The Sun Eater (Literature)

Cowards and faint-hearted runaways
Look for orations when the foe is near:
Our swords shall play the orators for us.

— Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine ^note

Warning: Spoilers prior to Kingdoms of Death are unmarked.

The Sun Eater is a Science Fantasy Space Opera (with significant Cosmic Horror elements) series of seven planned novels and multiple short stories and novellas by Christopher Ruocchio. The first novel, Empire of Silence, was published in 2018.

For hundreds of years, the galaxy-spanning Sollan Empire of mankind fought a brutal war against aliens known as Cielcin. The alien Pale came howling out of the dark, burning hundreds of worlds and enslaving or devouring billions of people. This war threatened to plunge the entire known galaxy into darkness until a man named Hadrian Marlowe burned the Cielcin from the sky, destroying a star in defiance of Imperial orders and with it committing genocide against the entire alien race. In the process, his actions resulted in the deaths of four billion human beings, including the emperor himself. Marlowe is the Halfmortal, the titular Sun-Eater, the Starkiller, the Palekiller, Deathless. He is hailed as humanity's greatest hero and reviled as it's worst murderer.

But before all that, he was Hadrian, the elder son of a relatively minor palatine house. Fleeing his father and home, Hadrian finds himself stranded on the streets of a backwater planet, struggling for survival and unaware of the mysterious forces at work steering him towards his fiery destiny.

The main series takes the form of Hadrian's own account of his life long after his genocide of the Cielcin, which the reader is told of in the opening paragraphs. How Hadrian went from an mostly good-hearted man with a desire for peace to wiping out an entire sentient race, and whether he was justified in doing so, forms the central arc of the story. Being written entirely from Hadrian's perspective, Unreliable Narrator is in full effect, as our hero's lapses in memory, personal interpretations, and flair for the melodramatic all flavor the story.

There are also multiple short stories and novellas taking place in the same universe, fleshing out the wider world and the stories of secondary characters.

The series so far includes the following works:

Empire of Silence (2018)
- The Lesser Devil (novella, 2020, set during book 1)
Howling Dark (2019)
- Queen Amid Ashes (novella, 2020, set between books 2 and 3)
Demon in White (2020)
- Tales of the Sun Eater, Vol 1 (short story collection, 2021)
Kingdoms of Death (2022)
- Tales of the Sun Eater, Vol 2 (short story collection, 2022)
Ashes of Man (2022)
- Tales of the Sun Eater, Vol 3 (short story collection, 2023)
- Dregs of Empire (novella, 2023, set between books 5 and 6)
Disquiet Gods (2024)

The Sun Eater contains examples of:

