Review: The Collapsing Empire, The Consuming Fire, The Last Emperox
I’ve been reading some Space Operas lately that I liked to varying degrees and for various reasons. These three books are a Space Opera trilogy from John Scalzi. This is what I want from a Space Opera.
This is just fun from start to finish. We open in media res of a mutiny and don’t slow down appreciably for 3 books. The world gets built up around us as an unlikely ruler ascends to the galactic throne and faces an unprecedented threat. We meet the rest of our protagonists and villains while barely catching our breath. It’s a hoot.
There’s just enough meat on the bones to make it serious, both for internal stakes and to spark ideas outside the story. The characters are archetypes animated with a breath of life. They change across the novels in interesting and believable ways. The plot twists are believable and frequent. Like I say, great fun.
In fact, I was having so much fun that I was a book and a half in before I noticed that the usual gender ratio for this kind of story was completely reversed. And, thinking about it, no character had any of their appearance described. Huh. Go figure.
Strongly recommended.