From the publisher: The Last Emperox is the thrilling conclusion to the award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling Interdependency series, an epic space opera adventure from Hugo Award-winning author John Scalzi.

The collapse of The Flow, the interstellar pathway between the planets of the Interdependency, has accelerated. Entire star systems—and billions of people—are becoming cut off from the rest of human civilization. This collapse was foretold through scientific prediction . . . and yet, even as the evidence is obvious and insurmountable, many still try to rationalize, delay and profit from, these final days of one of the greatest empires humanity has ever known.

Emperox Grayland II has finally wrested control of her empire from those who oppose her and who deny the reality of this collapse. But “control” is a slippery thing, and even as Grayland strives to save as many of her people form impoverished isolation, the forces opposing her rule will make a final, desperate push to topple her from her throne and power, by any means necessary. Grayland and her thinning list of allies must use every tool at their disposal to save themselves, and all of humanity. And yet it may not be enough.

Will Grayland become the savior of her civilization . . . or the last emperox to wear the crown?

The Last Emperox is the final book in John Scalzi's Interdependancy trilogy. It brings to a conclusion the storyline begun in The Collapsing Empire and continued in The Consuming Fire. So, is it successful at resolving the story? The short answer is yes. The long answer is yes, too, but maybe a little more complicated than that.

When The Last Emperox begins, the empire of the Emperox Grayland II (also know as Cardenia) is in the midst of fragmenting due to the collapse of the Flow streams which provide a way to travel between star systems. As detailed in the first two books, this will isolate each system, eventually resulting in the deaths of the great majority of humanity as they know it. Grayland is continuing her attempts to discover a way to save everyone before all systems are cut off from each other. Assisting her in this task is her boyfriend/chief Flow expert Marce Claremont, the sentient starship Chenevert, and the foul-mouthed and sex-crazed but very calculating Kiva Lagos. In the meantime, she continues to have to deal with attempted coups and assassination attempts from various factions, including her own noble family (the Wu's) and her perpetual foil, Nadashe Nohamapetan. Political maneuverings, scientific discoveries, and an ending I did not see coming all come together to make this an exciting story and a satisfying conclusion to the series.

As in previous books, Scalzi has written some interesting and engaging characters. And by this time, the readers are very familiar with their quirks and personalities. They continue to grow and develop, particularly Kiva Lagos and Cardenia/Grayland II. Both characters have nice arcs that you can trace through the other two books, and the conclusion for each feels genuine, if a touch unexpected. I also enjoyed reading about Marce and seeing him take on a bit larger role. Scalzi's humorous writing style mixed with sarcasm is evident in the characters, which is something I enjoy when reading (I don't really like it when everything has to be Serious all the time).

My only complaints about The Last Emperox are the same I had for the previous two books. First, every few chapters, there seems to be a chapter that is a huge information dump, tons of exposition with little dialogue. For me, these chapters would bring my reading momentum to a screeching halt, as the speed and flow of the story would come to a near halt. Additionally, there is a lot of cursing, particularly the "F" word. While it is part of a character's personality to use this word so much, it seems a little excessive to me. Finally, the amount of sex in the book can be gratuitous, although not graphic. I will say that of the three books, this one had the least amount of sex in it.

Overall, I enjoyed The Last Emperox, and the Interdependancy series as a whole. It was relatively fast paced and engaging, with interesting characters and some newer takes on space travel and science concepts. John Scalzi did a terrific job of telling the story he intended to tell and resolving it well in The Last Emperox. He also left enough threads left untied that he could easily revisit characters, ideas, of the Interdependancy universe without messing with this trilogy or undoing the choices in this series. I would recommend The Last Emperox (and the series) to Scalzi fans, general science fiction fans, and readers who like a bit of humor and sarcasm in their stories.

I received a preview copy of this book from Tor and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Conclusion to his trilogy about a collapsing space empire. Bad people mostly get their comeuppance and good people mostly prosper, and it’s reasonably satisfying, though the solution such as it is ends up relatively abrupt (or really: now there’s fifty years of science to do!) on a plot level.

I have been a fan of John Scalzi's for a while so when he started this new trilogy I was ALL IN and I wasn't wrong to be interested. The characters in this book are so well written and FUN that it makes it hard to put down. The conversations flow like normal conversations and make me feel like I'm standing in the room with them. This book also has the trademark John Scalzi humor, which is never wrong in any situation.

