Review: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

Published: Tor, 2017

Series: Book 1 of the Interdependency

Awards Won: Locus SF Award

Awards Nominated: Hugo Award

The Book:

“Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible -- until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars.

Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war -- and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.

The Flow is eternal -- but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it's discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals -- a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency -- are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.” ~WWEnd.com

This is the first book of a new series by John Scalzi, an author that I am reading more of recently.

My Review: 3 /5

My response to this novel was mixed.  I enjoyed the setting, and I am a pretty big fan of unexplained galactic travel systems that cause problems.  In this case, they are using a poorly-understood physical phenomenon, the Flow. Their way of staving off war, intentionally keeping independent worlds from gaining self-sufficiency, relies heavily on the Flow being constant.  Of course, someone has discovered that the Flow is changing. The stakes are not just the power of the Empire, but the survival of the human race. The characters we meet in this situation are, for the most part, interesting and engaging.  I especially liked Cardenia, a reasonable person suddenly forced unexpectedly into the most powerful position in government.

The main issue I took with this novel is that it felt like very little happened, which is possibly because it is busy setting up the world for a series.  At the beginning, we are met with the terrifying prospect that the Flow is going to shift. That’s also pretty much where we stand at the end of the book, though circumstances have changed for some of the viewpoint characters.  I’m curious to see what will happen with the Interdependency in the next book, but I just expected a little more collapse in The Collapsing Empire.

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