A Bit of Scalzi

 

I just finished The Last Emperox by John Scalzi. It was a satisfying ending to his Interdependency trilogy. The first book in the series is The Collapsing Empire, followed by The Consuming Fire, and it finishes with The Last Emperox. The premise of the series is that humankind has found the answer to faster-than-light travel among the stars in something called “the flow”. The flow consists of natural trails or streams through spacetime that allow a ship to take a shortcut through the universe. Humanity is spread out in an empire called the Interdependency. It is called that because none of the worlds or habitats have enough resources to sustain their inhabitants. But they all have resources that the other world or habitats need. So, they are dependent upon each other. The problem is that these flow streams are breaking down and scientists have discovered that it is just a matter of time before they all dissolve, leaving people stranded on worlds that cannot support them. The Interdependency is ruled by an Emperox (a gender neutral term). Early in the first book the Emperox Attavio IV dies and his son, the heir apparent, also dies. This leaves Attavio’s bastard daughter Cardenia to be named emperox, a title she never expected and is totally unprepared for. We see Cardenia’s baptism by fire as she quickly has to learn the ropes of political machinations. The imperial seat is a very dangerous place for a novice. The scheming Nadashe Nohamaptan is determined to rule the empire one way or another, and no green girl is going to stand in her way.

Cardenia is a likable underdog. Yes, even though she is the emperox, she is still very much an underdog. The mercantile houses (family houses like the Nohamaptans) are very powerful. If they act together, they are more powerful than the Emperox. There is intrigue on a level Cardenia could never have imagined. We watch her learn and grow and try her own schemes to counter the Nohamaptans. Cardenia’s stated goal is to try to save every citizen in the Interdependency. This is a noble goal, but one that seems to be impossible, and it is one that pits her against the mercantile houses that simply want to save as many of their own families as possible and screw everybody else. 

Scalzi’s books are always fun. Many are couched with a humor that is just a bit twisted. The guilty pleasure for me in this series was how much I enjoyed the character of Kiva Lagos. Kiva just about cannot string two sentences together without including some variant of the F-word. I am not usually a fan of profanity just for profanity sake, but with Kiva it is built into her. It makes her who she is. I found myself looking forward with delight to Kiva chapters. What was jarring at first, came to feel as natural a part of her character as Clint Eastwood’s squint.

Nadashe Nohamaptan is the villain of the story (well, the most prominent one). She is decidedly evil, yet many of her plots don’t go the way she planned, and some that do have unintended consequences. She is rich, she is malevolent, she is powerful, but she is also not the sharpest tool in the box.

Can I just say something about the ships’ names? The star ships have wonderful whimsical names. Here is a sample of some of the ship names: Yes, Sir, That’s My baby, another is called, Tell Me Another One, and Our Love Couldn’t Go On. Scalzi’s ship names may be an homage to the names of ships in stories by Ian Banks, who gave his ships names like Size Isn’t Everything. Hmm . . . I wonder if Elon Musk had been reading Scalzi or Banks when he named his SpaceX ships and drone ships (look them up).

So, if you like your science fiction with political intrigue and a bit of dark humor, this series might be for you.

 

(My science fiction novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources).

Star Liner