A review by nyquillll
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

This was a nice book to ease back into my space, time, and sci-fi odysseys. I LOVE Scalzi's other series, The Old Man's War, so I was curious how I'd like another series of his. While this one felt more slow-paced, it was intriguing in a different way. 

I really enjoyed how Scalzi, again but differently, infuses themes of contemplating the role of humanity and ethics, presenting some morally grey (or black) characters, being thrust into a role that you didn't ask for, the importance of intergenerational knowledge, the fallacy of government and the illusion of order, the politics of love to maintain power and control, finding individuals with whom you can be more of your authentic self, the mystery and unknowing-ness of the universe/solar system, how religion and politics are often intertwined with similar functions of controlling people, untangling past motivations and states of mind for emperox in power, coming into consciousness of how governmental systems value human life so little, seeing how the pawns and the queens and kings move about, how dispensable certain lives are - and how they are deemed as such, and the kind of person who can be conniving, manipulative, and calculated even in the face of total collapse. 

The more challenging aspects of the book - slow pacing, very intricate and complex character matrices, world building - made sense as it is a series, and this first book very much sets the scene for the next book to come into fruition. The plot and the story-building were actually really interesting and infused a modern twist on a very complex imagined future reality. I'm reflecting on it, and I just appreciate how much effort went into really fleshing out this society and its issues. I'm just glad the series is complete already! So I don't have to wait :)

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Content Warnings

Quotes I highlighted:

"...meaning their spouses and children starve and are blackballed from guild roles for two generations, because apparently mutiny is in the DNA..."

"It's not personal, Captain." "Getting murdered for money feels personal, Ollie."

"And even that was a crap way of describing it, because human languages are crap at describing things more complex than assembling a tree house."

"'Eva Fanochi probably could've answered that for you,' Gineos said. 'If you hadn't murderer her, that is.'"

"An alliance with terrible people." "Really nice people don't usually accrue power."

"'Oh no,' Batrin said. 'Everyone will tell you what to do. But you won't always have to listen.'"

"...where the seed of the imperial neural network had been implanted, to grow into her brain over the course of a month or so."

"Your own name is for your private world. For friends and spouses and children and lovers. You'll need that private name. Don't give it away to the empire."

"'I think I'll go to sleep now,' he said. 'I'll go to sleep and then you'll be emperox. Is that all right?'"

"Farewell, Cardenia, my daughter. I'm sorry I didn't make more time to love you."

"Was this true?" "I am a search function. I do not have opinions on political matters."

"We are pleased, Archbishop, that this committee appears unanimous that the most important part of us is our uterus."

"I sense we have carried this specific conversation to an end"

"They would answer from memory, from the thoughts and recordings and the computer modeling of who they were, girded on decades of every single thing about their internal lives recorded for this very room."

"There's only one place in the Interdependency where humans live on the surface of the planet."

"'The Flow is the Flow,' Jamies said. 'It doesn't do anything. Our access to it, on the other hand, is definitely going away.'"

"'Relax,' Jamies said. 'There will be nothing to audit soon.'"

"There's no but. You're right. It's just a reminder that war favors the rich. The ones who can leave, do. The ones who can't suffer."

"One, fuck you, and two, yes."

"Take your time as long as your time is under a minute."

"'My child, that's never been the point of the Interdependency,' Attavio VI said. 'It's just the excuse we gave for it,' Grayland I affirmed, nodding."

"Marce's way of dealing with the fact he'd never see his father or sister or any of the people he'd ever known in his lifetime was to think about the practical issues of leaving the planet."

"He was scared, but he was also tired. At the moment, at least, being tired was something he could actually do something about."

"'Don't mind me, sis,' he said. 'I'm just having a little post-kidnapping freakout.'"

"Kiva laughed out loud at this. Then, 'Say that again, Ghreni. I want to see if I'll laugh as much a second time.'"

"I've done my time on a ship. You, meanwhile, will still be here, a pimple on the ass end of space. So threaten all you want, you amoral fuck. It doesn't mean anything."

"The Duke of End never told Ghreni Nohamapetan to ask the court of Claremont to release imperial funds."

"With respect, ma'am, I disagree. I've known you for years. First through your father and his peculiar but fond relationship with you. And for the last year, I've seen enough of you to get a sense of you. If I know nothing else, ma'am, I know that you are worth being loyal to."

"'I am alone,' Cardenia said, and immediately hated the adolescent drama of the statement, but it was true, and there it was."

"Anyone can be a prophet. You just have to say that what you're talking about is a reflection of God. Or of the gods. Or of some divine spirit."

"Human institutions tend to drift from their creators' intent over time."

"But the divine element is fake." "We decided that it was no more fake than the divine aspect of any other religion. As far as the evidence goes, in any event."

"It was a dream that made you think. A dream that caused you to search for wisdom. A dream that made you consult me, the Prophet. Sounds like a vision to me."

"The short version is 'Yes, but.' The slightly longer version is 'No, and.' Which version would you like?"

"But it also meant that these were literally the last moments he would spend with his sister, possibly in his entire life."

"'Tell Dad I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye,' he said to Vrenna. 'I will. He'll understand. He won't be happy, but he'll understand. He'll be okay.'"

"'Go tell the emperox everything. Save everyone if you can. And then come back.' 'I'll try.' 'Love you, Marie,' Vrenna said, as the door started to close. 'Love you, Vrenna,' Marie said, just before it did."

"I already said good-bye to you. Now you're ruining the moment"

"Let me put it another way, Lord Marie. Fuck you, go away."

"'Uh, okay,' Marie said, and then paused. 'No, hold on. I'm confused.'"

"Also says fuck you and your incompetent fucking minions."

"'Oh, you said, ambitious fool,' he said."

"That last part, yes. It means your ambition and greed are in service for something more than yourself. It means that you might be something other than just a grasping sociopath. That you might actually care about the Interdependency, and the people in it, and what happens to them."

"'You and you. Fuck off right now,' she said. They turned to Amit, who nodded. They fucked off."

"'This isn't a negotiation,' Huma and Kiva said simultaneously, and then looked at each other and grinned."

"'It's the truth.' 'Oh, my daughter,' Huma said, and smiled. 'Don't tell me you don't know how little that actually means?'"

"It was breathtaking the situations that humans put themselves into, and still managed to thrive."

"One, she would be the very last emperox of the Interdependency. Two, the whole of her reign would be about save as many human lives as possible. Three, that meant the end of the life of the Interdependency."

"How, in short, the Interdependency codified and manipulated humanity's actual need for intersystem trade and cooperation, for the benefit of just a few at the very top."

"How it was created and who benefited from it was academic to the fact that it did exist and needed running, and that there was nothing anyone could do that would change that, not even an emperox. Emperox of the Interdependency were not meant to be radicals, in any political direction; ones that were found themselves discreetly removed and replaced by more tractable children or (if necessary) cousins."

"A little academic, a little sardonic, a nd someone who might see her as Cardenia, not as Emperox Grayland II. Or, at least, see her as Cardenia, too."

"It's assonant to ask you again now. It gives the appearance that I care. Which is a thing you need."

"I'm continually confronted with the human tendency to ignore or deny facts until the last possible instant. And then for several days after that, too."

"If not a lie, then perhaps on the least malignant projection of its original intent."