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The Risen Empire (Succession #1)

3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 · rating details · 1,059 ratings · 134 reviews

From the acclaimed author of Fine Prey, Polymorph, and Evolution's Darling (Philip K. Dick Award special citation and a New York Times Notable Book) comes a sweeping epic, The Risen Empire, Scott Westerfeld's dazzling hardcover debut.

The undead Emperor has ruled his mighty interstellar empire of eighty human worlds for sixteen hundred years. Because he can grant a form of...more

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published March 1st 2003 by Tor Books

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Jul 17, 2011 Jonathan Cullen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is something unbeatable about being pleasantly surprised. This was my first time reading anything by Scott Westerfeld and I was extremely pleasantly surprised by The Risen Empire.

It is bad form to quote oneself but here is what I said about The Risen Empire when I compared it very favourably to Foundation in my sacrilegious review of Asimov’s space opera:

“Immediately after I "finished" Foundation, I picked up Scott Westerfeld's The Risen Empire… Intelligent turns of phrase? Break-neck act...more

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Aug 28, 2011 Niall519 rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Possibly I've just read too many space operas over the past few years. This wasn't bad in any specific way, just didn't fail to entrance me the way it's evidently done for other readers. I imagine that the desires and difficulties in coming up with new technology and effects in SF like this must be the same for fantasy writers attempting to deal with magic. Unless you get lucky and strike a previously unmined seam of ideas or metaphors, it all suffers from being much the same as the other ten au...more

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Sep 24, 2011 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm going to lump together my review of both Succession novels since they are really one novel and do not stand on their own. I found The Risen Empire to be solid 4-star space opera except for a few major annoyances that bumped it down a notch:
1) The big secret that more or less drives the plot of the entire story is hinted at and then yanked away without being revealed so many times that it just becomes silly. And then in the final pages when it is revealed, all I could think was, "That's it?"
2...more

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Aug 22, 2011 Nicholas rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, reviewed

Although initally this is quite a heavy book to read, once you get into the somewhat peculiar writing style of Westerfield, the intricate storyline and realisitc characterisations that lie within this novel make it more than worth the time and effort. Westerfield's vision of the future (the exact time-frame is unspecified, but given that humanity apparently pervades a significant portion of the galaxy it must be the fairly distant future) is very captivating, although it must be said that little...more

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Jun 24, 2010 Josh rated it 4 of 5 stars

A nice little page turner. I like how Westerfeld starts the book in the middle of the story and then fills in the background later. This is almost always a compelling story telling technique. I also liked his idea that death is necessary for societal progress. I will have to look into his remarks that the geocentric world view was only killed when all of the people who believed it died off and the next, more open, generation adopted a heliocentric world view. It very well may be that old people...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Alice rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sf

So I typed up a huge review, and then lost it because my interest crashed. Sigh.

The main points were as follows:
-- Scott Westerfeld is amazing, and I highly recommend all his books

-- The technology in this book carries his signature style of being awesome and easy to understand

-- I especially like the Rix, a race of cyborgs who create compound minds by joining together a planet's information system, while leads to the birth of an AI

-- The book's questioning of what constitutes as a life (whethe...more So I typed up a huge review, and then lost it because my interest crashed. Sigh.

The main points were as follows:
-- Scott Westerfeld is amazing, and I highly recommend all his books

-- The technology in this book carries his signature style of being awesome and easy to understand

-- I especially like the Rix, a race of cyborgs who create compound minds by joining together a planet's information system, while leads to the birth of an AI

-- The book's questioning of what constitutes as a life (whether AIs are alive, and if said lives carry equal value to those of humans), and if immortality is the final goal of humanity or a mistake which causes a civilization to stagnate and collapse, are both fascinating

-- the relationship between Zai (the captain of a ship tasked with two suicide missions, on the front-line of a developing war) and Oxham (a politician assigned to the war council) falls flat, because their relationship is spoken about, rather than being shown

-- the world building is lacking, due to the book's limited focus on politicians and military figures; only the upper class, and where they dwell, which leaves the world feeling lifeless

-- one rare, redeeming factor of the world's canon is the references to The Time Thief, or the years lost by those traveling light-years away, while their loved ones age normally on their home planets

