The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency Book 1) by John Scalzi (Epub)

Description

The first novel of a new space-opera sequence set in an all-new universe by the Hugo Award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Redshirts and Old Man’s War

Our universe is ruled by physics. Faster than light travel is impossible—until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars.

Riding The Flow, humanity spreads to innumerable other worlds. Earth is forgotten. A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war—and, for the empire’s rulers, a system of control.

The Flow is eternal—but it’s not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well. In rare cases, entire worlds have been cut off from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that the entire Flow is moving, possibly separating all human worlds from one another forever, three individuals—a scientist, a starship captain, and the emperox of the Interdependency—must race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

“Fans of Game of Thrones and Dune will enjoy this bawdy, brutal, and brilliant political adventure” —Booklist on The Collapsing Empire

“Political plotting, plenty of snark, puzzle-solving, and a healthy dose of action…Scalzi continues to be almost insufferably good at his brand of fun but think-y sci-fi adventure.” —Kirkus Reviews on The Collapsing Empire

“Scalzi is one of the slickest writers that SF has ever produced.” —The Wall Street Journal on The Human Division

The Interdependency Series
1. The Collapsing Empire
2. The Consuming Fire

User’s Reviews

Review Praise for The Collapsing Empire”Provocative and unexpected.” ―The Wall Street Journal”Scalzi has constructed a thrilling novel so in tune with the flow of politics that it would feel relevant at almost any time.” ―Entertainment Weekly, Grade B+”Scalzi builds a fascinating new interstellar civilization in order to destroy it….[The Collapsing Empireis] amusing escapism full of guts and brains.” ―Ars Technica “Scalzi mixes science, history, and politics with sharp action and intriguing characters. Readers will be thrilled to take another wild ride across the universe with the author of the “Old Man’s War” series.” ―Library Journal, starred review”Fans of Game of Thrones and Dune will enjoy this bawdy, brutal, and brilliant political adventure” ―Booklist”Scalzi continues to be almost insufferably good at his brand of fun but think-y sci-fi adventure.” ―Kirkus ReviewsPraise for John Scalzi“As much as Scalzi has the scientific creativity of Michael Crichton, he also has the procedural chops of a Stephen J. Cannell to craft a whodunit with buddy-cop charm and suspects aplenty–most of them in someone else’s body.”­­ ―USA Today on Lock In”If anyone stands at the core of the American science fiction tradition at the moment, it is Scalzi.” ―The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition“Plenty of action, great character development, vivid and believable world-building, and a thought-provoking examination of disability culture and politics. . . . Yet more evidence that Scalzi is a master at creating appealing commercial fiction.” ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on Lock In –This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ I feel ripped off. This book is half a story. Maybe less.The “Collapsing Empire” is very much un-collapsed at the end of this book. Unlike the Old Man’s series in which each book is a self-contained story, The Collapsing Empire is clearly the first book in a series yet to come. It is the Introduction. It should have come with a subtitle: PART 1, or PRELUDEIt is also 99.9% political drama. The empire, trade houses, politicians, all arguing predictably for their self-interest.

⭐ Bought the book when Amazon had it on sale over the weekend. I did manage to finish the first chapter, but won’t read it or any of the sequels. Gratuitous F-bombs and a pointless sex scene in the first chapter were too much.Plot was starting to set up with the old man dying and daughter not prepared to become ruler, but turned off by the distractions already mentioned.Waste of my time and money. Disappointed Amazon recommended this turkey, but I’d bet they want to promote with sequel coming out soon.

⭐ About two thirds of the way through it starts becoming obvious that the story isn’t going to wrap up in this volume. I’m okay with the idea of a multi-volume saga, but in previous series Scalzi at least wrapped up the story in each book, and then the next book is more of a sequel. In this case the book just ends pretty much right in the middle of the action. It’s almost as if he wrote an entire story and them his publisher decided to chop it in half to make more money. I loved the writing, the characters and the story but am not a fan of the “cliff hanger” ending.

⭐ I just finished Last Emperox and was very unhappy with the quality of the book and by extension the entire trilogy. Basically, Scalzi never finished the third book and made a bad draft kind of tie it all together in an unsatisfying mess and the publisher somehow agreed to publish.Basically you are getting ripped off by buying this trilogy.Yes – it’s a rip off. Both Scalzi and the publisher should be ashamed of themselves. Also to ask extra money for the final book is just really uncool because it is only in the third book that everything nosedives into a complete mess. If I were able to return it, I would. The fact that I can’t, and also can’t burn my copies in protest because they are on Kindle is doubly frustrating.Let me lay it out for you without spoiling the plot. I don’t need to. It will rot all on its own.This book is a very long and promising introduction. You read this and think – yes! this is going to get really good. Interesting concept, interesting character development, easy light fluffy Scalzi banter. You know reading a Scalzi book doesn’t make you think too much. Easy escapism. You think reading the first book – this trilogy is going somewhere!It does not. It goes nowhere spectacularly. It is like the entire trilogy ends up dumped into one of the interdependency flux lines and just disappears. The second book builds a bit and was quite enjoyable but was repetitive and seemed to end too quickly. It introduces some new characters who you think – may really make the third book interesting.They don’t. It’s just repetitive banter and really shallow and boring character development. Sure he gets a twist or two thrown in there. But its actually just really pathetic and leaves all the potentially really interesting bits out. The entire major event the series leads up to never even really happens in the book. No big battle. No flux collapse. Everything you waited for is dealt with in a paragraph or two of epilogue. Halfway through the final book I was skimming pages and droll boring text to get to the end to see if it got interesting. It never ever did.Then at the end – Scalzi writes an apology for the book sucking because he didn’t meet his deadline and rushed it. Totaly chump move by Scalzi and also the publisher for pushing it out.So in sum. This trilogy ends with one of the worst books I’ve ever read and I’m really pissed about it.

