Rise of empire is two books in one volume, Nyohron Rising and The Empire Storm. Both follow the continued adventures of Hadrian and Royce.

Nyphron Rising

Arista hires Hadrian and Royce on a diplomatic mission that has unexpected results and a new character's perspective is introduced. I enjoyed reading this book and was never bored, even though parts of it move at a leisurely pace.

The Emerald Storm

A large part of the story with Hadrian and Royce takes place on a ship, which is a nice change of pace. There are a lot of new characters and some interesting turns in the multiple stories that are taking place. I'm excited to start the next book to see where the series ends up. ( )

The anticipation I had for this title was quite high and probably led to me feeling a certain way after I was done with it.
Sullivan's follow-up to Theft of Swords (book 1 in the Riyria Revelations) was high on my radar after I was totally enamored by the first entry in the series. In Rise of Empire, we are again thrown into the world of Royce Melborn and Hadrian Blackwater, two highwaymen who are much more that what they appear to be and the ladies that we were introduced to in the first Arista, and Modina, and we are introduced to Amilia this time around. To give you a 2 cent summary it is almost the plot of the Empire Strikes Back with a slight twist and a few more female characters. There are reviews that I have read which rave about the character development and I agree, there was a lot of that. My major complaint is that is all it really was, I didn't see much originality, I thought it was all character development and little story development. It was predictable and slow and (I listened to the audiobook version) I wanted to turn it off so many times that I lost count. It got to be a slog, like the late/middle volumes of the Wheel of Time books.
I am not saying this is compete garbage as Michael J Sullivan is an awesome writer and I love 90% of what he puts out, but this really didn't do it for me. I don't know, maybe he was spreading things too thin. Too many story lines not enough time to everything squeeze in...too many irons in the fire so to speak.
Just disappointed. The first book of the series was SO GOOD, maybe I was just destined to be disappointed. At best this is a three star for me.
Hopefully volume 3 will right the ship again. ( )

Hadrian and Royce are a great duo, and the world building is good - obviously a lot of places he could go with the world he's set up. Part of the plot rests on characters grabbing the stupid ball, which is a little disappointing. Overall good, though ( )

This was a slow starting series for me, but now I'm hooked on the story and the characters. Immediately went and bought the next one, which is a great sign. ( )

Very nice. Again, big challenges for the protagonists, creative solutions need to be found. That is really fun. ( )