-- my two favourite characters were h_rd and Rana. h_rd is a Rix commando, and Rana is a member of the Empire's milita who switches sides. We are privy to their developing relationship, which makes it understandable and endearing. As an added bonus, both are women (though the Rix are biologically different from humans, and are all female gendered)

-- the book hints at the Empire's great secret, which if exposed would ruin the Empire's credibility, gets hinted at but the explanation of the secret's exact nature is saved for the second book

Complaints aside, while reading this book, I kept looking forward to what would happen next. I look forward to reading the next book, and seeing how the plot proceeds and how it effects the characters.
(less)

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Nov 14, 2011 Jamie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think I have a crush on Scott Westerfeld. His bio says he's also a software designer and music composer, and his writing is delightfully diverse. His Uglies series is YA dystopic fiction. His Leviathan series is steampunk for a slightly younger audience. This series is straight up science fiction, a so-called space opera along the lines of Asimov's Foundation series. The plot is more active and complex than Foundation, and contains extremely satisfying characters and devices. In this world, th...more

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Aug 30, 2011 Anne Toronto1 rated it 1 of 5 stars

Narrative is sectioned into each of a crew, all alike, all abysmally maundering.
The "peerlessly happy" pilot flies intelligencers microscopically against intelligent interceptors releasing mechanopheromones, or vice versa? His female second officer spouts identical geek-babble. The doctor, back in uncomfortable armor, protective technology that can reanimate all but the worst carnage, such as "cranial collapse" or "hearts splattered like dye bombs" (does that image, of stolen cash, shiver your...more

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Apr 12, 2010 Phoenixfalls rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: male-author, military-sf, science-fiction, sf-challenge, space-opera, war, sf-romance

This is the sort of space opera I can love. Forget Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space trilogy, with its sloppy (sometimes indulgent) writing and wooden characters; forget Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, with their climaxes that lead to nothing but futility; forget even Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga -- much though I love the characters and the wit, it doesn't have the breadth of imagination or the sheer scope that Westerfeld captures here.

The Risen Empire stars with a bang, throwing the...more This is the sort of space opera I can love. Forget Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space trilogy, with its sloppy (sometimes indulgent) writing and wooden characters; forget Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, with their climaxes that lead to nothing but futility; forget even Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga -- much though I love the characters and the wit, it doesn't have the breadth of imagination or the sheer scope that Westerfeld captures here.

The Risen Empire stars with a bang, throwing the reader into the action head-first in the perspective of a pilot on a desperate reconnoissance mission a couple hours after the Child Empress has been taken hostage. It shifts perspective every few pages, always clearly marked in the book and with enough clues in the first paragraph for the reader to settle into the new perspective seemlessly, and every time the perspective shifts it adds to the tension. As in any great space opera, there is a lot going on -- enemies without and within, unlikely characters thrown together and forced to forge a bond, people you can root for (but, rarer in space opera, no villains -- Westerfeld wisely shows the reader the Rix side of the action as well, and even the Emperor is crafted with an eye towards the sort of real motivations that might drive a person to do horrible things).

But of course, no book can maintain that sort of frenetic pace for 300+ pages, and it is actually the slower moments that hold this story's heart. After reaching a breaking point in the battle, it jumps back in time to show us the meeting between Zai and his lover Oxham, called the Mad Senator for reasons I won't spoil (but which I love). Their relationship grows quickly in book-time but is drawn out over the course of the novel in slow, luxuriant snippets for the reader. Oxham is a wonderful character, fully as complex as Zai (and their relationship is hardly as easy as most writers would make it -- they're separated by some pretty strong philosophical differences), and once she is introduced her present-time storyline is just as compelling as the space battle her lover is leading -- political wrangling, after all, is at least as dangerous an occupation as starship captaining, and the stakes are higher because mistakes are always taken out in innocent blood.

And just as obviously (well, at least to me, though given how many books I read that simply consist of grim men doing grim things maybe it isn't as obvious to everyone else) Westerfeld finds ways of sneaking in a fair amount of levity. The Emperor's undead cats, Oxham's House, and Alexander were all delightful elements that I won't spoil by explaining here. The entire novel was pitch-perfect, shifting between actions with dire consequences and moments of sheer absurdity with a wonderfully light touch.