Then, the science-fiction aspect! It's just something that I've never read before, a new take on our future where we live underground on planets that can't support life (except End) and where business is King and the Emperox is the supreme ruler. It's very original in my mind and I loved that aspect of it as well. I started reading 'Green Mars' at the start of the pandemic (which is genius) but give me John Scalzi any day.

There's a lot of excellent things in this book and this trilogy in general.
The world building is well thought out, detailed, explained. When we are faced with a ship falling off the flow, we know what it means, when the collapse of the Flow begins, we are aware of what it will mean for millions of people, we never see them, mind, but we know.
The characters are fully developed and different. Each one has been given a personality and it shows. Cardenia, Kiva and Nadashe steal the show from 3 very different perspectives. All three are compelling characters and I only wished we could have also seen more of Vrenna take down of Ghreni in End, specially since the taking of End was such and important point of the first book.
And Scalzi has the courage to conclude the arc of the Emperox where it most logically had to go. As much as that might be heartbreaking on a little people personal level, the truth is that what was hammered over and over in this trilogy is the importance that the decisions of people in power have and how they affect millions of people, for a very long time, and when those decisions are taken for personal gain, it's millions of people's every day lives that are shattered. Stop me when the metaphor hits you over the head.
And in making this point the trilogy success immensely. It is shown over and over again how decisions taken in selfishness are doomed to fail. Success only comes to those ready to sacrifice for others. Some people might say that is naive of Scalzi, but looking at the world today, May 2020, in the middle of the COVID19 pandemic, and seeing which countries succeeded and which failed, in both keeping their people alive and their economies afloat, I believe Scalzi is right. It is only with community forefront in mind that we will be successful.

My only critique of this last book is that yes, it has a lot of echoes to Asimov's Fundation trilogy, but it reminds me a lot more of Prelude to Fundation. And that is my issue with this trilogy. Fundation was the trilogy about the What. Prelude was the standalone book about the How they did it. Scalzi just wrote a trilogy about the How, and we only got a vague description of what the What might look like at the very end.
This only mildly annoys me because, again, I believe the point to be thoroughly made and also, because I would be severely surprised if we do not get a book (or a couple) about Marce and Chenovert adventures in the search for Earth.

About the writing as I said about the previous books, Scalzi is not a pretentious author. He has obviously read all there is to read about sci fi and you can spot references to genre tropes everywhere, but he does not need to use unnecessary 5 syllables words to puff up his work, and that communicates an easy confidence on the quality of the work which I for one, found very comfortable and relaxing.

Rating: 8.0/10

Thanks to the Audible, the author, and the narrator for a listening copy of The Last Emperox (The Interdependency #3) for review consideration. This did not influence my thoughts or opinions.

Let’s be honest, if you’ve read the first two (2) novels in the series, you at least have it in mind to finish off the trilogy, right? Well, let me go ahead and tell you that the finale doesn’t disappoint, which is something I really couldn’t say about The Consuming Fire.

Throughout the trilogy, Scalzi’s whip-crack prose and punchy dialogue hit at 1,000 mph and delivers one of the fastest series I’ve ever been through. I know I listened to Wheaton’s narration at 2x+, but I think he even got tired at how quick the pace is in the author’s writing. There is zero room for a coffee break, hell, even a for an opportunity to throw some water on your face. It is hit after hit of explosive dialogue, packed action scenes, and enough profanity laced rants to make your grandma blush. You know, on top of how everything interwoven through the trilogy is a nice little knock to the system we experience here in reality land.

The best apart about this series, other than the humor and the fact that I can listen to Will Wheaton narrate just about anything, is the science. All of the components surrounding The Flow, down to the nitty gritty bits, are absolutely fascinating. I mean come on, an interstellar pathway between planets? Get it, science.

This is my 2nd series by Scalzi, the other being Lock In, and I REALLY need to get to his Old Man’s War series which may happen somewhere in the near future; but he is definitely an author I will continue to keep coming back to. His penchant for writing fast-paced novels that have plenty of engagement and intrigue will continue to cement him as a “change of pace” type author on my shelf.

