I had a lot of problems with the very popular galaxy-spanning epic science fiction series, Sun Eater, after reading the first book (Empire of Silence) — yes, I was condemning the whole series after only reading the first book — bad reader! However, in my heart I didn’t want to give up on it, and some videos on Youtube persuaded me to try this novella. I decided to lower my expectations about what I knew would be coming in the writing and try my best to enjoy this story. It follows Crispin Marlowe, the younger brother of series protagonist Hadrian Marlowe, in an episode that takes place between the events of the first two books. I knew going in that the events of The Lesser Devil would not have any impact on the broader Sun Eater series, only adding a spot of colour to its fictional universe, so the emotional stakes were going to be less significant. Plus, I hunkered down to ignore some of the mispronunciations and uses of unnecessary vocabulary that bothered me in the first book. That perspective did help me to enjoy the story more than I probably otherwise would, though I still found quite a few nits to pick.

First, the character of Crispin was not really made very distinct from his brother Hadrian within the first book. There was only a small amount of time spent with him. A classic brotherly relationship that is built on imitation and rivalry leaves the two characters very much alike, so now when we have a story that features Crispin it feels like it could have been a “cutting room floor” role meant originally for Hadrian instead. The plot itself is classic, almost cliche: Rich and powerful scion gets stranded among the peasants. By standing together with them to defend against aggressors, the scion learns compassion, humility, and that the class system that gives him his privilege is also unfair and meaningless.

When Crispin and his sister Sabine are attacked and their ship shot down mid-journey, they are stranded in a town populated by pagan peasants. The attackers continue to pursue their destruction while the locals help to defend them, their ostensible rulers. There is a lot of action and a lot of battle scenes in this short story. One of my problems with it (something that I couldn’t steel myself enough to overlook, despite my similar experience with Empire of Silence) is that there’s way too much blow-by-blow description given of the fight/battle scenes. There is too much talk of what weapons are made of and how they slice or shoot through things (and people). This kind of text took up a very large proportion of the book, when that word count could have been used to develop the plot or the characters a bit more. From my experience, this kind of writing is a hallmark of a pulp action novel that one might find in an airport bookstand, the kind that may even get optioned for movie adaptation, but for me it was too much unnecessary detail that was distracting and disengaging.

An element of this story that was a bit different, and had some potential, was an interesting turned-upside-down discussion of Christianity. It turned out, that these backwater “pagan” peasants that the Marlowe siblings stumble upon are actually Christians, millennia after the Earth has gone. I would have been fixated with interest if Ruocchio had dared to intelligently speculate on what Christianity of the future, 20,000 years from now, would have looked like. Unfortunately, his version (which he gives little explanation for) is a lingering cult that seems to act more like the Christian church of the Middle Ages. They even speak French (unclear which period of French they speak) and the audiobook narrator affects a French accent for their English dialogue, which makes them seem like props for a lot of “ain’t that peculiar” or “ain’t that quaint” comments coming from Crispin and others. This addition to the story also provides opportunity to mention that the mainstream religion of this intergalactic empire, the Holy Terran Chantry, is an amalgamation of many old Earth religions, but there’s not much detail about how the pieces of Christianity got extracted and recombined with other faiths into the Chantry (plus, the Chantry seems to act very much like the Roman Catholic Church of the Renaissance period). This whole aspect was a wasted opportunity and added to the frustration of this story for me.

If I ignore the disappointing parts and just focus on the plain story, it’s a serviceable sci-fi adventure episode. Crispin became an unobjectionable, almost likeable, character. I wouldn’t say that the story propelled me into the arms of the next volume, The Howling Dark, but neither did it sour me on continuing (especially since everyone promises me a thrilling ending to that book). Even though this novella is ultimately quite forgettable, I’m thinking that I’ll still remember it somewhat as I continue through the series. At least when the Chantry is brought up again it might jog my memory and remind me of how we touched on them in this book.

3 stars

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