Thoughts on Sun Eater
First and foremost, let me start by saying I do very much enjoy the story, ever more as I progress along the books (currently in the middle of Disquiet Gods). What has been bugging me however, and made me do this post, is the feeling in the back of my head that I am reading (to a certain extent) a huge mix of fan fiction. Let me summarise what I though of this far:
- The whole setting of the story obviously resembles Dune (which in itself is of course inspired by Foundation) - the post-AI war empire, the scholiasts= mentats, the body shielding, the prohibition of thinking machines etc. That one is quite obvious and no surprise to anyone here. But it also reminds me of Warhammer 40k, with a God-Emperor ruling over a medieval galaxy-spanning Empire of Mankind, down to its Chantry / Inquisition.
- Lightsabers like from Star Wars
- Cyberpunk-ish Tavrosi (every time Valka would disrupt some video feed or hack someone else's implants I am reminded of doing the same in Cyberpunk 2077)
- Lovecraftian ancient beings
- Dharan-Tun sounds to me like Barad-Dûr, and it is also essentially a dark fortress with rivers of molten lava, torture chambers, monsters etc, and its Dark Lord in this case is Syriani Dorayaica
So in a nutshell, every few minutes when reading Sun Eater I am thinking man, this reminds me of this or that - and it is a feeling that I never had to the same extent when reading other books. E.g. Red Rising, ok the first book is like Hunger Games but after that it really becomes its own very unique thing. Malazan, First Law, Hyperion, Game of Thrones etc etc never gave me that same feeling like I am reading a compiled mixture of other fiction. Does anyone feel the same?
P.S: Obviously, there is also a lot of originality, for example the Cielcin and their world-ships, the approach around the interactions with high-dimensional beings, the different fractions of humanity outside of the Imperium. As mentioned, I do enjoy the books - but wanted to share my thoughts as this has been on my mind for a while.
Cheers.