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The Series in General

AB Negative: Inverted, *all* palatines have the (rare in real life) AB positive blood type. Apparently one of the founding palatine families was Japanese and included that genetic marker as a reference to the old belief in Personality Blood Types.
Absurd Cutting Power: Highmatter swords can cut easily through anything that isn't adamant.
Absurdly Sharp Blade: Highmatter swords run energy fields to shape the unstable exotic matter, making it form into a blade that's only an atom wide. The ceramic blades used by human infantry and the Cielcin are also very sharp and stand a good chance of cutting through the ceramic-titanium armor of a human soldier.
Agri World: In general, this trope is averted, with the long travel times involved necessitating that each planet in the galaxy be self-sustaining. Gododdin plays this trope straight, as vast tracts of its landmasses are dedicated to growing bromos, a genetically engineered crop that is used to feed the Imperial Legions.
Aliens Are Bastards: The Cielcin are a horde of man-eating marauders who burn ruthlessly burn entire planets and can't even conceive of the idea of peaceful coexistence with humanity. At least, that's how humanity sees them; whether this makes Hadrian's actions morally justified is a central theme of the series.
- This is not the case for aliens as a whole, however. The Irchtani find the Cielcin practice of eating people and desecrating their remains just as repulsive as the humans do.
Alien Geometries: The ruins of the Quiet occasionally features doors and hallways that weren't there the first time you walked past, and aren't there the next time you try to find them.
Aliens Never Invented the Wheel: The Mericanii machines somehow never discovered how to make a warp drive despite otherwise being far ahead of humanity technology-wise. Additionally the Cielcin had never developed adequate radiation shielding for their ships, relying on thick ice coatings and hollowing out meteors.
Aliens Speaking English: Those Irchtani who serve the Empire as auxilia are taught at least passable Galstani.
A Lighter Shade of Gray: The Sollan Empire is not the nicest place to live, particularly if you're a plebian or anyone who attracts the ire of the Chantry, but Hadrian eventually realizes that far and above a better alternative to the Cielcin.
- More subjectively, Hadrian also judges the Empire to be a preferable alternative to most of the other human powers, including Tavros, the Extrasolarians, and the Lothrians.
All Hail the Great God Mickey!: The official anthem of the Sollan Empire is Yngwie Malmsteen's "Far Beyond The Sun".
America Saves the Day: Inverted. American A.I. almost destroyed humanity and it was the British, led by an exiled Windsor royal, who saved humanity. Their civilization, known by the time of the books as the Mericanii, is universally hated and feared by humanity.
America Takes Over the World: In the backstory of the series; By the end of the 2100s, the United States had established some sort of hegemony over the entirety of North and South America, and the Artificial Intelligences the Americans built to oversee the nation would enslave nearly all of human-controlled space.
An Aesop: The novels have a strong bent towards humanity and the appreciation of our history and culture, and against transhumanism and moral relativism.
Ancient Grome: The Sollan Empire could be described as Ancient Roman/Greek cosplayers who, a few thousand years on, have forgotten that it was supposed to be an act.
Antimatter: The primary power source of Imperial starships; if the containment system fails, the ship is annihilated almost instantly.
- It's also a feature in the deadliest of Sollan weaponry; anti-matter missiles are used for destroying capital ships and can gut an entire Cielcin world ship.
Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Melee weaponry such as swords, knives, and lances are all common armaments in the galaxy. Two common science fiction justifications for this trope, that spaceships are vulnerable to being depressurized by stray bullets and that personal shields make ballistic guns impotent, are discussed in-universe as possible reasons why.
- Conventional gunpowder firearms such as rifles and shotguns are almost just as ancient in the eyes of the Sollans, but still prove useful in certain situations.
Arc Words: "Time runs down". Said by multiple characters including Gibson, Syriani, and Hadrian himself, usually meaning either "You can't stop time from passing" or "You Can't Fight Fate".
Artificial Gravity: Human ships use a variety of the Royse Field to push things inside a ship towards ground. The result is enough like gravity to work in but disconcerting for those unused to it.
- Centrifugal Gravity is used on larger ships and stations.
Artificial Human: The Sollan Empire makes a sharp distinction between the palatines and patricians, who are humans with genetic enhancements, and homonculi, beings genetically designed for a specific purpose. Not everyone in-universe sees the difference.
Attack Drone: Snake-like drones called nahute are one of the main weapons of the Cielcin; armed with diamond-tipped, drill-like teeth they attack by detecting human body heat, latching onto skin or armor, and burrowing until the victim stops moving.
