The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency, #1)

by John Scalzi

Cardenia Wu-Patrick

Cardenia is designed to be likeable.

Batrin Wu, Cardenia’s father,

Batrin seems like a nice guy, too.

Naffa Dolg,

Naffa is clever and also likeable.

Naffa reminded her friend.

Oh, Naffa is a she. Excellent! Bechdel would be pleased.

Nohamapetan.”

Them again!

“No, don’t,” Naffa said. “You need your time away from everyone, including me.” She got up. “We’re still in the same house. I’m just sixteen wings away, is all.” “I don’t think the palace has sixteen wings.” “It has twenty-four major sections to it.” “Well, you would know.”

Naffa is a Hermione.

There’s only one place in the Interdependency where humans live on the surface of the planet.” Marce zoomed out and in again, back to End, which hovered on the screen, a blue-green marble, clouded in white. “That’s us. That’s End.” “What about Earth?” one of the children asked, as one of them always did.

Tell Me Another One

Ah, the Prologue.

The point is, Marce, now you have means, motive, and opportunity to leave End. Leave. Do it now. Tell the emperox what we know.

And then have her fall in love with you? Maybe? Dunno if Scalzi does romance, though.

Naffa Dolg was dead.

Ouch! Doncha hate it when authors take that advice to kill their darlings?

Ghreni shrugged. “For starters, you’re not leaving the planet.”

Wrong, almost certainly. He Emperox needs to learn what he'd tell her, so he'll get there. It probably means his family is pulled into the rebellion. So his sister, the soldier, will become critical in that effort.

EPILOGUE

Oh! I thought the book was barely half through. Ah, well.

“I don’t know that it will matter even then,” Cardenia said. “I’m continually confronted with the human tendency to ignore or deny facts until the last possible instant. And then for several days after that, too.”

(As a second side note, I will also note that the title of this book—The Collapsing Empire—was not intended as a commentary on the current state of the United States, the UK, or of Western Civilization in general. I thought it up years ago. It just happened to look like commentary because, let’s face it, 2016 was a historically fucked-up year, and I can only hope 2017 is going to be better. Because if it’s not, it really is time to head to the bunkers with our barrels of beans and rice.)