It does have a couple flaws: though I prefer it to Banks' Culture novels, Banks is a far superior stylist -- Westerfeld's prose succeeds in getting out of the way of the story admirably, but it doesn't soar; there were a couple of (very minor) elements that took me out of the story because they struck me as anachronisms (a reference to a wax museum? really?); and it is very much a part one -- Westerfeld intended this volume and the second volume (The Killing of Worlds) to be one novel titled Succession, but it ended up being a little too long to publish in one volume economically, so it got split in half (meaning you had better have the second volume handy when you finish this one -- it definitely has a cliffhanger ending). But overall, this is a great book, exactly the sort of book I read science fiction for.(less)

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Jan 05, 2011 Dr. Ben rated it 1 of 5 stars

Gave up after about 100 pages, so there may be redeeming qualities later on. At the point at which I gave up, however, there was very little story in this novel; there was some world-building, but mostly page after page of technophilia hidden under a veneer of fiction. This is hard, hard scifi, where the point in the writing isn't so much the telling of a story but of describing as much technological porn as possible. Pass.

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Feb 17, 2011 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

Action-oriented, classic space opera with a nice "clash of civilizations" woven in. The story revolves around an Empire of 80 worlds ruled by "the dead". When elite members of society die, they are "risen" via the use of a symbiant and become part of the ruling elite. It's essentially a perverse feudal society where the Living do all the work and the Risen possess all the wealth and power. But because they don't die, the lords tend to outnumber the serfs by a considerable number.

The tale is told...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Max rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ah hoorah for sci-fi, I was hooked at the dust-mote dog fights which kicks off the book but by the time you throw AI, cyborgs, hive-minds and dead emperors who give immortality to their elite subjects and you've got all the ingredients you need for a classic.
Westerfield does a great job of creating an epic story which isn't scared to explore the back-story of characters in the middle of a fire-fight, and rightly so as he coherently glues the timelines together encouraging you even more to stick...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Warnie B. rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011, science-fiction

I didn't love this. I liked it at the beginning. Things started out pretty interesting--some intriguing concepts, a hostage rescue attempt in progress, cool technology. But then it just...floundered. I feel like the whole thing suffered from too little in the way of character development (yes, details are given about the characters, but none of them really felt real or alive to me) and far too much in the way of differing view points (seriously, like 17!). There's also a lot of jumping about in...more

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Nov 27, 2012 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Scott Westerfeld is known in YA for eminently readable Scifi, hyper-cool worldbuilding, and a knack for grasping the elusive feel of large, human communities in some not-so-distant tech-heavy future. His adult novels differ only in their language, which is more sophisticated. The Risen Empire is excellent SF, up there with Philip K. Dick and William Gibson. It's an homage to the space opera, replete with interesting, futuristic, political controversy, love that spans light years, and epic battle...more

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Dec 13, 2010 Wendy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-reads, sci-fi

A compulsive read, packed with action, interesting characters, and an insane amount of original sci-fi ideas. More, please.

[Second part is not as good; together I'd rate the series a 4. But this book was really exciting and also introduced me to Westerfeld whose books I have been plowing through ever since. High points for that.]

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Apr 07, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-science-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 22, 2011 Kathleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this already a fan of Westerfeld and his world-building. I expected the same attention to detail without compromising the whole vision that he demonstrated in Uglies and Leviathan. Westerfeld has a good sense for "selling" his envisioned universe to the reader. For his previously mentioned books, targeted at the YA audience, the world building reminds me of the first Harry Potter books. There's a wonder that is indulged and explored for first-timers. Appropriately, The Risen Empire is aim...more

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Mar 04, 2010 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: purlewe, Scott Randall

Shelves: science-fiction, worth-reading-again

Honestly one of the best sci-fi books I've read in a while. The Succession books are a space-opera genre of sci-fi books cut from a similar cloth as Dune. The setting focuses on the conflict two major galactic empires; the story takes place within the Risen Empire, which is ruled by an Emperor who has made himself immortal through the use of a strange symbiotic organism and has used it to create a ruling class of undead immortals. I say undead, because you have to die for the symbiote to work....more

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May 03, 2011 Daniel Roy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf

The book's cover notes a resemblance to Asimov's Fondation and Herbert's Dune. I wouldn't say the novel is as clever and deep as them, but it's sure as hell as entertaining. The SF is smart, and the action starts at the first sentence and rarely lets go. This is smart action SF, with interesting characters, mind-blowing tech ideas, and exciting space battles. I was literally bouncing throughout the first 100 pages.