Attack Its Weak Point: Hadrian's best tactic against cyborgs armored with admant is to strike at gaps around the joints, which are by necessity made of mundane steel and ceramic.
Augmented Reality: The Clansmen of Tavros have their vision overwritten by their neural laces, such that the drab, unadorned buildings and living spaces of their homeworld appear to be beautiful and luxurious.
Awesome, but Impractical: Quite a bit of the higher end Sollan technology such as the colossi and Kestrel-class dreadnoughts are extremely powerful, but most generals frown on them as they're so prohibitively expensive to make. That being said, against the Cielcin, where the Empire needs raw power and durability over the cheap but plentiful, these things prove their worth.
Back from the Brink: During the God-Emperor's war against the Mericanii, humans were reduced to a population of millions scattered through various colony worlds. In Hadrian's time, the Sollan Empire alone numbers in the trillions. And again with the Sollan Empire, they're going to be badly hammered by the Cielcin nearly to the point of collapse. But as Hadrian notes near the beginning of the series, it's the Cielcin that'll be reduced to a few hundred and confined to alienages.
Ban on A.I.: Millenia after the war with the Mericanii, the Empire strictly forbids the creation of thinking machines. The Extrasolarians are less strict, but even they don't seem eager to rush past the The Singularity again.
The Beautiful Elite: The closer a palatine bloodline is to the Imperial house, the more beautiful they are genetically designed to be.
BFG: The plasma howitzer is one of the largest and most effective weapons that can be wielded by a single human or Irchtani.
Bird People: The Irchtani are a xenobyte race that resemble terrestrial birds.
Brain Uploading: Kharn Sagara and the Extrasolarians are capable of sending their minds into cloned bodies. This gives them a form of Resurrective Immortality should they die.
Bring News Back: Syriani always allows a single survivor of every human fleet or world it conquers to return to the Empire to spread the word of its conquests.
Casual Interstellar Travel: Generally averted; while faster-than-light travel exists, it still takes decades for all but the fastest ships to make the journey between stars, with most people making the trip in cryonic fugue. However, Kharn Sagara's ships, such as the Demiurge, and possibly the planet of Vorgossos itself, don't seem to play by these rules.
Christianity is Catholic: The Museum Catholic adorators seem to be the only remnants of Christianity left by Hadrian's day.
Clingy MacGuffin: The fragment of the Quiet's shell keeps finding its way back to Hadrian even when it should have been lost.
Clone Army: The cloned armies of Jadd are what gave them the power to break away from the Empire and keep their independence.
Cold-Blooded Torture: In a galaxy with the Cielcin around and every human power being authoritarian at best, this is a common occurrence.
Cosmic Horror Reveal: Starting with Book 3, the setting of the Sun Eater is revealed to be a Lovecraft Lite cosmos where ancient malevolent gods were defeated eons ago with the aid of a Cosmic Entity. And that same entity also helped humans defeat Mechanical Abominations of their own making. Books after Demon in White reveal increasingly more information about the universe.
Common Tongue: Galactic Standard ("Galstani") is the official language of the Sollan Empire and is frequently used in most other human nations.
Cool Starship: The party in the 2nd book can only marvel and gawk at Kharn Sagara's Sojourner-class starship, Demiurge. The party determine that the Demiurge is 100 miles long and big enough to fit several Sollan capital ships with ease. Bristling with gun towers, the Demiurge is almost invincible with conventional firepower alone, additionally it also doubles as a vault to Lost Technology Star Killing Superweapons taken from humanity's A.I. overlords in the distant past. On a more peaceful note, the Demiurge has a city-sized garden for Sagara's enjoyment.
- Hadrian gets one after being elevated to knighthood. In lieu of planetary holdings, he is given the ISV Tamerlane. This is one of only 17 Eriel-class dreadnoughts which had been discontinued because of their enormous cost. It has a fleet of 5000 air/spacecraft inside, 5000 gun emplacements for would-be boarders and is armed with dorsal plasma cannons, a magnetic grapnel, mile long mass drivers that can One-Hit Kill an asteroid, high energy laser and maser arrays and missile bays packed with nukes and antimatter bombs. To sustain its personnel, it has fish ponds and hydroponic farms plus a medical bay that's the size of a terrestrial city.
- Downplayed with the Cielcin's worldships; in terms of scale, each one makes the Demiurge look like a child's toy, being made from hollowed-out moons. However, the lower level of Cielcin technology maeke them a lot less cool. The Cielcin's specifically look for asteroids and planetoids with a heavy ice surface and then hollow them to refit as ships. The Cielcin never invented ray shielding to protect against radiation and so required the layer of ice to protect the interior. Additionally, worldships are surprisingly fragile; it took only a few atomics and antimatter warheads to destroy the Cielcin ship at the peace accord.
