The Collapsing Empire

John Scalzi

Mar 2017 · The Interdependency Book 1 · Sold by Tor Books

About this ebook

*2018 LOCUS AWARD WINNER OF BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL*
*2018 HUGO AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST NOVEL*

“John Scalzi is the most entertaining, accessible writer working in SF today.” —Joe Hill, author of The Fireman

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


At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

Struggled through to the end but felt like quitting early. This work falls far short of Old Man's War series, IMHO. The theme of The Flow was a novel and interesting sci-fi concept, but the political/social backdrop, the intrigues of the houses & guilds, the Interdependency were all frankly mundane. No treatment of any of typical space exploration concepts, minimal tech, alien worlds, encounters with other civilizations. Wasn't really amused by ship naming conventions, despite what was clearly intended. As an aside ... it puzzles me how in the entire book, only the female protagonists are developed as the "tougher than nails", alpha dog, hero archetypes, but most of the male characters (duke, Nohampoten brothers, ship captains) are portrayed as bumbling, incompetent, physically and cognitively (except the Claremonts) weak fops. Hopefully that was just a random component of this story and not a harbinger of a wider theme in his coming books. Much easier for willful suspension of disbelief like in OMW series with genetic engineering in play. Otherwise without some other context, one wonders if this is fully intended as fictional art or quasi socio political posturing on gender. Just my 2 pence.

Overall, a good book. I enjoyed the worldbuilding here. Aspects of it remind me of classic Asimov tales. However, the plot and characters are a little lacking. As with a lot of Scalzi's novels, several of the "good guy" characters all speak with nearly identical voices, most notably Lady Kiva Lagos and Cardenia Wu-Patrick. And the plot is rather simple, with all that's required for it to resolve is for the three protagonists to all be in the same place and share information. The bad guy's scheme seems to have been rather poorly thought out and should have been utterly transparent to the good guys, and yet somehow wasn't. But the positives outweigh the negatives, and in the end I did enjoy the story. As it seems to be setting up for a sequel, I'm looking forward to it.

This book isn't bad but it isn't good either. It has a neat quality of being able to hook a reader into reading it because it consistes mostly of unre arkable dialouge with some jokes. A terrible cliff hanger- the book in itself isn't a complete story, but more like a halfway endearing exposition paired up poorly with some action sequences and fluffed with humor that makes the book bareable to read. If you took away the jokes, and the comic relief for the antagonising merchant house with word garbled names then the characters would fall flat, the plot would be even more unbearable, and the lack of urgency would be seen as a joke. The "flux" is a presistent entity through the theme that is the essential cause of all the conflict which is terrible dull. "Oh X is about to die and the world is going to end and only the chosen one can stop it!" Where as in the prolouge before it's introduced there is a much more intesting class conflicts and disutopian intrests. The characters aren't rich farts, their perspectives and lives are much more intesting, and frankly, the whole theme of a collapse could have been told from just that same perspective, and from different places instead of the amazing 2 that are showcased in this 'science fiction' novel of all of basically earth and a space station.

About the author

JOHN SCALZI is one of the most popular and acclaimed SF authors to emerge in the last decade. His massively successful debut, Old Man’s War, won him science fiction’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony; Fuzzy Nation; Redshirts, which won 2013’s Hugo Award for Best Novel; and Lock In. Material from his widely read blog, Whatever, has also earned him two other Hugo Awards. He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.