Be warned that this book is half of the original manuscript called 'Succession'. T...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Zoe rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: death, distopian, fantasy, science-fiction

Okay. I admit, I did not finish this book. But seriously! I gave this book more than one week of a chance! I read up to page 533 of 704 pages and I really cannot be bothered to carry on. It's just not my type of book. Two stars is a bit generous for me, but I feel bad. I reserved the book at the library when I was into all that spacey-science fiction kind of book, but now I want action set in a fantasy world with lots of fighting and adventuring and just RAAAAAAHH. Plus, I've got so many good bo...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Bryan added it

I was about to write that this was a rip-roaring space opera when I saw that the author, on his own WWW site, describes it as "rip-roaring space-operatic science fiction". I was also about to write that this book has no real ending and follows immediately into its sequel, "Killing of Worlds", but see that the author has already written "just be ready to buy Killing of Worlds within seconds of finishing Risen Empire" !

So Scott Westerfeld is way ahead of me, and there isn't much else to say except...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: scifi

Great sci fi, lots of wizz bang, intriguing ideas and interesting characters. The Risen empire believe in death as the gateway to eternal life via a symbiant implant. Their enemy, the Rix, believe in a compound mind, where the individual is subsumed by the whole. The Lynx, a Risen ship, is sent to fight the Rix for control of one of the Risen planets. But there is a more important fact that those on both sides don't know - the real secret at the heart of the Risen Empire, for which the Risen Emp...more

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Jun 05, 2011 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The concept of the world, the plot, and even the character conflict was great. Unfortunately, I just didn't like the way the book flowed. It started in the middle, then proceeded to hop around through the beginning, end, middle, beginning, middle, etc. Usually when authors do this, I assume they felt like the chronological beginning wasn't going to snag the reader's attention, but the beginning of this book --- 40 pages of space battle --- was a hard, hard slog for me. In contrast, he chronologi...more

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Apr 30, 2012 William rated it 2 of 5 stars

dull, that's pretty much all i can say. its readable, and flows, but is fairly bankrupt of fresh ideas and doesn't really hash old ideas to their full potential. The book moves between being tedious to mildly interesting and relies a bit too much on exposition, which i know in scifi is sometimes unavoidable. Also its not so much space opera as it is general science fiction, book could have been written on a single world and there really wouldn't be that much of a difference. So, yeah, first gre...more

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Mar 01, 2011 Karen Corcoran rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

I have loved Scott Westerfeld ever since my fiance forced me to read The Uglies. Although I delighted in the complex worlds he creates, I was often disappointed by characters written to appeal to the juvenile fiction crowd. Then I found this series. Low and behold Scott Westerfeld for adults! It's like finding an adult version of Harry Potter. Complex futuristic space opera world with characters I can actually relate to. Thank you Westerfeld. The only complaint I have is the cliff hanger at the...more

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Apr 15, 2013 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I haven't read as much Sci-Fi as I'd like to have done, but I found The Risen Empire to be original and entertaining, striking an excellent balance between the grand- and individual-scale dilemmas, and handling the trials of the vast scale of an interplanetary setting excellently. Westerfeld managed to add new dimensions, elements, and facets to a wide variety of things one expects from a story like this, some of which totally change the impact of events. Remotely-controlled combat craft, for ex...more

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Dec 31, 2011 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: sci-fi fans

The Risen Empire is the most unique science-fiction future book I have ever read. It has ideas that have never crossed my mind before and some that had. Compound minds, small craft, symbiants, house AI, and the Time Thief are just a few of the things I love about this book.

Parts of it were a bit boring for me to read, but I think that had more to with my state of mind than the book itself (tired mostly).

I like the shifting time/point of view that occurs, showing us history between two character...more

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Nov 07, 2011 Jjlupa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Was expecting mediocrity, but I find myself debating between 4 and 5 stars. I'm settling with 4 because of the enraging way in which the book is ended. Apparently there is a version with books 1 and 2 sewn together into one frame- THIS would be the way to read it; However I did not, and am left with a particularly bad case of cliffhangeritis.

