Space operas set 20,000 years in the future and spanning half the galaxy are pretty cool. Anyway, here's a review of Demon in White, which I just finished. It's book #3 in the Sun Eater series, which is a 7-book epic space opera. The crazy thing about this series is that on the first page of book one, the narrator tells you how the whole 7-book series ends: the protagonist blows up a star, which genocides an entire race of evil aliens and kills billions of humans in that solar system including his own emperor, but saves the rest of humanity throughout the galaxy from that alien threat. So the whole series is basically a deadly serious version of, ::record scratch:: "I bet you want to know how the hell we got here, huh?" For worldbuilding, I'd give the series a 5/5 so far. It's not hard sci fi, in the sense that there is ample use of faster-than-light travel, "high matter swords" which have some similarities to light sabers, "Royce shields" which people and ships can shield themselves with against most projectiles, etc. The author himself views it more like science fantasy, although there's more of a tech focus than, say, Star Wars. Humanity has spread across about 40% of the galaxy, and although they can travel faster than the speed of light, it's not instantaneous, and instead takes years or decades to cross a big chunk of the galaxy and they cryo-freeze themselves during the trips (they travel 100s or in rare cases 1000s of times the speed of light). But what's cool about the worldbuilding is the culture. Kind of like Dune, AI was destroyed and outlawed long ago in a great war (and Earth was decimated by atomics in the process). The Sollan Empire, which is modeled after a blend of the British and Roman empires, spans millions of worlds. They operate with a conservative aristocratic culture, and are the most harsh against AI or cyborgs to preserve order, although their nobility are still genetically modified to live centuries and avoid most diseases. The Principalities of Jadd are culturally similar but managed to separate themselves and remain aligned with the empire, and they push their genetics a bit further. The Demarchy of Tavros is a somewhat egalitarian/communist culture that is more receptive to cyborg adaptations and computers. The Extrasolarians are basically anarcho-capitalists; they live on the edge of civilization and more fully embrace AI/cyborgs/computers and extensive body modifications to whatever extent is possible. And then there are the alien Cielcin, the main adversaries at war with humanity. There are also some god-like or cthulhu-like beings out in the vastness of space and time. The series explores the interactions between all these cultures and more. For writing quality, I'd also give it a 5/5. It's written in first person by the aristocratic main character, Lord Hadrian Marlowe, and has a rather sophisticated aspect to it. For pacing, I'd give it a 3/5, and that's a trade-off from the above point. Hadrian himself is wordy and melodramatic, and that colors his first-person writing of the story. So he'll make all sorts of historical or philosophical references in the middle of a fight, which makes the whole project feel reflective rather than in the moment. The books are long and could be cut by 20% or more if a more direct prose style was chosen. Plot/characters so far are a 4/5 in my view. The plot is interesting, and there's a huge array of interesting characters. Hadrian himself is very dynamic (the reader at times is not sure if they're supposed to like him or not), a cyborg named Valka is really unique, and then all sorts of supporting characters from emperors and cyborg gods to plebian soldiers round out a big cast. Sometimes the cast is too large so that otherwise interesting characters don't get as fleshed out as much as they could. And the author consciously embraces the "chosen one" trope, which can be polarizing from a plot perspective. Overall, I'd rate it 4/5. I've read Empire of Silence, Howling Dark, and now Demon in White. I would note that the first book, Empire of Silence, is a lot more setting-limited and character-focused than the others; it's not until Howling Dark that the series expands to a full-on space opera.