With no means to trade or buy those resources-the Flow enabled commerce on a large scale-the millions of people who live in the Interdependency will eventually die out. What this means for the citizens of the Interdependency is that once the pathways between these systems are gone, whoever is left on a particular planet will be stuck there forever, or at least until the planet runs out of resources. Scalzi’s trademark political acumen is hard at work in this story, where an empire of star systems, connected by a mysterious conduit called the Flow, is threatened by eventual extinction as the Flow appears to be breaking down. I have lots of backlist Scalzi to catch up with (most notably his Old Man’s War series), and so I was excited to read The Collapsing Empire, the first in a new space opera series. “I’m offering a service to those who wish to leave the theater of combat. “I’m not selling anything to the combatants,” Kiva said, taken aback, but then trying to shrug it off with some light snark. “Or you’re war profiteering,” Blinnikka said. “I’m a fucking financial genius,” she said, to Captain Blinnikka, back on the Yes, Sir.

Within two days, Kiva was within five million marks of going into the black for the trip. The nitty-gritty: Biting humor and politics collide in Scalzi’s latest, a fast-paced trip through space. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The collapsing empire by john scalzi