The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency, #1)

by John Scalzi

The Flow is not anything close to a river—it is a multidimensional brane-like metacosmological structure that intersects with local time-space in a topographically complex manner, influenced partially and chaotically but not primarily by gravity, in which the ships accessing it don’t move in any traditional sense but merely take advantage of its vectoral nature, relative to local space-time, which, unbounded by our universe’s laws regarding speed, velocity, and energy, gives the appearance of faster-than-light travel to local observers.

Uh huh

And even that was a crap way of describing it, because human languages are crap at describing things more complex than assembling a tree house.

Batrin Wu, Cardenia’s father, was formally Attavio VI, Emperox of the Holy Empire of the Interdependent States and Mercantile Guilds, King of Hub and Associated Nations, Head of the Interdependent Church, Successor to Earth and Father of All, Eighty-seventh Emperox of the House of Wu, which claimed its lineage to the Prophet-Emperox Rachela I, founder of the Interdependency and Savior of Humanity.

Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains…

Those domes looked out on an eternal twilight, waiting for a sunrise the tidally locked planet would never offer, and which, if it did, would bake Hub’s citizens, screaming, like potatoes in a broiler.

“Farewell, Cardenia, my daughter. I’m sorry I didn’t make more time to love you.”

As if to accentuate the point, there was a loud thock from one of the side panels. “What was that?” Kiva asked the driver. “Exploratory shot, ma’am. Nothing to worry about.” “Being shot at is nothing to worry about?” “If they’d been serious, they would have hit us with a rocket.”

“We have quite a lot of things to take care of at the moment, ma’am.” This was, Kiva knew, as close to fuck you, I’m busy as Magnut was ever going to get.

The coronation robes were heavy, the anointing oil smelled like it had gone bad a century ago, the crown dug into her forehead and chafed, she was sweating, the coronational liturgy was nearly an hour long, and to top it all off, Cardenia’s period had begun last night and right now her cramps were like someone with an iron glove had taken it, wrapped it around her uterus, and squeezed.

I suppose it’s not surprising that this author has imagined a futuristic, highly technologically advanced, interstellar society in which women still don’t have a fix for period cramps 🙄

Take your time as long as your time is under a minute.”

“Where are the others?” Marce asked, looking around. “What others?” Vrenna asked. “You came to get me alone?” “I didn’t have a lot of time to make a project out of it.” Vrenna checked her surroundings and began driving off. “What if I had been injured? What if I hadn’t been able to walk? What if there had been more than two of them?” “I would have figured something out.” “I have notes on this rescue.” “I can put you back if you like.”

The Yes, Sir came with a full complement of defensive weapons, and a small contingent of offensive weapons as well. The offensive weapons were technically illegal for a trade ship to have, but fuck that, when you’re in space, sometimes you have to shoot first and lie about it to a guild inquiry later.

“Your people skills are admirable,” Pinton said to Kiva. “Fuck you, too,” Kiva said.

Cardenia never wanted to be emperox. All she wanted was to be the patron of a nice little arts charity or something.

“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.”

“I’m dead. I don’t feel bad about anything.” “Must be nice.”