THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE by John Scalzi (Tor Books, March 2017) Book 1 of The Interdependency. 336 pages, hardcover. ISBN# 076538888X / 9780765388889. Winner of 2018 Locus Award for Best SF Novel, nominated for 2018 Hugo Awards for best Novel, nominated for Goodreads Choice Award for Science Fiction 2017.
Summary from the Goodreads website . . . . .
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 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.
My review on the Goodreads website . . . . .
I really liked it — rated four stars. Bookshelves: First-In-Series, Science-Fiction, Space-Opera.
Once you get beyond the first part of this novel it becomes difficult to put it down. This definitely deserved the Locus Award for Best Science-Fiction Novel of 2017 - - an interstellar epic on the grandest of scales. I saw many parallels to current events, especially the debate over climate change and the seeds of doubt sewn by various corporate interests.
In The Collapsing Empire, commerce and civilization itself are dependent on a means of interstellar travel known as the Flow, a cosmic stream that once accessed provides the shortest distance between two planets. If the Flow moves, changes direction, or collapses - - then countless planets, dependent upon each other, will be alone and stranded.
The empire is ruled by a consortium of various family enterprises forming a council and overseen by an ‘emperox’, in a future variation on a feudal democracy. Only two houses possess knowledge of the impending collapse and suppress it for different reasons.
One family in particular is an extremely wicked manipulator ands schemes to set themselves up for dominance in the new order. There are multiple characters, and every one is fascinating. The shortest plug line on this book I can think of is "Game Of Thrones in Space!"
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