Book 1, The Collapsing Empire: The Interdependency

As with other Scalzi novels the writing is solid and well paced. Reminds me of an updated Foundation novel, not to say that is a bad thing, but I wouldn't expect anything too original here. I'll be interested to read the next novel in this series once it is published.

So disappointing, "old mans war" it is not. It feels rushed, not thought out. Transparent plot lines and characters doing unbelievable things, make for a disappointingly boring and predictable book from a normally good author. It's a $4 read.

"The Collapsing Empire" is an alright read, but the story feels thin. John Scalzi displays his well established talents for writing interesting sci-fi settings and characters. However, I felt like a grander plot was hinted at in the beginning, with the story setting up its various goings-on, only for it to not really go anywhere and end rather weakly.

Wow. Didn't truly appreciate the one over used word, but it was sort of appropriate. Scalzi is funny, serious, and gifted with words. This book sets the stage for a multitude of future writings. Which will also be seriously funny and humorously​ serious.

Damn you John Scalzi! Damn you for writing such a good book that it distracted me from getting chores done. A very gripping read, I found it very hard to put down. It has a lot of action without being shallow. The characters seem to have deep personalities and not just be plot devices, with the possible exception of the lead antagonist, though I suspect that is just being saved for a later book.

In The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi, humans finally leave Earth to settle the distant stars when a remarkable discovery is made. The Flow, as it’s called, is a phenomenon made up of passageways that enable FTL travel. But the Flow is scarcely understood, and soon Earth is cutoff from the rest of the Flow when it’s entry point mysteriously closes. No matter, though, because the Interdependency, a series of unified human settlements, has done well on its own, establishing artificial worlds all along the Flow’s pathways and a substantial presence on the only habitable planet along the Flow, End (called that because it literally lies at the end of the Flow).

As one might imagine from the book’s title, the empire, in this case the Interdependency, is on the verge of change or, rather, collapse. [Note that none of this is a spoiler since this information is in the book’s description] Not because it’s reached it’s height of decadence or because of imminent invasion, but because the entry and egress points along the Flow are closing, cutting off each symbiotic piece of the Interdependency one by one until each settlement will be entirely on its own. Of those settlements, only End has any hope of surviving because of its natural resources. As readers, we learn of the imminent catastrophe in bits and pieces. Ultimately, the problem becomes one the new emperox of the Interdependency, Cardenia, must solve.

But along the way there are mutinies, business and political backstabbing, and attempts on a certain emperox’s life. If you have an appreciation for Scalzi’s other work you should have no problem settling into the punchy, dialog-heavy writing, which actually does a fairly nice job of keeping the story moving along at a fairly fast-paced clip. Right away, we experience what happens when an entry point into the Flow begins to close. For a ship’s crew marooned outside the Flow, they face a slow death as their stores and power runs out long before they can traverse the potentially hundreds of light years distance to the next closest settlement. Space is truly vast and humans never developed FTL technology.

One word of caution: if you are in any way put off by use of the F-word, then tread carefully into this one. Scalzi uses it like it’s going out of style. One character in particular has few sentences, if any, that do not contain swearing. It fits the character, but even I thought it was a bit much after a few hundred pages of it.

The Collapsing Empire is an exciting read and only the first book in the Interdependency series, so there’s plenty more to come. If you liked Old Man’s War and the other books in that series, I think you’ll enjoy this one as well.

In The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi, humans finally leave Earth to settle the distant stars when a remarkable discovery is made. The Flow, as it’s called, is a phenomenon made up of passageways that enable FTL travel. But the Flow is scarcely understood, and soon Earth is cutoff from the rest of the Flow when it’s entry point mysteriously closes. No matter, though, because the Interdependency, a series of unified human settlements, has done well on its own, establishing artificial worlds all along the Flow’s pathways and a substantial presence on the only habitable planet along the Flow, End (called that because it literally lies at the end of the Flow).

