#166 in Science fiction
The Collapsing Empire
- 336
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
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Our view
Scalzi’s quick, witty voice and sharp dialogue drive this opening volume of “The Interdependency”. Its empire is held together by faster-than-light routes that are starting to shift, and some readers single out the cast, above all the gloriously foul-mouthed Kiva. Others feel it is only a first act, with backgrounds sketched lightly and a story that mostly sets the board for the next two books. Judge it as a beginning.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
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.
Reading order · The Interdependency
Full order & progress →- The Collapsing EmpireThis book
8.18.1 / 10 - The Consuming Fire
8.38.3 / 10 - The Last Emperox
8.18.1 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.1 across 823 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 85% of the weight and the score stays at 8.1 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.1 | 61 | 7% |
| Hardcover | 8.1 | 762 | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Collapsing Empire?
It has 336 pages — shorter than 74% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Science fiction — and a score of 8.1, the closest to this book.
