Empire of Silence

I can only think of a handful better first books to a series than this one. I've never been a big sci-fi fan especially when they use high tech words that confuses me but this book has gained my interest in the genre. People think this book is a rip off of Name of the Wind and Dune but it's definitely not. The only similarity is that it's the same writing style of NotW in the sense that it's a person narrating his story. He's showing you the events that lead up to his infamous life that we won't really know about until later in the series.
As far as Dune goes the only similarity would be that the main character is of nobility, their planet has a valuable resource and Marlowe is trained by a Master of Arms. Boy that sure sounds like almost every fantasy book ever. The author takes small bits of these great books and turns them into a badass story that I would recommend to anyone and I'm rarely this excited to read a sequel.