This is a light, quick read, and it provided easy distraction, which I was looking for in the time of COVID-19. But it was in fact SO light that none of the characters or situations felt at all real or weighty. John Scalzi's voice as authorial string-puller came through more strongly than the voice or perspective of any of the characters. At times I felt like I was reading a plot synopsis from a wiki about the House of Cards/Game of Thrones-style TV series these books clearly want to be.

I did appreciate the way a plot twist was handled late in the book: flatly, and without heavy-handed foreshadowing. On the other hand, the book and the trilogy ended on what was basically a deus ex machina, and that felt a bit lazy.

I don't dislike the jocular Scalzi style that has become more and more prominent across the three books of this series. I just wish he would think of some different keys and registers to deploy within that style. For example, Kiva Lagos was a fun character, but her reliance on the F-word got monotonous. It felt like lazy-writing, one note on the keyboard banged again and again, telling rather than showing us that Kiva is an irreverent badass. Scalzi's lampshading of the issue didn't make it go away.

In his acknowledgments, Scalzi admitted to "waiting until the very last moment to turn the damn thing in," which confirmed my impression that the writing of this book was rushed. Perhaps Scalzi's feeling the pressure that comes from signing a $3.4 million deal that requires him to write 13 books in 10 years. Maybe after the deal has run he can go back to selling one book at a time and be a bit more generous with himself about deadlines.

This is the end of this great series and I loved it as I loved the other instalment.
There's a lot going on and the plot can sometimes seems confusing but there's always a reason if something is happening or something is being told.
I'm love with John Scalzi's humour and how he writes tongue in cheek.
There's a lot of character development and it was interesting reading the arc of the characters and saying them goodbye.
The world building is as amazing as usual and I loved every moment of this story.
I can't wait to read Mr Scalzi's next story.
This was a fun read and a lot of food for thought, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

A few thousand years in the future, one branch of humanity, comprised of billions of people, lives on a set of planets called the Interdependency. Their star systems are many hundreds of light years apart but tied together by the Flow, a sort of hyperspace river that connects these planets. The problem is that the Flow is gradually collapsing, one stream at a time, and all of the Interdependency worlds except one (called End) are completely incapable of sustaining human life without the constant importing of food and goods from other worlds — hence the term “Interdependency.” In fact, this economic system was deliberately set up a thousand years earlier in order to enrich just a few elite families, each of which have a monopoly on certain key goods and have become immensely wealthy and powerful as a result.

As The Last Emperox (2020), the concluding novel in John Scalzi’s INTERDEPENDENCY trilogy, begins, the nobles in the Interdependency are finally beginning to accept the fact that all of the Flow streams that tie their worlds together are disappearing. (It’s hard to deny given the mathematical proofs … especially after several streams have collapsed as the physicists predicted.) The Interdependency’s ruler, Emperox Grayland II, called Cardenia by those who know her personally, has been pushing for the government and ruling families to acknowledge the flow collapse and start working together to try to save the people of the Interdependency.

It sounds logical enough, but instead the ruling families are mostly preoccupied with two things: First, saving themselves and their families and hangers-on, by preparing to emigrate to the world of End. After all, End can’t possibly assimilate all of humanity, and the wealthy and powerful are determined that they’ll be the ones to actually wind up there, along with as much of their wealth and power as can possibly make the transfer to End with them. The common people that they ruled on their worlds are out of luck, too bad.

Second, they’re (still) trying to oust Cardenia from power. She’s already survived two assassination attempts, and Nadashe Nohamapetan is determined that a third attempt will succeed. Nadashe is a fugitive but an extremely well-connected and ruthless one, who’s been a constant thorn in Cardenia’s side since Cardenia declined a political marriage with either Nadashe’s brother or Nadashe herself.

The Last Emperox follows the ongoing struggle between Nadashe and the allies she gathers around her, and Cardenia and her supporters, particularly her lover and leading Flow physicist Marce, and her friend Kiva Lagos, a foul-mouthed schemer with enough of a conscience to realize that, with civilization as she knows it quickly coming to an end, some amount of altruism needs to be injected into to a set of rulers used to acting solely in their own self-interest. Kiva is one of the bright lights in the INTERDEPENDENCY series, as long as you don’t mind her over-the-top case of potty mouth.