- Dorayaica's worldship, enhanced with Exalted technology, is much more impressive and sports a powerful orbit-to-surface laser emitter.
Corrupt Church: By the time of the novels, the Terran Chantry has become an institution with nearly limitless power in the Empire. The penalties for breaking their dogmas range from torture to planetary sterilization.
Crystal Dragon Jesus: The religion of the Cielcin is based on Gnosticism, particularly Manichaeism. According to its doctrine, the physical universe, the world of lies, was created by Utannash (The Quiet). To embrace truth is to worship the true gods (The Watchers) and to seek to transcend the world of lies.
Culture Chop Suey: The planets making up the Demarchy of Tavros were settled by a mixture of Scandinavian and Southeast Asian colonists, resulting in the modern nation blending the two cultures.
Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: The Sollan Empire's Chantry holds this as religious dogma, and Hadrian certainly seems to agree. Other nations, such as the Tavrosi or the Extrasolarians, are much more open to various forms of augmentation or at least not so terrified at the idea.
Crim: Chantry has it wrong. Human blood doesn't thin so easy as that. Their machines just make it easier for them to be what they want to be.
Decon-Recon Switch: Hadrian initially seeks to subvert the Black-and-White Morality the rest of the Empire sees in their war with the Cielcin, and by opening up communication and understanding bring peace between the two species. The books portray much of humanity as over zealous and cruel, and Hadrian has some success relating to the Cielcin initially... except not really. Their alien minds combined with human-like features results in Hadrian thinking he has a better connection to Cielcin characters than he really does, and it's made starkly clear that the Cielcin represent an existential threat to Humanity and possibly life itself.
Decadent Court: Present in many palatine noble houses, none more so than the Imperial capital on Forum.
Deflector Shields: Clearly modeled on the personal shields of Dune, shields in this setting can stop fast-moving projectiles but not slower-moving objects like melee weapons. Fortunately, these don't explode when struck by a laser.
Deity Identity Confusion: The mystery religion of the Cid Arthur blends Buddhism with Arthurian Legend. ^note"Cid Arthur", "Siddhartha", get it?
Designer Babies: The enhanced genetics of the palatine class are so complex that attempts to have children the old-fashioned way always result in various genetic disorders; all legitimate palatine children are carefully grown in tanks.
Eagleland: Even before their machines enslaved mankind, the Mericanii had jettisoned democracy and where implied to have completely given themselves over to amorality and materialism.
Earth That Was: Earth is a nuclear ruin after the Advent, guarded by the Chantry who forbid any to walk upon it.
The Empire: The Sollan Empire deliberately models itself on the great empires of humanity's past, most notably Rome.
Energy Weapon: Laser, plasma, and disrupter weapons have generally displaced ballistic firearms as the weapon of choice for human militaries.
Eye Motifs: Eyes are a recurring focus in Hadrian's narration; he frequently reflects on his uncle's funeral procession in which he carried eyes in their canopic jar, the Marlowes have distinctive violet eyes, and the Quiet always appear with distinct emerald eyes, no matter whose shape they're taking.
Exact Words: Hadrian's melodramatic tendencies mean that while he assumes you the reader know the end to his story, he'll still pull off dramatic reveals whenever he can get away with it.
- In particular, pay very close attention to whenever Hadrian says a "final" goodbye to a character in the narrative, and take note as to whether his narration explicitly confirms that they never met again...
Faster-Than-Light Travel: The warp drive is what allowed humanity to build a civilization that spans across several galactic arms and gave them the edge they needed to defeat the Mericanii.
Feudal Future: The Sollan Empire is a feudal society with the genetically-enhanced palatine class occupying the ruling ranks from the Emperor himself down to regional lords. Under them are the patricians (humans born naturally but later elevated with genetic augmentation) and plebeians (unenhanced humans).
Foregone Conclusion: From the opening pages of the first book, the readers knows that Hadrian will one day destroy the star of Gododdin, killing nearly every Cielcin and billions of human beings, including the Emperor.
The Future: The setting of the stories take place over 14,000 years in the future. So the highest levels of technology are extremely advanced despite the culturally enforced stagnation of the Sollan Empire.
Futuristic Pyramid: The Mericanii Machine-Lords built their strongholds in enourmous white pyramids that dwarfed the cities of Earth. Kharn Sagara's palace under the surface of Vorgossos is one such installation.
Future Food Is Artificial: A good amount of the food consumed by the lower classes is grown in vats, and the Sollan legions are fed primarily with bromos, a high-protein, genetically modified variant of oats.
