HOWLING DARK

Great item. Awful delivery again from Amazon

I enjoyed Empire of Silence, but only after reading Howling Dark do I understand the hype of this series. The book started a bit more slow than I was expecting, but then it picks up and it's absolutely incredible. A must read for all hard sci-fi fans!

7.5/10 HOWLING DARK 7.0/10 EMPIRE OF SILENCE NEGATIVE I am 60% done with Howling Dark. It's an immersive story in the beginning. I love the action scene with the Painted Man. Christopher Ruocchio maintains amateur writing, although much improved, as is pacing. Yet, sometimes my suspension of disbelief dissipates upon mention of "ancient" San Francisco and Los Angeles. What?! It's weird. I get it. I get why Christopher Ruocchio wants to use it, but he's not doing a good job of painting those societies within the milieu of their time within the greater context of the story. It's just weird. I'm going to keep reading but thought I would mention some of the negative first. HOT TAKE: I thought the first 100 pages of Howling Dark were great. Christopher Ruocchio in my opinion has really strong first halves in both books. I don't understand why people say Howling Dark is boring until the last 200 pages or so. Howling Dark as a story has maintained its appeal consistently. I'm actually getting a little concerned that things will wind down from here. I thought the encounters below the castle on Vorgossos were a little dry. The scene with the Exalted was creepy but the action felt intangible the way it did with the Painted Man. Hadrian spends too much describing his sword and others facial features. The whole beneath the city castle thing just felt rushed and a tad boring. CONCLUSION Christopher Ruocchio has these moments, these beautiful moments where he writes with immaculate prose and clarity. He has such amazing figurative language yet sometimes between those moments, his imagination is just plain lacking. He paints great visuals with his word choice. That's not the problem. We're circling back around to the Los Angeles thing again. Even the sword doesn't seem all that interesting. Liquid and mist? Idk. Just most of the time, it doesn't seem as cool as he tries to make it sound.

An incredible followup to Empire of Silence, this series is already among favorites! I can't even pinpoint what the main strength of this book is. Is it the character development? Hadrian certainly grows a lot as a character in this book, we see him experience love, betrayal, defeat, victory, loss... so many things happened here that reinforced Hadrian Marlowe as one of the best main characters I've ever read. He certainly makes mistakes, decisions and opinions that feel contradictory to what we know about him and how he thinks. One of the greatest things for me was when we get those future Hadrian comments on how he was wrong at that time, and how sometimes other characters were in the right. Beautiful. Is it the world building? Again we visit two new planets that bring so much to the lore, to how vast this world is. We get more info on different species, on the Quiet, on certain humans, on certain things created by humans... The Cielcin get a fair bit of development as well, we get to learn more of their culture, and see how it can clash with human nature, because they are simply very different species than us. Is it the pacing? This book was non-stop. There was action, there was world building, there was character development... every single page of this book served a purpose, there wasn't a single moment where I felt bored, I was invested in what was going on at all times. I would say the only negative I have is the fact that the book starts a bit too quickly, after a timeskip of 48 years, where a lot of things happened for Hadrian, both emotionally and physically, and it was a bit hard to care about it so fast. All in all, this is another masterpiece by Ruocchio, easy 5/5, highly recommend and I am really excited to read the next book, Demon in White!

Amazing book. I live the characters and how the world is so built