Is the Suneater series worth the read?

Sometimes I feel like I am the only one who liked this series. Most opinions seem to either love this series or hate it. I have pretty neutral feelings on it and wanted to share some of the pros and cons and see if this was a series for you (cause like, buying and reading books are huge money and time investments). Spoiler free as usual!

First of a tiny blurb- Hadrian is a son of a young lord in a planet and galaxy far away from earth. There are varying degrees of human bioengineering and the biggest threat to mankind is cielcin-which are aliens. There is a ruling class with a governing religious body. The story is told top us by Hadrian in the present, recounting his story of how he defeated the cielcin and became the sun eater. On paper this story has everything that I would want in a series.

Pros: Christopher Roucchio has great world building, prose and dialogue. His writing is excellent and I will read more from him. His story is layered and complex and has a lot of court and political intrigue. The fight scenes are long and drawn out, but many readers love that. This really is a character study on Hadrian and it follows him intimately for centuries (a la Fitz from Assassins apprentice).

Cons: There are plots, scene, and phrases that are repetitive. Each book follows a similar formula that can get redundant. His scifi series turns into sci-fantasy and has a lot of talk about gods and true gods and models the Catholic religion. For some readers this is fine, for me I prefer my scifi to not have religious entities in it. If it was a fantasy book I would feel differently about this. Hadrian is the only character that gets any sort of depth in this series, so if you aren't a fan of him, you won't be a fan of the series. The plot can be drawn out and redundant so makes it for a longer reader and "slower" paced tale.

So should you read it? Maybe. I for sure do not think this series is for the masses, but reader if you're intrigued by any of this at all, given either a try! The final book in the series comes out 11/18/2025.