The Collapsing Empire - YoungramWyrm

eBook, 336 pages

English language

Published March 21, 2017 by Tor Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-7653-8889-6

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 …

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.

2 editions

Alastair McKinstry reviewed The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi (The Interdependency, #1)

Wonderful

4 stars

Firstly, to agree with other reviewers the dialogue is excellent, witty, fast-paced. It keeps the story moving and its a strong story. I'm definitely getting the rest of the collection.

But the denouements and twists are beautiful, from the outcome of the mutiny in the prologue to the importance of peer review (!) revealed at the end of part two. Best laid plans falling apart because of different information is great.

The memory room is a nice device, too. As Sherlock had his Watson, Batman his Robin, I can see this century will have AI agents as the counterpart where the protagonist explains important bits of the plot. This needs to be done with care, and is.

But the overall arch is the best. The Empire is collapsing, the Emperox knows and has trusted experts explain the details, the sailors on the starships can see the "Flow" …

Firstly, to agree with other reviewers the dialogue is excellent, witty, fast-paced. It keeps the story moving and its a strong story. I'm definitely getting the rest of the collection.

But the denouements and twists are beautiful, from the outcome of the mutiny in the prologue to the importance of peer review (!) revealed at the end of part two. Best laid plans falling apart because of different information is great.

The memory room is a nice device, too. As Sherlock had his Watson, Batman his Robin, I can see this century will have AI agents as the counterpart where the protagonist explains important bits of the plot. This needs to be done with care, and is.

But the overall arch is the best. The Empire is collapsing, the Emperox knows and has trusted experts explain the details, the sailors on the starships can see the "Flow" collapsing (the plot device that allows interstellar travel), but saving humanity isn't happening because the oligarchs (guilds) don't want to know for the most part, and really don't care about saving humanity. There is a metaphor there somewhere ...

Subjects

space opera