Review: The Collapsing Empire

The Collapsing Empire is John Scalzi's novel of the Interdependency, a novel about the intrigue of a space faring human empire where FTL travel is performed through hyperspace conduits that are not controlled by humanity.

It's written in classic, breezy, Scalzi style: easy to read, with characters that are forgettable but with somewhat fast moving action and exposition. Strip away the trappings of science fiction, and you can see it's basically a "empire and colonies" story set during the age of sail. And that's probably the biggest weakness of the book: for science fiction, there's not much science and as a political intrigue novel, it's not particularly special. That it's easy to read is probably the best thing you can say about it.

As an airplane novel, you could do a lot worse, but I'd recommend other Scalzi novels such as Old Man's War or Lock In instead.