The Collapsing Empire

Great foundation for a new series, with characters who will be fun to follow. At times there's a feeling that he's planting seeds for future books, and a few of the threads I would've loved to read more detail about. But on balance, the book is a thoroughly enjoyable exploration of a future civilization on the brink of collapse, and the political scientific machinations in response to that collapse.

I just finished Scalzi's latest offering, "The Collapsing Empire." This is not set in the same universe as "Old Man's War," but is instead an entirely new setting, one where mankind is spread across the stars which are connected by a hyperspace-like phenomenon called the Flow. A newly (and reluctantly) crowned "Emprox" learns some disturbing truths about the Empire she now heads and the nature of the Flow, a physicist escapes his homeworld with a revolution and a natural disaster nipping at his heels, and the heads of dynastic and monopolistic families vie for power and influence in a time of rising uncertainty. I found it very enjoyable but entirely a prologue for what appears to be a much larger epic. If he thinks he can finish this story in anything less than five hefty books, he's not seeing the potential of his newly constructed universe.