I first took note of it when it was mentioned in a panel on climate change at CoNZealand, so I suppose I was expecting a focus on either (a) the moneyed interests’ resistance to any change that disturbs their position at the top of the pile, or (b) the impacts on the billions of ordinary people being lied to and abandoned to cruel fate by political leaders unwilling to make hard choices. I had not read anything else by Scalzi before this book. They are starting to collapse, and within a few years, interstellar travel will be impossible. And that one planet-End, Earth is long lost in this universe-is a backwater, the farthest from all other planets in the network, so it’s a good thing that the Flow streams were mapped out more than a millennium ago and are stable.Įxcept that they aren’t.

Using normal rocket propulsion to reach a region of space where the Flow interacts with normal space, a spaceship can get into the Flow with a carefully-crafted bubble of normal space surrounding it, and be carried along to other star systems in a few weeks or months.Īll of known space is part of a network of Flow “streams” connecting the worlds making up the Interdependency, an empire so named because only one planet in the network has all the resources needed to sustain human life on its own.

an engaging, well-crafted sci-fi drama.Without faster-than-light transportation, is interstellar travel possible? In The Collapsing Empire, the first book in the Interdependency series, author John Scalzi imagines a strange phenomenon called “The Flow”, unknown to our current physics. 'Rousing storytelling and satisfying intrigue. Ĭontinue the space adventure trilogy with The Consuming Fire. Yet as they work to save a civilization on the brink of collapse, others have very different plans. And the new Empress of the Interdependency must battle lies, rebellion and treason. A scion of a Merchant House stumbles upon conspirators seeking power. But 'The Flow' is changing course, which could plunge every colony into fatal isolation.Ī scientist will risk his life to inform the empire's ruler. This relies on extra-dimensional pathways between the stars, connecting worlds. The empire's outposts are utterly dependent on each other for resources, a safeguard against war, and a way its rulers can exert control.

Now this interstellar network of worlds faces disaster - but can three individuals save their people? In the far future, humanity has left Earth to create a glorious empire. Click here to purchase from Rakuten Kobo The Collapsing Empire is an exciting space opera from John Scalzi, the first in the award-winning Interdependency series.

The collapsing empire series