Future Imperfect: Downplayed; The Empire has fairly good historical records, but even well-educated members of the upper class such as Hadrian get some things wrong. Not to mention that the Chantry's suppression of anything related to the Mericanii means that most people have a pretty big gap in their knowledge when it comes to all things American.
- The works of Tolkien's Legendarium are considered another mythology that was really believed by the ancients; characters speak of the Valar as pagan gods that would have been worshiped just like Zeus.
Heads-Up Display: Entopic technology projects information directly into the retinas. Someone wearing a Legion uniform can see both their display and surroundings as if they had no helmet on at all.
Heavyworlder: Humans from larger worlds such as Emesh tend to be stronger and stouter than the norm. Hadrian also keeps the Tamerlane's Artificial Gravity at 1.5 standard to emulate this for the Red Company.
Humans Are Advanced: The various factions of humanity have genetic engineering (including lifespans in centuries and even over a millennia and Ideal Illness Immunity), faster-than-light travel, cryogenics, Energy Weapons and Deflector Shields. Every alien species encountered by humanity before the Cielcin were at most around Bronze Age in development. The Cielcin are still considerably less advanced than humanity in technology.
Human Popsicle: In order to survive the decades-long trip between planets, passengers on starships are put in cryonic fugue. The Sollan Empire also keeps thousands of soldiers and peasants (and specialists such as the Imperial portrait artist) in fugue until they are needed.
Human Subspecies: The abundance of genetic engineering blurs the line between this and Artificial Humans with the various homunculi, the palatine and patrician castes, Lothrian experiments, and so on.
Immortality Immorality: Hadrian believes immortality is unnatural and he's horrified by the way some of have achieved it, from Kharn Sagara doing a Brain Upload to his clones to the Mericanii infecting humanity with cancer.
In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race: Defied. With the destruction of the Mericanii and the "melting-pot" ideals, humanity has actually played up their cultural heritage with groups such as the Nipponese, the Mandari and more. Some of the selective breeding done within palatine families is done to enhance certain racial features; the Aventine Dynasty are clearly British and proud of their Windsor heritage.
Interfaith Smoothie: The Terran Chantry was intentionally designed as sort of a preserve of humanity's ancient culture, before it took on a life of it's own and grew into the galaxy-dominating Corrupt Church seen in the novels. It blends elements of Christianity, Islam, paganism, and more.
Just a Machine: Per Word of God, purely mechanical sapience is impossible in this universe. The Mericanii did not become truly self-aware until they started using human brains as processors, and something like Yume could never be on the same level as something with a brain.
Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Downplayed. Energy weapons are the mainstay for the Imperium, but kinetic weapons have their place. Railguns provide greater range than most energy weapons, built-in high-calibre machine guns are used as point defense against boarders because they're cheap and effective against unshielded attackers and there are few weapons more destructive than a nuclear or anti-matter missile.
Large and in Charge: Both the Sollans and Jaddians enhance their ruling classes to be taller than the common people; even the relatively short Hadrian is a head above most plebians.
- The princes of the Cielcin are always the largest of their clans.
Laser Blade: Highmatter swords are clearly modeled after this trope, although technically they are formed out an exotic form of matter Sharpened to a Single Atom, not Pure Energy.
Legend Fades to Myth: Certain historical events, such as the Apollo moon landings, have been mythologized over the millennia by Hadrian's time.
Logical Weakness: The Sollan Empire's Ban on A.I. and cybernetics puts them at a significant disadvantage in information warfare compared to the rest of the galaxy, which in turn makes its war against the Cielcin much more difficult; Valka has relatively minor brain augmentations and can disable entire swarms of nahute on her own, while squads of Imperial soldiers will take horrendous loss of a few of the mechanical snakes get too close.
- The shields used by humans are only moderately effective against a Cielcin in melee. A Cielcin hitting a human with a sword swing or a kick, often isn't fast enough to set off the shield. But because of the Cielcin's Super-Strength, the poor human is either dead or knocked out. Same goes with a Cielcin throwing a nahute at a human.
Long-Lived: Thanks to their genetic tailoring, Imperial palatines can live upwards of six centuries, with the upper classes of the Jaddians living even longer. The lifespans of patricians and the Tavrosi is only a little less impressive, spanning two to three centuries.
