Hidden Empire

Today’s post is on Hidden Empire by Kevin J. Anderson. It is the first in his Saga of Seven Suns series which is seven novels long. It is 637 pages long including a glossary characters and terminology. The cover has Jupiter on it with the title in orange and the author’s name in yellow. The intended reader is someone who likes space operas, does not mind a lot of people dying, and general hard science fiction stuff. The chapters are told from third person close of a different main character. There is violence, talk of sex, and foul language; but if you like any space operas or hard Sci-fi then this is not shocking or new. Just to be safe 16 and up. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- Mankind has colonized the worlds of the Spiral Arm. The galaxy is theirs for the taking. But humanity will soon discover the brutal, horrifying price of arrogance in deep space.
The Kilkiss Torch is a device of unimaginable power, capable of transforming gas giants into new suns. However, unknown to humanity, the Jovian worlds are home to an undreamed-of alien species: the hydrogies. Infinitely advanced, supremely powerful, and now the victims of accidental genocide, the hydrogues don’t seek apologies or reparations. Instead, incredible armadas of invincible city-sized warships suddenly emerge from the galaxy’s numerous gaseous worlds with a single mission: to annihilate every last human being in the universe.
And so begins the Saga Seven Suns- an action-packed epic of mankind’s destiny among the stars.

Review- This is a fast-paced, action filled space opera. As a long time science fiction fan this was an interesting and different ride. As I read this book at times I had to put it down because Anderson made me care about the characters so when really bad stuff happened I needed a break. So I would put it down then pick it back up and so on for about four months now. And now I have finished the first novel. It was good. It was everything that I was hoping for. Space ships, tricky politics, innocent people fighting for their lives, and truly bad guys. In my opinion the bad guys are not the Hydrogues, at this moment at least, the bad guys are the ones in power both the human and the Ildirans. The human in power is pretty amoral but the Ildiran leader is not really grey but more like darker shadow. He creeped me out really bad. The robots in this are important to the future of the story and I look forward to seeing where they are going. In general I think that this is a strong first novel in a series.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I bought this book with my own money.