OK, so this is a space opera, in every sense of the word. Scenes shift between (alleged) protagonists and antagonists as the plot (mostly) moves forward. I...more

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Aug 26, 2011 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, fiction

This book had a very interesting storyline, but that was the main reason I wanted to finish it. I liked the book a little bit less as it went on, and I'm not sure if I'll read the next books in the series.

The idea of besting death by dying is an interesting idea. I still want to know what the heck the Symbiant is, though. If someone is dead but not, then what does life mean? Does the Symbiant prolong bodily functions? Or does it prolong life at all? Those who had committed the Holy Suicide seeme...more This book had a very interesting storyline, but that was the main reason I wanted to finish it. I liked the book a little bit less as it went on, and I'm not sure if I'll read the next books in the series.

The idea of besting death by dying is an interesting idea. I still want to know what the heck the Symbiant is, though. If someone is dead but not, then what does life mean? Does the Symbiant prolong bodily functions? Or does it prolong life at all? Those who had committed the Holy Suicide seemed to not care about real life at all, spending their days looking at blank pictures and endlessly traveling around. Is that eternal life? Would that be a goal worth pursuing? I think not, personally.

The Rix Cult and their efforts to push AI compound minds to new planets kind of threw me off. First, I kept on noticing that the Rix Commandos were all being referred to as "she." Now, I know that, from a military standpoint, women aren't really put in the front lines these days. So, hearing that all the Rix Commandos were women was interesting. Men became the "unwanted" gender; the women were mechanically and genetically engineered to be the ultimate fighting machines. I also couldn't help but notice the h_rd, the Rix Commando we meet, fell in love with Rana. Coming from a women-only society, I guess I wasn't quite as surprised as I could have been, though I definitely wish it could have been more of a sister/sister relationship.

An Error of Blood sounds horrible: Mess up badly enough, and you have to kill yourself. I am a big believer in justice and responsibility, so hearing about how Captain Laurent Zai was bound to kill himself was awful. Though he was responsible for his ship, he was not part of the decision that caused "his" Error of Blood to occur. I find that intensely unfair.

I also found it interesting that those who still had human illnesses were kept in biohazard suits, really. The perfectly healthy people were so afraid of getting sick that anyone with germs was segregated. It's like leprosy in the Bible---Segregation. Eh. I still find it weird (but clever).

What bothered me most about this book was the relationship between Laurent Zai and Nara Oxham. As the two main characters of this book, it was very interesting to see their different perspectives. I admit that. However, and I am very sensitive about this, I hated hearing about their relationship. Though the book was never overly explicit about their intimacy, it came close enough to really make me uncomfortable with reading on. I was close enough to the end of the book that I decided to just finish it and get it over with, but it really disappointed me. For me, love = marriage, not "lovers." I believe purity is a very special thing that shouldn't be just thrown away in the way that Laurent and Nara did. True, they never cheated on each other or were promiscuous elsewhere, but that doesn't cut it for me. I honestly don't know what "marriage" means in this book, or even if it's there at all. Regardless, though, I was supremely unimpressed with that relationship. As I'm sure that relationship will only get more passionate or explicit or whatever, I don't know if I'll be reading any more of these books.

I did find this book interesting, but the Laurent/Nara relationship killed the story for me. It's not likely I'll read the next books.(less)

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Jul 27, 2011 Nikola Tasev rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was expecting some over-the-top action 'warhammer'-style, and fearing some over-the-top bullshit 'Sten'-style. The eternal immortal God-Emperor confused me, I guess.
What I got had almost nothing in common with any of the two. The marine fighting was of 'Starship Troopers' quality - but it didn't end there. The descriptions of the spaceships and related technology were the best I've ever read - waaaay smarter and more advanced than 'Starfire', more detailed than 'Hyperion', better defined than...more

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About Scott Westerfeld

Scott Westerfeld is a New York Times bestselling American-born author of YA sci-fi literature. He was born in the Texas and now lives in Sydney and New York City. In 2001, Westerfeld married fellow author Justine Larbalestier.
His book Evolution's Darling was a New York Times Notable Book, and won a Special Citation for the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award. So Yesterday won a Victorian Premier's Award and...more

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