Medieval Stasis: Relative to the advanced luxuries afforded to the palatine houses, the lower classes in the Empire are only allowed to possess advanced technology if required by their professions; Downplayed in that the lifestyle of an average Imperial plebeian would not look too dissimilar to a citizen of a first world country in the mid to late twentieth century.
MegaCorp: Much of the Sollan Empire's economy is controlled by galactic corporations like the Wong-Hopper Consortium. These corporations are powerful enough that their reach extends beyond the borders of the Empire to other powers such a Jadd or the independent Extrasolarian worlds.
Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Corvo betrayed Bordelon and sided with Hadrian due to the former's decades of abuse and tyranny over his subordinates.
Neglectful Precursors: The Mericanii (aka the Americans) almost certainly did not mean for their godlike Artificial Intelligences to enslave mankind, but tens of thousands of years later the rest of humanity still hasn't forgiven them.
Nigh-Invulnerable: Adamant alloy, used to cover the hulls of starships and in the armor of the vayadayan, is so complexly bonded and dense that it can withstand a highmatter swords. It takes an extreme amount of firepower, such as from antimatter explosions, to damage it.
- Hadrian can mimic the effects of invulnerability with his powers; by superimposing alternate presents onto the current timeline, he can cause things that ought to have killed him to simply not have done that. His most impressive display is appearing to No-Sell multiple shots from a Cielcin worldship's Wave-Motion Gun.
No Biochemical Barriers: A number of alien plants and animals are edible by humans, and of course the Cielicn devour every human and animal they can get their talons on.
No Transhumanism Allowed: While the Sollan Empire enthusiastically enhances the human form in terms of the genetic enhancement of patricians and palatines, it very deliberately and rigidly adheres to the "still recognizably human" spirit of this trope.
Once per Episode: Every novel contains at least once Shout-Out to Star Wars.
Our Homunculi Are Different: Artificial Humans in this setting are called homunculi. Because homunculi are purpose-created, they can be very different from each other in appearance and capability. Hadrian's grandfather was killed by the bare hands of a homunculus concubine, it's why he was so terrified when the homunculus girl, Naia was hitting on him.
Our Humans Are Different: Palatines are genetically enhanced with long life, immunity to illness and birth defects, superior physiology... but the Empire considers this an extension of humanity, not a fundamental change to human nature.
- Similarly, humans elevated to the patrician class enjoy lifespans in the centuries and near-perfect health.
- Many humans (or at least the upper classes) in other nations such as Tavros and the Norman Freeholds are similarly Long-Lived; the gene modifications of the Jaddian ruling class are even more extreme than the palatines.
- Among the Extrasolarians and Exalted, all sorts of genetic and cybernetic enhancements are commonplace.
Planet Spaceship: The worldships of the Cielcin are carved-out moons and asteroids.
Plasma Cannon: Plasma weaponry is a mainstay of the Sollan Legions, ranging from individual plasma burners to heavy artillery.
Powered Armor: Hadrian's armor contains servos that allow the hard ceramic plates to move smoothly with his motions in combat, as well as advanced sensors and entopics that project his Heads-Up Display directly onto his retinas.
Praetorian Guard: The Martian Guard are the elite protectors of the Imperial family, and the only military unit in the Empire trained and headquartered in Earth's solar system.
Proper Lady: The standard expected of all highborn palatine ladies. Valka, of course, expresses scorn at the idea.
Purple Is Powerful: High-grade plasma weapons glow purple and are one of the few types of armaments that can damage adamantine. Less powerful, blue plasma weapons can be temporarily withstood by combat-grade ceramic.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: This was one of the ways that Emil Bordelon would abuse his subordinates, much to Corvo's disgust. Hadrian and later Alexander are equally appalled when they hear about it. Later in the series, it's revealed that the Cielcin engage in this regularly and it further highlights how monstrous they are.
Reconstruction: The Sun Eater reconstructs the concept of The Hero. Hadrian embodies many aspects of the Fallen Hero; the author has compared him to Anakin Skywalker and many readers have likened him to Paul Atreides. Unlike these characters, Hadrian's actions are portrayed as being tragically justified given his circumstances, and without him humanity and possibly life itself would have been doomed.
Religion of Evil: The Cielicn religion worships the eldritch Watchers, impossibly ancient beings at war with life itself. According to Dorayaica, the universe itself is evil and it is its holy task to unmake it.
Resignations Not Accepted: Hadrian tries multiple times throughout the series to find a way out of his duty and back to a normal life, but something, whether it be fate, the Emperor, or higher powers always brings him back to the fight.
