Review: The Collapsing Empire

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4-star review. A 3.5 star rating represents my experience with this book.

I read this book in preparation for voting for the 2018 Hugo Awards.

John Scalzi once again tells an entertaining and serviceable tale. The book relates the story of an empire that is about to collapse; hence the book's title, natch. The empire in question is based on human travel through the "Flow" to reach solar systems that would otherwise take decades to millennia at sub-FTL speeds. Human habitation in those many systems trade among one another for various goods necessary for their mutual survival.

The empire is threatened when access to those systems is about to end as the Flow undergoes a periodic but unpredictable shift. Those habitations are about to be cut off from one another as the Flow will presently shift in a way that stops all trade between those systems.

That ability to trade is controlled/regulated by the monarchy-based Interdependency, ruled by an Emperox, that controls who can access the Flow at the central hub, or Hub, world.

If you don't think about it too much, the story is quite a satisfying little romp. The characters engage the reader by being sufficiently complex in their motivations and experiences. There is political intrigue between the ruling house of Wu, the various other trading families or houses, and the religion that ties the worlds together.

When you consider some of the details, large and small, the story begins to unravel a bit.

Spoilers
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The Interdependency is made of of many human habitations (47, I think) that are located in remote solar systems. Almost all of those outposts are in solar systems where humans cannot live on the surface of a planet. Instead, humans have fabricated massive structures to live in. Alternatively, they have bored into a couple of planets so they can live below the surface; effectively converting a subsurface location into a "massive structure" where they can live, grow food, fabricate "stuff", etc.

Each such habitation houses hundreds of millions of people. Yet none of them are self-sustaining. They all require goods acquired in trade with other systems. Those goods can take months or even years to arrive via ships that travel in the Flow.

Are goods that take years to arrive really necessary to sustain human life?

Some of the goods are produced via a "license" from the nobility. So the means of producing a given "good" is developed in one habitation and is then "licensed" for production on other habitations. When the Flow begins to shift and cut off these habitations, wouldn't the most expedient solution be to do away with the licensing scheme so that all of the habitations will have all of the knowledge needed to survive without the trade? Alternatively, with hundreds of millions of people living in each habitation, wouldn't they have the ability to develop the necessary goods on their own? If those habits are designed to allow hundreds of millions of people to live for months or years without goods coming in from other planets, the they probably have the ability to survive for millennia without those imported goods.

[Mr. Scalzi might be making a bit of an allegory between the nobility of the Interdependency and modern global corporations. The problem with that allegory is that the places with the greatest poverty are places where the local government prevents trade and free market economics. It isn't a problem of corporations licensing trade so much as a problem of governments interfering with trade.]

Consider how much of our Earth simply isn't dedicated to directly sustaining human life. How much "excess" air do we have? How much water is there on the planet? The large volume of both resources allow the by-products of human existence to be diluted and processed without building up to poisonous levels. That condition simply wouldn't exist in artificial habitats.

Only one of the 47 habitations in the empire is a planet that is a viable for human living on the surface. For some reason it is the least desirable "world" where all of the ne'er-do-wells are sent. Wouldn't a planet capable of sustaining human life be at least the second most influential habitation with this empire? Wouldn't that planet be the largest producer of goods that are needed to support life in those constructed habitations? So again, why isn't the one life sustaining planet a more important part of this Empire?

Some of the lesser details:

Mr. Scalzi's use of "The Interdependency" as a name for the empire is a ham-fisted attempt to hammer home the idea that we are dependent on one another for things that we cannot individual produce. It detracts from an otherwise entertaining story. One might almost call it a love-letter to free markets. But it is a ham-fisted love-letter at best.

One woman uses her position of privilege to repeatedly force subordinates into having sex. She is considered to be a bit of a protagonist. Her behavior isn't simply implied as it is with some of the male characters. It is laid out in intricate detail. If it were a male character, I have no doubt that readers would (correctly) be questioning that authorial choice.

Lastly, all the ships seem to be named for mid-20th century songs. The naming convention is a bit quirky given that human contact with Earth was cut off thousands of years ago. It would be more likely that they would use the names of past Emperoxs, heads of guilds, or influential members of the clergy. The naming of ships is a minor detail that removes some of the gravitas from an otherwise decent story.
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As long as you don't put a lot of thought into the mechanics of the world building, this is an engaging and entertaining story. Be entertained and then move on.

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