The Collapsing Empire by John ScalziMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Really enjoyed this by Scalzi. Loved his Old man's War from years past and to see him return to his galactic roots was welcome.
Full disclosure, I bought this book over 4 years ago and just never got to it until recently. Glad I did, for not that large of a book, the story is huge!
The Interdependency is a conglomeration of many different star systems all with one thing in common. The Flow. There is still not a way to travel faster than light, but there is The Flow which allows the Interdependency to be connected, something that would be impossible dur to many of the systems being light years from each other. When a ship enters the Flow it travels faster that light making all of this possible. The problem is that no one knows exactly how they work.
The House of Wu rules the Interdependency and the old Emperox is dying. His preferred heir was killed in an accident leaving the mantle to Cardenia, who was an illegitimate child but the only one who can take over. Something she never wanted.
In Scalzi's universe there are little to no actual planets that can support life except End, at the far end of the Interdependency. Hub being where the Emperox is at the other end, many years before the Flow to Earth just disappeared. Which is a problem now facing this new generation.
In an act of foresight, Cardenia's father sent his friend, a Flow Physicist to End to study the Flow decades before. His result is that the Flow is going away.
Add to this unique problem the struggles of dynastic merchant guilds, attempted assassinations, rebellions and some great characters and you have one hell of start to a series.
Well worth the read, even if Scalzi's characters can swear with the best of them.
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