Comment

Jul 05, 2017SCL_Justin rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
The Collapsing Empire is John Scalzi's most recent space opera. It takes the tropes of far flung planets and space ships travelling between them and puts some interesting characters doing clever things in those ships and places of power and knowledge. Yup. Generally stuff I like. The collapsing part of the empire (called the Interdependency because they rely on trade between stars to survive) is that the bits of nonspace that connect these farflung worlds without having to travel actually faster than light (though the effect is pretty much the same in a Traveller-esque fashion) are shifting, and that's shifting how power will play out on the grand scale. It's a good ecological metaphor and I enjoyed how humanity has had to build habitats wherever they could connect to each other, rather than on planets that would be suitable for bearing human life. It was a fine light read; a good popcorn book. It's the first in a series though. Nothing is resolved and it feels like an extended prologue to a real story happening.