The basic plotline and the main characters are already familiar to those who’ve read the first two books, The Collapsing Empire and The Consuming Fire (in fact, it’s vital to read those books first, but this trilogy is definitely worth the investment in time). These characters — well, at least the sympathetic ones — are well-rounded and complex. Cardenia has learned to act as a ruler needs to, but sometimes that’s at odds with her role as a normal person and her developing relationship with Marce. Cardenia and Marce have just the right amount of nerdiness, awkwardness and sincerity that you really root for their relationship. Nadashe, on the other hand, is a little over the top as a one-dimensional villain, although Scalzi still manages to have some fun with her conniving character.

There’s a shocking development toward the end of The Last Emperox. To say much about it would get us into spoiler territory, but I wondered (through my tears) whether this event and the decisions that led to it were as necessary as the book posits. I wasn’t convinced, although a subsequent reread of this book did lead me to conclude that it was, if not essential, at least justifiable. (I’m still pouting about it on a personal level, though.)

The Last Emperox is almost prescient in its critical take on a society in crisis, where people act in short-sighted ways, denying and delaying taking action against a looming problem until it hits crisis point, and too many of those in charge are selfishly focused on their own interests rather than on their responsibilities to those they govern. Scalzi has a serious message to share, but it goes down easily, with a fast pace, lots of action, and frequent doses of snarky humor. This is one of the most compulsively readable, intelligent and enjoyable science fiction series I’ve come across, and it gets my highest recommendation.

It is impossible, reading this now in the midst of the COVID19 crisis, not to see just how much the situation that the people of the Interdependency are in parallels life as we currently know it. The degree of resonance alternates between astonishing and appalling, depending on where in the story one is and what one thinks about current conditions.

Making it all the more amazing that when this story began, with the writing of the first book in the series, The Collapsing Empire, probably sometime in the fall of 2016 for its March 2017 release. Not that, from certain perspectives, the world wasn’t already headed for a dumpster fire in the fall of 2016.

But just as no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, no one expects a worldwide pandemic, and no one in the Interdependency expected the basis of their entire, interdependent (hence the name), galaxy-spanning civilization to collapse relatively suddenly and without nearly enough warning to re-shape said civilization in time to save all that much of it.

If they can manage to overcome the sheer, unadulterated self-centered selfishness of the so-called elites and do the right thing – if anyone can figure out what that is – in time. They might manage to save civilization. But they don’t have a prayer of saving all of the people in it.

This is one of those cases where the needs of the many really, really, seriously outweigh the needs of the few. And, like so many of those cases, so much is dependent on who gets to decide who constitutes those “many”.

For Nadashe Nohamapeton, the many are the members of the Interdependency’s ruling families and mercantile guilds, who are frequently one and the same. She has a plan to save them – or at least those of them that haven’t pissed her off or done her wrong or gotten in her way. Of course, anyone who falls into any of those three categories can be eliminated, even if they are members of her own family.

As for the billions of people who make up the Interdepency, in Nadashe’s worldview they are all expendable. They are to be lied to, placated if possible, subjugated if necessary and left behind to die in isolation while the important parts of the Interdepency leave Hub for End, the only planet in the entire system capable of supporting human life all by itself without the resources of the Interdepency to fill in the gaps.

Among the people standing in Nadashe’s way is the Emperox. She’ll need to be taken out of Nadashe’s way so that those who Nadashe believes are the important parts of the Interdepency can survive. So from Nadashe’s perspective the Emperox has to go. After all, she’s sitting in the seat that Nadashe plans to occupy.

To Emperox Grayland II, the many are the people of the Interdepency. All of those billions that Nadashe plans to leave behind to die in the dark and the cold. Or whatever terrible fate befalls them. Nadashe may not care but Grayland certainly does. What she doesn’t have is a plan. Not exactly. But with the help of Marce Claremont, her scientific advisor – and lover – they might have just enough time to discover a way to save, maybe not everyone, but an awful, awful lot of the people who, in Grayland’s mind, are the Interdependency.

But if the population as a whole constitute the many, then Grayland, and Marce, are the few – and the one.

