The Dregs of Empire: A Tale of the Sun Eater

This novella follows on from Ashes of Man and is the best of the novellas in the series. It tells the story of Lorien Aristedes after he engineered the rescue of Hadrian.

It begins with Lorien already having been tried and entered into his sentence. The book starts out dark and gets progressively darker as Ruocchio strips Lorien of his dignity and ultimately his humanity. As Lorien is ground into the dust by his circumstances and the people around him the inner surety that has carried him in previous episodes also retreats from him. He is thrown into suffering and forced into performing actions that he would never have countenanced in his former life.

Next to Kingdoms of Darkness, this is the darkest story of the series so far and totally compelling. It was a two session read for me, and had I started it early in the day it would have been a single session to complete. It confirms to me that Ruocchio is at his best in longer form stories rather than shorts.