Retconjuration: The Quiet have the ability to rewrite certain events when they need a different outcome, such as when they moved Hadrian off-course so he would land on Emesh, or changed his battle with Aranata so that Hadrian lost his left arm instead of his right arm and head.
Romanticism vs. Enlightenment: Hadrian falls pretty heavily on the side of Romanticism. While Valka offers some balance on the side of Enlightenment, overall the series generally sides with Hadrian on this one.
Running Gag: People frequently ask Hadrian if he's always this dramatic, to which he responds that they just need to ask anyone who knows him.
Shout-Out: On multiple occasions, Hadrian states that he wishes to see with eyes unclouded.
- Humanoid cyborgs bleed a milky white lubricant when damaged.
Signing-Off Catchphrase: Played for Drama as Hadrian addresses the reader at the end of each book.
"If what I have done disturbs you, Reader, I do not blame you. If you would read no further, I understand. You have the luxury of foresight. You know where this ends."
"I shall go on alone."
Single-Stroke Battle: Hadrian's ability to choose exactly which potentiality occurs, combined with the power of a highmatter sword, allows him to defeat multiple admantine-plated chimera with a single cut.
Sinister Surveillance: There are very few places in the Sollan palatine houses where a camera isn't watching you.
Sleeper Starship: Even at warp, it usually takes several years to travel between planets, so most characters spend the trip at least partially in fugue.
Smart People Know Latin: Latin is one of the languages learned by scholiasts and classically taught characters including Hadrian.
- Classical English (what we would call Modern English) also has the reputation associated with this trope.
Snicket Warning Label: Inverted; As seen in Signing Off Catchphrase above, at the end of each novel Hadrian addresses the reader, stating that he doesn't blame them for not continuing the series because they know that there won't be a happy ending.
Space Elevator: Referred to as "hightowers" in-universe. Most have the realistic downside of taking days to complete a one-way trip, although as with many other things, the technology of Vorgossos isn't limited by the rest of the galaxy's rules.
Star Killing: By the end of his story, Hadrian will destroy the star above Gododdin and with it kill billions of humans and nearly every Cielcin.
Static Stun Gun: Phase disruptors are the most common sidearm among humanity and can pretty reliably knock out an unshielded human if set to stun.
Subspace Ansible: The quantum telegraph allows communication across the galaxy in real time, although it takes time to transcribe the individual bits of the message into usable data.
Superweapon: The Mericanii A.I. created weapons capable of destroying stars and defying the laws of physics.
Theseus' Ship Paradox: A major theme of the series, one that is applied in a number of ways:
- Hadrian wonders if, as the sum of his experiences, he truly is the same person who left Delos at the beginning of the series.
- With the series' focus on the philosophical questions of transhumanism, the question is raised as to whether characters such as Kharn and Urbaine are truly the same individual as they discard their bodies.
- Given Hadrian's bizarre powers and the Quiet's abilities, is the Hadrian we follow throughout the series one individual, or is he constantly be replaced by versions of himself that never existed?
Time Skip: Because it can take decades to fly between solar systems, the books other than Kingdom of Death and Ashes of Man involve a decades or centuries long time skip between each other.
Trilogy Creep: Quintology creep, in this case; The series was initially meant to be five books, but paper shortages caused Kingdoms of Death to be split into two books and the author has stated that the series will end up with seven novels total.
Translation Convention: Hadrian writes these accounts in Galstani, the language of the Sollan Empire, occasionally translating dialogue from other languages such as Jaddian or Cielcin. In-universe, the books are translated from Galstani into "Classical English" by Tor Paulos.
- Given that Hadrian frequently speaks Classical English and translates for the reader, this occasionally results in Recursive Translation.
Unresolved Sexual Tension: Hadrian's attraction to Valka is clear from their first meeting, but it isn't until the end of ''Howling Dark" that they end up together.
We Will Use Lasers in the Future: Energy Weapons have understandably pushed out most ballistic weapons with laser weapons as one of the more common type used by humanity, particularly on starships. They provide great accuracy and good hitting power (though not to the extent of a plasma weapon) while also being rapid-fire.
Wise Tree: In the Cid Arthurian religion, the Arthur-Buddha achieved enlightenment through the tutelage of the Merlin Tree.
Zerg Rush: The standard tactic of the Cielcin is to swarm the enemy at close range under the cover of a swarm of nahute. Given their strength, speed, toughness, and preference for fighting the enemy in dark, enclosed spaces, it's frighteningly effective. Interestingly, humans vastly outnumber the Cielcin - there are billions of Cielcin but trillions of humans, though later Hadrian learns that actual Cielcin numbers are also in the trillions - they just haven't fully unified.

