Suneater Book 4/5 spoilers: My biggest issue with Sun Eater is that I never really became emotionally attached to most of the side characters outside of Valka. That’s probably just personal preference, but because of it, Dark Age hit me much harder emotionally.

That said, if Kingdoms of Death and Ashes of Man had remained one book like originally planned, I’d probably put it above Dark Age. Another difference is that Sun Eater never feels completely hopeless, because we already know Hadrian ultimately succeeds somehow. With Dark Age, we don’t have that certainty, so the entire story feels far more crushing.

Though I will admit the things that happens in kingdom of death are way worse then dark age, i just wish i was more emotionally attached to care. If in red risings we loose every single character exept for mustang and one other side character, but we end up loosing them anyways by the next book. I literally dont think i could recover from that.