Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Imperial Sunset | 2018 | Eric Thomson | Buy |
| 2 | Imperial Twilight | 2019 | Eric Thomson | Buy |
| 3 | Imperial Night | 2020 | Eric Thomson | Buy |
| 4 | Imperial Echoes | 2021 | Eric Thomson | Buy |
| 5 | Imperial Ghosts | 2022 | Eric Thomson | Buy |
| 6 | Imperial Dawn | 2024 | Eric Thomson | Buy |
| 7 | Imperial Rogue | 2025 | Eric Thomson | Buy |
Ashes of Empire opens with Imperial Sunset and tracks the deterioration of a galactic empire across seven books, watching institutions erode and loyalties fracture as the central authority loses its hold on the outer systems. Thomson treats the collapse not as sudden catastrophe but as a slow process of small failures and compromised decisions, which gives the series a distinctly different tone from his earlier work.
The series is built around officers who believe in the empire’s ideals even as the empire itself fails to live up to them. That tension between duty to an institution and awareness of its flaws runs through each book and gives the action sequences their moral weight. Imperial Dawn and Imperial Rogue push the series into more openly contested political territory as the old order finally gives way.