The Lesser Devil

Crispin Marlowe grew up in his brother's shadow, a shadow that still looms large even decades after Hadrian mysteriously disappeared into the stars-after beating Crispin senseless.

When word comes that his aunt, the duchess of Delos, is dying, Crispin and his younger sister Sabine set off on what should be a routine shuttle flight, only to be attacked and stranded in the mountains of their homeworld. There they must rely on unlikely allies as they try to survive the attacks of a mysterious foe from House Marlowe's past....

This novella provides examples of:

A Day in the Limelight: This is the first story to focus on Crispin.
Machiavelli Was Wrong: Crispin learns to rally the people of St. Maximus by inspiring them and appealing to their compassion, rather than throwing his nobel authority around.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Jean-Louise and Lud steal one of the Durantine flyers and board the Orin starship, rescuing the very surprised Crispin.
Past Experience Nightmare: Crispin has repeated nightmares of the dead soldiers from the shuttle crash.
Private Military Contractors: Lady Orin-Natali hires a team of Durantine mercenaries to attack the Marlowes. Unlike many examples of this trope, they're not exactly top-of-the-line troops and their equipment is far from cutting edge.
Rank Up: After the Marlowes are rescued, Crispin promises to knight Lud and elevate Jean-Louis to the patrician class as thanks for saving their lives.
Saintly Church: The Catholic Church is portrayed as an overall benevolent organization and a far cry from the Chantry.
Space Amish: The Adorators are an insular, religious community that is cut off from modern technology and mainstream society.
Tranquil Fury: Jean-Louis is clearly enraged after Crispin's course joking about the Virgin Mary, but manages to hold it in.

Literature / The Sun Eater

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Literature / The Sun Eater

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The Sun Eater contains examples of:

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