Informationen zum Autor Christopher Ruocchio is the internationally award-winning author of The Sun Eater, a space opera fantasy series, and the former Junior Editor at Baen Books, where he edited several anthologies. His work has also appeared in Marvel comics. He is a graduate of North Carolina State University, where he studied English Rhetoric and the Classics. Christopher has been writing since he was eight and sold his first novel, Empire of Silence , at twenty-two. His books have appeared in five languages. Christopher lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, Jenna. Klappentext The fourth novel of the galaxy-spanning Sun Eater series merges the best of space opera and epic fantasy, as Hadrian Marlowe continues down a path that can only end in fire. Hadrian Marlowe is trapped. For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing. Mankind is losing. The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen. And the Empire stands alone. Now the Emperor has no choice but to give Hadrian Marlowe--once his favorite knight--one more impossible task: Journey across the galaxy to the Lothrian Commonwealth and convince them to join the war. But not all is as it seems, and Hadrian's journey will take him far beyond the Empire, beyond the Commonwealth, impossibly deep behind enemy lines. Leseprobe CHAPTER 1 TWILIGHT NIGHT. Night had fallen on Eikana and clung about the rooftops and bristling antennae that crowned the old refinery like weathered tombstones. No light of moon was there, and the stars kept silent vigil, distant and cold as the gray sands that flatly stretched to the horizon all around. The Pale won't know what hit them, Crim said, whispering despite the relative safety of the ship around us. I sensed the anticipation in the mansensed it in all the men about me, the soldiers huddled like the Achaeans in the bowels of their wooden horse. Each one of them seemed to be holding his breath. They better not! groused Pallino. The fleet's still three hours behind. Heat sinks are holding, my lord, said the pilot officer, reassuring. Only way they'll see us coming is if they sight us out a window. I knew the pilot was right. The Ascalon was the fastest ship in our fleet, a Challis-class interceptor whose massive heat sinks made it possible to mask its sub-light emissions for days, thus making it invisible to heat and light detection and perfect for such stealth missions as ours. It was a small ship, a mere five hundred feet from end to end, its hydroponics and life-support systems designed to support an active crew of perhaps ten men and fugue creches to sustain another forty. A small complement, but enoughI prayedfor our task. Three hours. We had three hours to secure the Yamato Fuelworks at Virdi Planum . Peering out the slit window, I could clearly see the silver line of the bundled hadron colliders. Fully operational, the machines produced kilotons of antimatter a day, iron hearts synthesizing the volatile substance from the collision of the smallest quanta to fuel the sector's starships. In the distance, I could make out the silvered domes where containment silos waited to be hauled from Eikana's surface to high orbit. Without antimatter, our starships could not travel faster than light's slow speed. Without Eikana, the local capital at Nessusand by extension, the great mass of the Imperial navy in the Centaurine provinceswas as good as crippled. It was a cunning target. It was not like the Cielcin to choose cunning targets. Not like most Cie...

Autorentext

Christopher Ruocchio is the internationally award-winning author of The Sun Eater, a space opera fantasy series, and the former Junior Editor at Baen Books, where he edited several anthologies. His work has also appeared in Marvel comics. He is a graduate of North Carolina State University, where he studied English Rhetoric and the Classics. Christopher has been writing since he was eight and sold his first novel, Empire of Silence, at twenty-two. His books have appeared in five languages. Christopher lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, Jenna.

Klappentext

The fourth novel of the galaxy-spanning Sun Eater series merges the best of space opera and epic fantasy, as Hadrian Marlowe continues down a path that can only end in fire. Hadrian Marlowe is trapped. For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing. Mankind is losing. The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen. And the Empire stands alone. Now the Emperor has no choice but to give Hadrian Marlowe--once his favorite knight--one more impossible task: Journey across the galaxy to the Lothrian Commonwealth and convince them to join the war. But not all is as it seems, and Hadrian's journey will take him far beyond the Empire, beyond the Commonwealth, impossibly deep behind enemy lines.