Scan barcode
A review by timinbc
The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
3.0
Three and a half. My memory will be of a solid end to the trilogy.
And let's not forget how rare that is.
BUT:
In Grade 7, I had a classmate named Bob. We called him "F**** Bob" because every third f*** word out of Bob's f**** mouth was "F****". He'd put "f****" into the middle of long words, like dictio-f***-nary. But John, that was Grade 7, and Bob was weird. I am not afraid to say fuck, and I often do, but this went beyond character-defining, past satire, and into the same bucket as characters who say "mesay" and don't make me mention THAT character. Anyway, Kiva's great but this overwriting spoiled her for me.
That ending was really slick, but not so fast. "I'm breaking up the houses." Sure, but they are the foundation of your politics and your economy. You can't just DO that. We need another book now. Suppose you DID get everyone to END reasonably quickly. WHAT HAPPENED?" Civil war? A new paradigm?
Also, did we agree that End would remain connected to other places ( I forget), because if not, why is it a better place to be?
Anyway, I do applaud the idea that not all the main characters have to make it to the end of the book.
Was I the only one who, whenever Nadashe was mentioned, wondered where Boris was? She is SO much the Natasha from Boris and ....
Finally, there really was a lot of recap and telling-not-showing. Scalzi admitted he wrote under deadline pressure and it shows, even before knowing that.
If only Patrick Rothfuss had some deadline pressure ....
And let's not forget how rare that is.
BUT:
In Grade 7, I had a classmate named Bob. We called him "F**** Bob" because every third f*** word out of Bob's f**** mouth was "F****". He'd put "f****" into the middle of long words, like dictio-f***-nary. But John, that was Grade 7, and Bob was weird. I am not afraid to say fuck, and I often do, but this went beyond character-defining, past satire, and into the same bucket as characters who say "mesay" and don't make me mention THAT character. Anyway, Kiva's great but this overwriting spoiled her for me.
That ending was really slick, but not so fast. "I'm breaking up the houses." Sure, but they are the foundation of your politics and your economy. You can't just DO that. We need another book now. Suppose you DID get everyone to END reasonably quickly. WHAT HAPPENED?" Civil war? A new paradigm?
Also, did we agree that End would remain connected to other places ( I forget), because if not, why is it a better place to be?
Anyway, I do applaud the idea that not all the main characters have to make it to the end of the book.
Was I the only one who, whenever Nadashe was mentioned, wondered where Boris was? She is SO much the Natasha from Boris and ....
Finally, there really was a lot of recap and telling-not-showing. Scalzi admitted he wrote under deadline pressure and it shows, even before knowing that.
If only Patrick Rothfuss had some deadline pressure ....