Escape Rating A+: I had a terrible approach/avoidance issue with this book. A part of that was because I had originally intended to listen to it, as I have to the entire rest of the series. The walking profanity explosion that is Kiva Lagos is best appreciated in audio. She just doesn’t have the same impact when reading the book yourself. Also, Wil Wheaton has done a fantastic job with the series, including this entry. But I normally listen while driving, or while on a treadmill at the gym, and everything has been closed. I had more time for reading but fewer opportunities for listening. In the end I mostly played Solitaire and just let the audio wash over me. It was marvelous.

Also, and probably more importantly, this is the last book in the trilogy, and I knew that going in. So I was going to have to say goodbye to all of these wonderful characters and this fascinating world, and I was NOT looking forward to that – at all.

By the nature of the setup of the series, it was also pretty clear that there could not possibly be a happy ending. The end of their civilization is coming, it’s not their fault, but there isn’t anything they can do to stop it, either. By a whole lot of definitions, this is a no-win scenario. In order to have an unequivocal happy ending for these characters, there would have to occur an unbelievable amount of deus ex machina. Possibly even dei ex machina, a whole damn pantheon of dei.

And it would have been a cheat. So I was expecting a butcher’s bill at the end. I had no illusions about that, but it did mean that I wanted to know how it all worked out – but didn’t exactly WANT to know who got worked out of the story to make it wrap up.

I’ll admit that there was a point near the end where the whole thing gave me the weepies. It reminded me very much of Delenn’s absolute tearjerker scene in the Babylon 5 finale “Sleeping in Light”. I cried then, too.

But what I think will stick in the mind about this series has a lot more to do with Kiva Lagos’ observation that, “whenever selfish humans encountered a wrenching, life-altering crisis, they embarked on a journey of five distinct stages:

1. Denial.
2. Denial.
3. Denial
4. Fucking Denial.
5. Oh shit everything is terrible grab what you can and run.”

This trilogy as a whole is about the response to stage five. Whether it is possible, or not, to draw back from that brink or get past that impulse and figure out a way to not just “rage against the dying of the light” but to finesse a way around it. In spite of all the people saying it can’t be done, as well as more than a few – like Nadashe – saying it shouldn’t be done.

It’s a great story about the indomitability of the human spirit. Also about the corruptibility of the human spirit, and the conflict between the two. With an ending that is an absolute punch to the gut.

One final note. The ending of the series as a whole had one last twist to throw at everyone. A twist that turns out kind of like the ending of the joke about a German Shepherd, a Doberman and a cat who have died and gone to heaven. I’ll leave you to discover who plays the part of the cat.

The great thing about a paperback is you can throw it if it annoys you (yes, I know this is a horrific scenario for those ‘book nazis’ who patrol library shelves for bent spines or dog-eared pages.) This is a tad more problematic with a tablet or a Kindle. Suffice it to say I had to fight this overwhelming urge about two thirds of the way through The Last Emperox.

There I was reading, with the thought lurking in the back of my mind that nothing was really happening, when was the story going to kick in, and what a disappointing conclusion this seemed to be to the Interdependency trilogy, when – abruptly and unexpectedly – Scalzi pulled the rug out from under me.

I actually had to read the offending page about three times for its appalling meaning to sink in. And then I gently put my tablet down. Did I just read two-and-a-half books in a trilogy for Scalzi to pull a cheapo stunt like that? But was it a low blow or a careful recalibration of the reader’s investment in Scalzi’s story and characters?

I defy anyone who has read these books to tell me they had a different reaction at this point. Should I continue reading or give up in disgust (at being manipulated so easily), I darkly thought. It is indeed a balancing act for a writer, because you risk alienating your audience if you tip the apple cart too far. Readers are creatures of comfort, after all.

Eventual disbelief won me over. I just had to continue reading because there was no way Scalzi could let that plot point slide … This was followed quickly by dismay that Scalzi was, indeed, being serious …
Fortunately, the story ratchets up a notch or two from then on. It builds inexorably to a double whammy of a conclusion (not to mention some of the funniest and drollest lines of dialogue in the entire trilogy, which is saying quite a lot given just how funny and sassy this trilogy fundamentally is. Scalzi, if anything else, really enjoys throwing shade!)

