My rating: 4.3 out of 5
As a huge fan of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series I’ve been very much looking forward to this book. I was very keen for him to reaffirm himself in my eyes as one of the best modern sci-fi authors after leaving me a little disappointed with some of his more recent offerings. With this one, to be fair, I think he’s done alright.
Right from the beginning this book is typical Scalzi, which is actually a dumb thing to say as I think about it, because I can’t think of a reason why it could (or should) be anything different. By typical I mean that the story is written with his usual relaxed prose and sarcastic wit which I enjoy. It’s a reasonably short book with the story line moving along at a brisk pace and I always found myself eager to return back to it. The character dialogue great fun but it’s not without sizable, and I think slightly overdone, doses of profanity. That said, I enjoyed chuckling out loud to some of the things said by the characters. There are some colorful personalities in this story and I was impressed by some very strong female players, but a few seem maybe a little too “masculine”, possibly due to their personalities being created and written by a man. Who knows, and with that said, it’s easy to read and it flows really well. I’ve made this comparison before, but I see the similarities of Scalzi’s style to that of Mike Resnick, sometimes tongue-in-cheek and often brusque, but just with a few more uses of the f-word.
As for the setting, I like the universe that the author has built in terms of it’s finer details such as the physics and technology, but I find the interdependent nature Scalzi’s interstellar society to be a tad nonsensical. I can accept the idea behind it, that is to minimize the potential for war and also as a means of control, but I find it hard to believe that humanity would let itself become fully reliant on a mysterious and tenuous system of inter-dimensional portals and corridors (The Flow) which link together the various human inhabited star systems. It means that no single planet or orbital habitat could survive for long on their own because each requires so much from the others. The system of governance is interesting, with noble families and trade guilds controlling monopolies over various industries and commodities with a senior “royal” family to oversee and control the whole lot, similar in many ways to Frank Herbert’s ideas in his immensely popular Dune universe. I enjoyed discovering the complex layers here along with the various egos and agendas contained therein. Overall the world building is good and interesting enough without being mind-blowing.
In the story, the link to Earth has disappeared a thousand years prior due to a Flow stream collapse and it’s another impeding change which is the basic theme of the book. Only a few people know or suspect that another change is due, and the story follows the posturing and politicking of various factions (the aforementioned nobles and guilds) to try and take maximum advantage of the upheaval. There is more than enough action to keep me happy and it’s good action at that. By this I mean that the action sequences are described swiftly in expressive detail which makes them easy to picture in the mind’s eye without being overdone simply for the sake of it. I reckon that this use of action is one of Scalzi’s strengths as an author and his balance of action vs. dialogue in this book is probably it’s best feature. It’s far better than that of his last couple of books, and I know that I digress slightly here, but the political plots and discourse in these was yawn-inducing, sometimes even verging on nauseating and I was initially fearful that this book would be similar. Well, I’m pleased to report that it’s not. Sure, it’s got politics and all that stuff as a central element, but it’s toned down and much more appropriate to the overall story.
As a last comment and hopefully not a spoiler for anyone, I admit to being a little disappointed to reach the end of the book without seeing any mention of alien life forms, intelligent or otherwise. But this story is by no means over and who knows what the author has in store for us in the coming installments. I really hope it does involve aliens because Scalzi does excellent aliens as shown in much of earlier work.
In summary, this is good space opera science fiction and a wonderfully smooth reading experience. It looks like a fine introduction to what will hopefully be another great series from John Scalzi.
Concept: 4/5
Delivery: 5/5
Entertainment: 4/5
= 4.3 out of 5
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