Book Review: The Collapsing Empire

Our universe is ruled by physics. Faster than light travel is impossible—until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars.

Riding The Flow, humanity spreads to innumerable other worlds. Earth is forgotten. A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war—and, for the empire's rulers, a system of control.

The Flow is eternal—but it's not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well. In rare cases, entire worlds have been cut off from the rest of humanity. When it's discovered that the entire Flow is moving, possibly separating all human worlds from one another forever, three individuals—a scientist, a starship captain, and the emperox of the Interdependency—must race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

Books-A-Million (BAM!) had the entire trilogy on sale when I visited the Bangor, Maine location in May. I mention that because it was a totally random stop meant to kill time while my son wrapped up some post-college graduation activities. They had it for a price that I couldn't refuse. The store is located in the Bangor Mall commercial park, a solar system of stores orbiting the dying mall—watch out for the potholes!—at its center. And IIRC, BAM! is planning on re-locating to a commercially healthier part of the city. Every time we visit, I wonder how much longer it'll last. But unlike dying stars, it'll skip the supernova, just collapse in on itself like a black hole, possibly take the entire commercial park with it.

But I digress.

The book blurb tells you that humanity's means of FTL interstellar travel is unraveling. This is not good for business or humanity's survival. In the past, worlds that lost access to the Flow have died—for some reason the Flow predominantly only goes to worlds where atmospheric conditions are toxic to humans, thus forcing them to live in artificial constructs. And the economy is controlled by family-owned megacorporations who have been granted monopolies over segments of the economy. So we have insanely rich people behaving badly, always trying to get an edge over rival houses, politically and economically. This super secret information about the Flow is something that can give a clan an edge and thus is something that they're willing to kill for.

But as serious as that sounds, Scalzi includes a measure of his humor, brought out by the characters' dialogue, most notably through the corporate executive (Kiva) who carpet f-bombs people who annoy her. And there are characters who demonstrate relatability despite their positions. Cardenia has to become emperox as she's the only living heir to the throne, but she has spent her whole life living like a regular person, away from the trappings of royalty. And Claremont, a humble science teacher, has to take his father's work on the Flow and present it to the emperox and the other branches of government and get them to act now before it's too late.

At this point in his career, John Scalzi is comfortable. He has a solid fanbase that can be counted on to buy his books and thus keep his publisher happy. And happy publishers make authors' lives easier. Having mastered the formula that keeps his readers devoted and said publisher happy, he's not going to mess with that. So if you like Scalzi's past work, then it's highly likely you'll like this one too. But you have to go into this knowing that it's a series, and it won't get wrapped up until the last book. There will be unresolved bits when this book ends. I was fine with it, but not everyone will.

4 stars
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DED

Book Review: The Triumph of Time

This is the last installment in the Cities in Flight series, and it presents the most dire problem for Amalfi and company: the end of the universe.

With New York permanently grounded on New Earth, Amalfi has resigned as mayor and is bored to death. He has a permanent case of wanderlust and is itching to get back to the stars. He's pretty psyched to see the wandering planet He make its way to the New Earth system. Meeting with them, he learns that they've made a discovery: the birthplace of continuous creation. He and some scientists head out with the Hevians to check it out and discover further that there's an anti-matter universe on the other side. And we all know what happens when matter and anti-matter come together.

But while all of the scientists are conjecturing about what, if anything, can be done, others are trying to come to terms with what this means. Amalfi isn't the only one who's grown unhappy with life on New Earth. He and Dee finally get to explore their attraction to one another since her husband, Mark Hazleton, is busy with work and a philosophical group known as the Stochastics. And a couple of young adults struggle with traditional bonds of love in the face of the end of the universe.

Eventually, the scientists come up with come up with a way to cope with the end. I don't want to spoil what discoveries they find and obstacles they encounter, but Amalfi tackles the end of the universe in a very Amalfi way.

3 stars

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DED

Mid-August 2024 Writing Update

Finished writing Gateway To Empire! Now to send it off to my alpha readers.

I have a lot that I'd like to say about the journey to get to this point, but I'm conflicted as to how to say it. I can't find the words right now to balance my disappointment that it took me so long to get it done with my pride that I got it done and like what I wrote. But that's the man I am.

