The imminent collapse of the Flow takes up the entire book, with the sinister Nohamapetan family - sinister, but not doing anything - throughout. Where does it fail? The book takes its time to get to the point. Even though I don’t think Collapsing Empire will win the Hugo, and I’m not even sure it should have been nominated, I didn’t begrudge the time it took to read the book. Scalzi isn’t quite as irrelevantly funny as, say, Neal Stephenson at his best, but he’s very good. His style is entertaining enough to distract the reader from the book’s various narrative cul-de-sacs, and it makes for some vivid characters. Where does this book succeed? Scalzi has an easy humor that propels the book along even when it dips into irrelevancies. That breeziness can be seen as a disadvantage, though - there weren’t any moral questions or plot twists that made me stop and think in any depth. I was able to tear through it in a few days, never putting the book aside before reading at least 100 pages in a session. Other than Spoonbenders, Collapsing Empire is the most fun to read of any of the award nominees this year. Add in the popularity of Scalzi’s books and his online presence, and that’s more than enough to get a nomination. Scalzi has won the Hugo for best novel before - for the thoroughly enjoyable and clever Redshirts - and although Collapsing Empire isn’t as clever or enjoyable as Redshirts, it isn’t a failure.

Why was this book nominated? This book was nominated because it’s by John Scalzi and because the book is pleasant to read. To sneak Marce past the youngest Nohamapetan scion, who is playing both ends against the middle on the End, the scientist gets help from Kiva, a member of another powerful family, rivals of the Nohamapetans. This frequently happens on the End, so what’s more important is that a scientist Cardenia’s father dispatched to the End has confirmed his fear: The Flow, the phenomena that allows for faster-than-light travel through the Interdependency’s interstellar settlements, is failing, and soon each world in the Interdependency will be on its own - bad news for an empire named after each settlement’s dependence on the others.Īs Cardenia is attacked by unknown assailants and courted by the unremarkable eldest son of the powerful Nohamapetan family, the scientist dispatches his son, Marce, to the emperox on the Hub. What is this book about? As Cardenia, the born-out-of-wedlock, unexpected emperox of the Interdependency, ascends to the throne of her family’s space empire, revolution is occurring on the far-off world of the End. The third nominee for the Hugo for best novel is The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi:

The collapsing empire series