⭐ I am a great Scalzi fan. His books are humorous, inventive, creative, and I am not the only one who feels this way since he has won many awards. This new book is set in a future universe in which there are none of his usual incredibly creative alien species–but rather only human settlements set in far-flung planets connected only by “the flow” which seems similar to wormholes but in which passage can be interrupted unidirectionally (there is no scientific explanation for this). The flow seems to be changing and so multiple habitats may be cut off from the others, leaving perhaps only one able to survive on its own. Most of the novel revolves around the political machinations involved for control of the collapsing empire, with the central heroine a new “emperox”–a gender neutral term for emperor. I enjoyed this book and will buy the sequel when it emerges. Scalzi has a light, inventive touch. This is not his best work however–I miss the crazy inventiveness of his alien species not present in this book. For those of you who prefer hard science fiction, you should stay away since it is not clear that the science makes sense. There is also no deep or complex character development although the characters are mildly interesting and sympathetic. If you are new to Scalzi, I would suggest that you buy instead his fabulous book “Old man’s war”. If you are already a Scalzi fan, this book is entertaining and fine, although not as good as many of his other works. It is worth reading however.

⭐ Completely agree with many of the other posts. I love Scazli’s other stories and this one is great too, but it feels like half a book. It’s similar to the human division, but at least that story had a narrative conclusion. This one just ends. Like he ran out of time to finish the story and/or reached the word count in his contract. Both of which are true. I think a big issue is the multiple character arcs. We have to be introduced to each one which takes time (each one is great, and they aren’t all John perry types). They feel unfinished though, Marce for example seems like he has promise but is rather passive. We don’t spend enough time with them to see them develop. He either needs to write longer books or keep the perespective to one character.

⭐ This books starts an epic space opera. Humans have spread out across the universe using a system called The Flow to get around the speed of light. The whole system is run by the Interdependency which is a government featuring an emperox, a parliament, trade guilds, and a church.Cardenia is one of the viewpoint characters. She is going to be the next Emperox despite the fact that she is the product of a liaison between the current Emperox and her mother. She was raised mostly outside the center of imperial politics. When her older half brother dies, she becomes the heir – like it or not. Now her father is dying and she is getting ready for a job she hasn’t been trained for.Lady Kiva is another viewpoint character. She is a member of one of the merchant families and is very interested in profit for her family. She is also foul-mouthed and tricky. She meets an old rival on End who manages to totally disrupt her plans.Also on End is Lord Marce whose father has been doing some research on The Flow at the request of the Emperox for more than thirty years. Both Marce and his father are physicists who study The Flow. When they come to an understanding of what is happening to The Flow, Marce has to get to the Emperox to share his findings.But End is experiencing one of its periodic revolutions – this time orchestrated in part by Lord Ghreni Nohamapetan whose family has plans for End – and they don’t want Marce’s information going anywhere.This was an engaging story. I liked the characters and the political intrigue. The dialog was crisp. The worldbuilding was well done. The story was fast-paced. Being the first book in a series, the big problem – the collapse of The Flow – wasn’t resolved. There was resolution to the plot which encompassed the Hohamapetan family’s attempt to exploit the situation.I look forward to reading more in this world.

⭐ John Scalzi is a terrific author. Lately he is selling appetizers at entree prices. This book feels like one third of a story selling for full price.

⭐ The world Scalzi builds here is intriguing, and if you outline the plot it looks engaging, but in practice the book ends up being, eh, OK. It falls into the problem Scalzi sometimes has where his undeniably stellar knack for light, snappy dialogue just… Doesn’t turn off, even when the tone for the scene absolutely should not be light and snappy. When entire worlds are on the verge of genocide and the people desperately trying to save them are doing so mostly in the form of trading bon mots, it’s hard to get invested in the gravity of the situation.

⭐ A little “Dune”, a little “Game of Thrones”, a little “Leviathan Wakes”, with the rest being pure Scalzi himself. It’s a great read, like his others. Not one you want to put down. Add to that the fact that’s it fun to be starting a new saga. And the best part is that Scalzi’s created one of his best characters to date in Kiva Lagos (mostly because she swears a lot). And that’s saying something because Scalzi is not known for character-driven plots.Like the last two Old Man’s War books, this story takes place with a high scope. A forty-thousand foot view. This is not like “Zoe’s Tale” or “The Ghost Brigades” where you knew one character intimately. And like the last two “Old Man’s War” books, the story stays focused on politics and governmental milieu (although it’s not a political thriller).One negative is that it seemed the good guys win their obstacles a little easy. Like someone grabs the gun from Chekhov’s mantle, but the security manager saw him bring in bullets, and they knew who was going to do it, so they replaced the gun with one of those bang flag things. Challenges were nipped in the bud right away so that the goal became how to make it so no one noticed they nipped the bud while finding out who grew the flower.If you’re not familiar with Scalzi’s stuff, then this is a good jumping in point. It’s closest to “Lock-In” for style and “The End of All Things” for content.

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