Literary Coconut

 As you may have noticed, I haven't been posting much on this blog for a while. Forgive me for that. I had exams last week, and I was trying my best to devote my full focus to them, so I had to shelve my SFF reading for a while. Now that they are over, I'll probably get back to reading soon, and subsequently posting more reviews. 

 I had wanted to get the reviews for Ashes of Man's predecessors done before I got to this one, but my gratefulness for Netgalley's ARC supersedes this. Thank you Netgalley!  This review will be spoiler-free, but vague references to the nature of previous events in previous books will be made.  Ashes of Man is book 5 of the Sun Eater series, but it originally was to be book 4. Publishers were forced to split the book apart, as there was a paper shortage at the time. Do not let this worry you; both Kingdoms of Death (book 4) and Ashes of Man are made better by this split. Why? I'll answer this question as I go along this review. The series so far has put Hadrian Marlowe through the COMPLETE ringer, which is made especially clear in Kingdoms of Death. Ruocchio does not hold back one bit when it comes to this. It would be no surprise then, to hear that the years are taking their toll on Hadrian Marlowe, both on his physical body and his mental state. Hadrian Marlowe is a broke

Empire of Silence is often compared to Name of the Wind and Dune, both of which are revered works in the sci-fi and fantasy landscape. I disagree. This is better. Now I must admit, I wasn't the biggest fan of both Name of the Wind and Dune; I found Name of the Wind to be painfully mediocre, and I did not finish Dune. My experience with science fiction has been rough up to this point. The technical jargon and scientific theories on which sci-fi stories are built around often made me feel like I needed to be a science nerd to fully comprehend literature in this realm. And because of this, I've always avoided science fiction. It took me quite a bit of convincing to start the Sun Eater series, and wow, am I grateful for that.  This series works for both sci-fi and fantasy fans, having enough scientific and extraterrestrial intrigue to honor its sci-fi roots, while also not leaning too heavily toward the science parts. There is something in the series for any avid SFF reader: vivid