The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency, #1)

by John Scalzi

[empressbrooke]

I had put off picking up this trilogy for a while, because given the state of *gestures at the world* whenever I read a synopsis that invokes societal collapse (or climate disasters or a post-apocalyptic setting) I nope right out of that and look for something less likely to be on the news that evening. Luckily, book #1 is not about despair and hopelessness and grim descriptions of everything going wrong. Very little, if any, of the titular empire has collapsed by the end of this book. Additionally, this is a John Scalzi book, so it has all the trademark Scalzi snark and I am not sure if he will venture into particularly dark corners in the remaining books.

The most striking thing to me about this book was that it really just serves as a set-up for everything that will come. It introduces the characters, explains the rules of the universe, and puts all the pieces in place where the plot will go later, but the plot itself doesn't really make a strong showing here. That isn't to say this was boring - it most certainly was not. But unlike some trilogies where book 1 has a fully contained story with threads that a book 2 can pick up, this is absolutely not a standalone and would not be satisfying without knowing that the rest of the story will be coming.