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DED

Book Review: Earthman, Come Home

In this, the third book in the Cities in Flight series—but the first one to be published—Mayor John Amalfi leads the city of Manhattan through several adventures.

Early on, we learn the fate of Chris, the main character from A Life for the Stars. I have to say that it was a disappointment. Considering what we learned here, Blish should've kept going with Chris's story until said fate occurred.

Anyway, Chris's replacement as City Manager is Mark Hazelton, but this story is strictly told from Amalfi's POV, which is a shame. Hazelton is much younger than Amalfi (by a few centuries) and hasn't grown too cynical to love or dream. It would've been more enjoyable had we got to read about Hazelton's experiences and motivations rather than have Amalfi explain them to Hazelton and us.

Despite the fact that we only get Amalfi's POV, we never truly get to know Amalfi. When he gets passionate about something (good or bad), it seems like it comes out of left field. Blish leaves the reader (and Hazelton) hopelessly in the dark on Amalifi's plans. It isn't until things are already in motion that we have any idea that Amalfi is prepared for the plot twists. Maybe if we were allowed to get in his head, Amalfi wouldn't have seemed like such a jerk at times.

Another thing that bothered me was the passage of time. Blish doesn't offer any clues that it's happening. He lays out the development of a project or the travels of a city but doesn't offer us any signposts. A year passes in the blink of an eye on a mining project when it seemed like it had just started. And decades can pass when the city travels from point A to point B, but there's no indication the journey took nearly that long.

Despite my grumblings, I did enjoy this story. The technological shortcomings (slide rule, Saturn's rings thought to be solid) were easy to overlook when compared to other ideas: AI, energy weapons, anti-agathics. The adventures were entertaining, and Blish put down the cultures that practiced misogyny and aggressive serfdom. For a story published in 1955, it's aged fairly well. I just wish the actual storytelling had been better.

3.5 stars

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DED

Book Review - A Life for the Stars

Chris stood on the outskirts of Scranton, PA, hoping to watch it take off to join the multitude of cities that had left Earth for the stars (natural resource depletion being the #1 driving force for said exodus), but an impressment gang snagged him and brought him aboard, forcing him to leave his family behind. Going into space was something that he dreamed of, but this wasn't how he envisioned it. Now he needs to prove himself useful or else be forced to shovel slag for the rest of his days.

This is one of those coming of age stories for young men that were written in the 50s and 60s. The common lesson being: A good education and a solid moral compass is all you need to make yourself a valuable member of society. Yes, Chris has a couple of adventures, too, which showcase his bravery to save others even when he lacks the self-confidence to do so. It was a fun read, but the real exciting action took place off-screen as it wouldn't be prudent for a teenager to get involved in combat situations.

Another complaint: It was too short! I felt like Blish was just getting started with Chris's story.

While A Life for the Stars is the second book in the series, it was the last to be written. It's set about 1,100 years after the events that took place in They Shall Have stars. The reader is filled in about what they missed over that span through Chris's schooling: fact dumping directly into the student's brain via a VR helmet. It's interesting to note that, in this series, the decline of Western Civilization came as it began to mimic the Soviet Union (repression, not economics). Today, some of us worry about a similar decline coming in the West as certain leaders have begun to mimic authoritarian Russia. Hopefully, we meet a better fate.

3.5 stars

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DED

Book Review - They Shall Have Stars

2018 AD. The time of the Cold Peace, worse even than the Cold War. The bureaucratic regimes that rule from Washington and Moscow are indistinguishable in their passion for total repression. But in the West, a few dedicated individuals still struggle to find a way out of the trap of human history. Behind the screen of official research their desperate project is nearing completion...

To be honest, I thought the iconic Boston album cover was inspired by the Cities in Flight series, of which They Shall Have Stars is the first in the series. But I can find no evidence of that.

For old science fiction, this one had some elements to it that were surprisingly not dated. There were female characters—one major, one minor—that held technical jobs. Both were described as being rather plain instead of being made to uphold the era's standard of beauty. One woman's Latin name was just that, a name, as "such once-valid tickets no longer meant anything among the West's uniformly mixed-race population." Blish was apparently downright progressive for his time.

