and Lord of Devil’s Rest. No place for a child, that palace of dark stone, but it was my home all the same, amid the logothetes and the armored peltasts who served my father. But Father never wanted a child. He wanted an heir, someone to inherit his slice of Empire and to carry on our family legacy. He named me Hadrian, an ancient name, meaningless save for the memories of those men who carried it before me. An Emperor’s name, fit to rule and be followed.
Dangerous things, names. A kind of curse, defining us that we might live up to them, or giving us something to run away from. I have lived a long life, longer than the genetic therapies the great houses of the peerage can contrive, and I have had many names. During the war, I was Hadrian Halfmortal and Hadrian the Deathless. After the war, I was the Sun Eater.
To the poor people of Borosevo, I was a myrmidon called Had. To the Jaddians, I was Al Neroblis. To the Cielcin, I was Oimn Belu and worse things besides. I have been many things: soldier and servant, captain and captive, sorcerer and scholar and little more than a slave.
But before I was any of these, I was a son.
Do with that side-by-side what you will. I’m curious what Betsy Wollheim specifically thought…
That said…
The one thing that drives me absolutely batshit crazy about books like this is the belittling tone and, frankly, ignorance of the entire western tradition of philosophy and theology upon which many of Ruocchio’s assumptions are based.
For once — for just once — I would like someone to write about religion in these books that (1) isn’t some giant Borg as if “The Catholic Church” or “The Jews” control everything which, I mean have you seen how powerless Rome is lately? When was the last time war was banned WOLRDWIDE for 7 months out of the year due to the holidays of the saints and martyrs? Though, frankly, we could use such a ban, have you seen the world lately? Good grief; (2) actually has engaged intelligently with the arguments of, say, The Summa. Or Bonaventure. Hugh. Descartes in context. Modern voices like Wright, Hart, Polkinghorne. Newton and Einstein, for crying out loud. Did you know the guy that posited the Big Bang Theory was a priest? Or, frankly, of voices like Greggory of Nysa and the papal bulls that said, over and over and over again, that slavery was wrong?
Modern ethics of the books like Empire of Silence and The Name of the Wind that care for The Other and care about culture and for, especially, eliminating slavery and the like — all of these ethical assumptions are predicated upon postcolonial philosophies like Christianity. You don’t have to be a Christian to think that.
Or a follower of Maimonides.
Or Ibn Sina.
But good grief, if you make arrogant assertions about reality and ethics and don’t ever at least engage with the primary texts of the history of half the world upon which such ethics and assertions are themselves predicated, engage specifically with the arguments of these texts?
Ignorance of ontology. Ignorance of the history of ethics and ideas. Ignorance of how the idea was proliferated that, for instance, slaves are actual frigging human beings — all of these ignorances are not condemnable in and of themselves. Write a book ignorant, that’s fine. Great. All of us do all of the time.
However, combined with this kind of arrogant set of assertions and a clear knowledge of Latin and Roman history, this particularly brand of ignorance gets rather tiresome. Any medievalist worth his salt knows better than to say things like, “There’s no good argument for God.” Let alone resurrection, being, life itself.
Or that the idea that we ought to care about cultures different from our own started somewhere in the 1960’s or something
Or, for that matter, “it’s stupid to follow Religion.” No one in the history of the world has followed Religion. We follow religions that have always been in dialog and collaboration with one another. This is basic Aristotle — it’s the same reason you’ve never encountered treeness in nature, but only that particular oak outside your front door. No one cuts down the idea of Treeness and no one follows Religion.
Hell, I’m no real medievalist and I know better. It helps me engage with my Jewish and Muslim neighbors here in New York, but also with my atheist friends.
/rant
Empire of Silence is a great book, flaws aside. I’d say top 5 scifi of all time.
But you’ll notice its companions that rank higher for me: Man in the High Castle, Dune, Speaker for the Dead, Canticle for Leibowitz. All four of those do what Empire of Silence does, but none of them make the mistake I ranted about above.
Worth noting for other writers out there: write wise wherever and however you can. Engage with the various traditions of the world. Modern myths are just that: myths. They don’t have basis in history. Witch burnings, for instance, were modern phenomenons started, predominantly, by the alchemists and banned, predominantly, by Rome. The Pope literally said at one point, “Witches aren’t a thing. Please don’t burn people.”
Did you know that already?
If you didn’t, please consider that your assumptions about the evils of witch burnings are predicated on ideas found in Catholic thought. I’m not Catholic, but…
Think about that for five minutes. Reread the previous three paragraphs.
Really think about it.
Now ask yourself:
Are there other modern myths that end up in books like this?
Myths you might not even realize you currently believe?
Email me to learn about more of them if you’re curious.
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