As one might imagine from the book’s title, the empire, in this case the Interdependency, is on the verge of change or, rather, collapse. [Note that none of this is a spoiler since this information is in the book’s description] Not because it’s reached it’s height of decadence or because of imminent invasion, but because the entry and egress points along the Flow are closing, cutting off each symbiotic piece of the Interdependency one by one until each settlement will be entirely on its own. Of those settlements, only End has any hope of surviving because of its natural resources. As readers, we learn of the imminent catastrophe in bits and pieces. Ultimately, the problem becomes one the new emperox of the Interdependency, Cardenia, must solve.

But along the way there are mutinies, business and political backstabbing, and attempts on a certain emperox’s life. If you have an appreciation for Scalzi’s other work you should have no problem settling into the punchy, dialog-heavy writing, which actually does a fairly nice job of keeping the story moving along at a fairly fast-paced clip. Right away, we experience what happens when an entry point into the Flow begins to close. For a ship’s crew marooned outside the Flow, they face a slow death as their stores and power runs out long before they can traverse the potentially hundreds of light years distance to the next closest settlement. Space is truly vast and humans never developed FTL technology.

One word of caution: if you are in any way put off by use of the F-word, then tread carefully into this one. Scalzi uses it like it’s going out of style. One character in particular has few sentences, if any, that do not contain swearing. It fits the character, but even I thought it was a bit much after a few hundred pages of it.

The Collapsing Empire is an exciting read and only the first book in the Interdependency series, so there’s plenty more to come. If you liked Old Man’s War and the other books in that series, I think you’ll enjoy this one as well.

About one millennium from now, the people of Earth have discovered a method to travel through space to other star systems, using a phenomenon labeled the Flow. Similar in concept to the worm holes and laumer points in Vaughn Heppner's Lost Starship series, these Flow streams allow space travel in short enough time for humans to survive the journey.

A society called the Interdepedency, has developed that controls trade and wealth throughout the known Flow system. This society is controlled by various "houses" and guilds, in a strict caste system

The problem is that the Flow streams are not permanent; the Interdependency has already lost contact with the Earth and one other system, as the Flow streams with them collapsed.

In this story, unbeknownst to most of the Interdependency, all of the Flow streams are on the verge of collapsing. Only the physicist who discovered this, and his son, know what's happening.

At the same time, the Emporox has died, and his daughter has ascended to the throne as the new Emporex. As she begins her reign, there is an attempted assassination at her coronation, and court politics begin. The new Emporex must also deal with the ramifications of the collapsing Flow streams as she becomes aware of the significance of this problem.

This is the first book of three in this series, and basically sets the tone for the rest of the series. While not particularly original, still a good SF space story.

My favorite Scalzi's are Android's and the update of Little Fuzzy. Empire is up at that level. Well crafted universe, characters I like (hard to find these days) and an ease to read without being, well, dumb. Greatness. Buy now.

When I first read John Scalzi’s “The Old Man’s War” I was struck by the similarity of his writing to that of Robert Heinlein. When he wrote of reading Heinlein and how those books shaped his own writing I was anxious to read more. I am a huge Heinlein fan, and now a huge Scalzi fan.

There are two things that you should know about The Collapsing Empire: the book is one of Scalzi's best and it is part of a multi-book deal with the publisher. The story is incomplete by design, since it will be continued in at least one sequel. And if you're in 2017 that sequel will not be available for at least a year.

Hereditary feudalism is a terrible form of government. It has all of the faults of a dictatorship with the added dimension of inevitable incompetents who got the job simply because they were born into the right bloodline. There's a reason that there are few monarchies in the modern world. Now that few believe in the divine right of Kings (or Queens), feudal governments don't have the stamina to survive. The idea of a star spanning feudal government is pretty implausible. This said, the Empire of the Interdependency of worlds is a believable and well thought out world. The characters are fascinating and well drawn. There is a lot of suspense that is not resolved in this book.

In short, this is one of Scalzi's best books, but we're all going to have to wait impatiently for him to write the sequel. I suppose that, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman, we will have have to repeat to ourselves that "John Scalzi is not our bitch". Still, I wish that he'd drop what ever else he is doing and get to work on the sequel. I'm waiting!