While paper is still a thing, robots can be operated remotely via VR gear. "Believer" terrorists spray gasses at people to induce feelings of euphoria or shame. Fireworks can be designed to bring sparkling messages to the sky.

Published in 1956, Blish was living in an America deep in the Cold War and infected by McCarthyism. So he took that fear and paranoia and ran with it. Domestic spying is rampant, and everyone, including Congressmen, has to watch what they say and do lest they be tossed in prison. But there's one senator that's determined to restore freedom to his fellow Americans.

But Big Science is still a thing. There's a "bridge to nowhere" down in the depths of Jupiter being used for scientific study and experiments. Remote workers on Jupiter's moons use VR to control robots on the bridge to affect repairs in the gas giant's tumultuous atmosphere. The experience can be off-putting and tends to stress out the workers.

And some astronaut has retrieved soil samples for a pharmaceutical company in hopes of discovering something useful to aid mankind. He's miffed that no one at the company is dropping everything to attend to him. While waiting he gets suspicious that there's something going on at the company. Impatient with waiting, he gets downright mean with a receptionist, and it takes a while for him to stop being an ass.

These three plotlines take nearly the entire length of this short novel (novella by today's standards) to bear fruit. I couldn't figure out where any of them were leading or how they were connected until the big reveal. The astronaut's work with the pharmaceutical company offered some clues, but the disgruntled bridge worker's story was just so much angst. If the individual storylines did more, then I would've liked it more.

3 stars

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DED

Book Review - The Integral Trees

Larry Niven is most well known for his Ringworld series. Therein, he established his hard sci-fi credentials with his elaborate world-building, an artificially constructed ring around a star providing enough livable surface area equivalent to thousands of Earths. And true to form, this book's strength is its world-building. It posits a star system composed of a G-class star in orbit around a neutron star. Closer in, the neutron star has a doughnut-shaped ring of gas fed by a gas giant, whose atmosphere is slowly being stripped by said neutron star. Life exists here in the form of kilometers-long trees, shaped like integrals (you know, the kind from Calculus), inhabited by alien birds and insects. Free floating ponds (giant spheres of water) occasionally crash into the trees, providing life sustaining water.

An exploration vessel from Earth happened upon this system. The entire crew of the ship disembarked, telling the ship's AI that they wanted a close-up look. But they never returned, choosing to settle there instead rather than live under the oppressive Terran government, simply referred to as "the State." The story picks up 500 years later. The AI is annoyed but still has some measure of patience.

The descendants of these mutineers have split into tribes and live on separate trees or opposite ends of the same tree. They've adapted to these new low gravity conditions while technology has almost all but reverted to primitive means. And so does the culture! Back to patriarchy! Oh yay!

Niven's early work is guilty—as many sci-fi authors of his generation are—of being stuck with outdated attitudes about women. This early 80s story shows a modicum of progress, but still clings to the past. In one tribe, there's a group of women warriors who patrol and hunt, but it's because the other option is to just cook and make babies. One character joins this group because she was tired of being groped all the time. She wants to find some kind of middle ground, but can't find it in her tribe. Others in this group are hinted at being lesbians, and there's one man who's been granted the "courtesy" of joining as he's gay. In other tribes, women have multiple roles, and in one, a woman is a scientist-apprentice. But lest you think this tribe is progressive, they take slaves from other tribes. The men are forced into labor while the women do the cooking and laundry while occasionally serving as "comfort women."

Niven flits about with which character runs the narrative, so we get multiple POVs within the same chapter. Just as we get to know a character, the POV switches and that's that. We start with the AI, then Gavving, the teenager coming into manhood, and then he-man Clave takes over with his twin girlfriends (eyeroll). The character of Merrill was born without legs, but we never get her POV of things.

It was an entertaining read for the first 70 pages, but after that, the writing felt amateurish. It was like Niven put most of his effort into the world-building and the start of the story, but didn't have anything left to continue. With his editor complaining about a deadline (I have no idea. I'm just making this part up.), he had an event hijack the story, forcing the characters into a slave rescue plot.

While this book is listed as being in the same series as A World Out of Time, there's no connection to it other than a reference to the nefarious State.

3 stars

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DED