Hidden Empire - Kevin J Anderson
Book One of 'The Saga of Seven Suns' series: 'Hidden Empire'; 'A Forest of Stars'; 'Horizon Storms'; 'Scattered Suns'; 'Of Fire and Night'; 'Metal Swarm'; 'The Ashes of Worlds'.
Last week I was returning a book to my local library and saw a flyer for something called the 'Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge.' A fairly straight-forward challenge running through until 30 June 2022, that challenges you to read 26 books, each by an author whose surname starts with a different letter of the alphabet. There is no major prize, although after every fifth book you can claim a small prize from the library. It's really just an excuse to read more books.
As if I need excuses to read.
Anyway, I decided to have a go, and have also decided I'll try and read my books for this in alphabetical order (not a requirement of the competition). So after browsing a number of books under 'A' I chose this book, the first in a science fiction series I've never heard of, by an author I've never heard of.
And, I really enjoyed it!
The first book in a series of seven, Hidden Empire isn't a fast-paced story, but it is engaging. The story opens as humans are igniting a gas giant planet, turning it into a miniature star in order to develop colonies on its four ice-covered moons. The technology they are using to do this has been discovered in the ruins of an ancient alien civilization that has now gone extinct - the insect-like Klikiss. Aside from the Klikiss, humanity only knows of one other alien race, the Ildirans, who are divided into numerous classes/races with differing characteristics, and on the surface are fairly benevolent towards humanity. Humans also interact with the robotic servants of the Klikiss, large spider-like robots who cannot recall their lives before the extinction of their masters, and seem to be searching for their missing memories.
Humanity itself is spread across the 'Spiral Arm', founding colonies on various planets, and under the leadership of a figurehead king with very little actual power. Two splinter groups of humans also exist: the 'green priests' of Theroc who are able to communicate instantly across the vast reaches of space through a psychic connection with their 'world trees', and the nomadic 'Roamers' who are responsible for harvesting ekti - the fuel used for powering faster-than-light travel - from gases found in the upper layers of many gas giant planets.
We follow various characters from numerous viewpoints: Roamers, Therons, Ildirans, the main empire of humanity known as the 'Hansatic League', rulers, servants, low-caste, high-caste... even robots - both Klikiss and human-made get chapters devoted to them and their perspectives. With all of these points of view a book can become unwieldy, but Anderson manages to keep it obvious which storylines are which as he goes. Occasionally this is done by repeating background information we have already read elsewhere, but this does help remind the reader of the important facts, and is not a hugely distracting feature.
Once the storyline does get going, and as the various background machinations slowly come to the surface, Hidden Empire becomes more intriguing, and at times gripping. The body count is also fairly high - whenever a chapter was from the perspective of someone I hadn't heard of before I didn't hold high hopes of them surviving the chapter in tact.
As is the case with many first books of a longer series, Hidden Empire sets up future installments more than it provides a self-contained narrative, but at the end of the book I did find myself wanting to read on, so I guess its done its job.
Interesting and page-turning slow-burn science fiction.
Completed 11 August 2021.
(Alphabet Soup Books)
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