Wow. This trilogy has been a textbook example of keeping readers entertained, as well as offering a thoughtful (if unintended) commentary on the madness prevailing in the world. Scalzi remarks on this in his Acknowledgements, pointing out that the book was completed in late 2019, way behind deadline (as per usual, to much gnashing of teeth by his editorial team) and that any coincidences with reality are, well, entirely coincidental.

But writers like Scalzi are intuitively aware of the prevailing zeitgeist, I think, and always manage to tap into it like a lodestone. I honestly believe that, in terms of defining global events or paradigm shifts, SF is the one genre that is the most flexible and resilient in responding to what is happening around us. And it is the hippest and most fun genre as well. As Kiva would say: “Fuck yeah!”

John Scalzi finishes the science fiction series about the collapse of the flow in the Last Emperox. Imperial politics is vicious as the empire is shutting down and the Emperox tries to save as much of the population as she can. The nobles and merchants conspire against each other; treachery is everywhere. Can romance survive? A vicious spiral of events. Keep your attention on the ball as so much is going on. Enjoy.

First of all, John Scalzi is just a huge amount of fun to read. His narrator's voice sounds like your teenager telling you a story - if that adolescent were funny, wise, whip-smart, and a great storyteller.

This story is the third and final book in the Interdependency trilogy, providing a fine resolution of the story arc while leaving a few strands Scalzi could pick up later if he ever wanted to return to this universe. The characters, some living and some not so much, are well drawn and believable; it's easy to get wrapped up in their struggles. The action is pretty much non-stop; a lot of stuff happens. I suppose one can draw parallels between the Interdependency facing its impending collapse and our own planet's response to climate change. In neither case are leaders covering themselves in glory. But mostly this is an entertaining story told extremely well.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2871850606
Opening line:
"The funny thing was, Ghreni Nohamapetan, the acting Duke of End [I keep reading this as Duke of Earl!], actually saw the surface-to-air missile that slammed into his aircar a second before it hit."

Still in the prologue, the acting DofE (somehow) survives, and visits with his prisoner-victim Jamies, Count Claremont. Ghreni had framed Jamies for an assassination, and thus made Jamies' daughter into a *very* effective enemy rebel.

“I just need someone to talk to,” Ghreni said, suddenly.
Jamies looked over toward the (acting) duke. “I beg your pardon?”
“You asked why I keep visiting you,” Ghreni said. “I need someone to talk to.”
“Maybe you should just get a therapist.”
“I don’t need a therapist.”
“I’d get a second opinion on that if I were you.”
WOOT!

OK, I have more notes & stuff offline, but basically: Scalzi makes me laugh. A dozen (at least!) LOL moments, most involving that fucking Kiva Lagos! Or Kiva Lagos fucking. Or both! (Pillow talk with her new steady: "You asshole!") That's the GF, actually.... 😇 And the romance between wossisname, the Flow physicist and the young Emperox is sweet. Her proposal!

Or Kiva's Mom, after Kiva mysteriously disappears:
The Countess Lagos gave Marce an indulgent look. “Lord Marce, remind me. Are you the pleasant young man my daughter used as a fuck toy on her journey from End to Hub?”
“I . . . wouldn’t have put it that way, but yes, my lady.”

And I'm slowing down, because -- when it's over, it's over!! Oh No-oo-oo!

Holy shit! It's done. Scalzi knocked it out of the ballpark, again! Wow. Kiva Lagos! Happy ending! (sort of). True love finds a way! The biter badly bit. 6 stars!! ⚡️ 🚀 💥 🕷 ❤️❤️!

(view spoiler)
=========================
Publisher's weekly gave volume 3 a starred review: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...
They liked it a lot:
"Hugo Award–winner Scalzi knocks it out of the park with the tightly plotted, deeply satisfying conclusion to his Interdependency Sequence space opera trilogy (after The Consuming Fire)."

As you can imagine, author Scalzi was pleased with this review -- I saw it at his blog.
Thanks to Netgalley & Tor, who came through with an E-ARC!

Reviewed by my co-blogger, TS Chan, on Novel Notions

The Last Emperox is a satisfying conclusion to one of the more entertaining and accessible space operas I’ve read.

Science fiction could be quite daunting sometimes, especially when authors are making an attempt at originality in worldbuilding. New terminologies and complexity of concepts could make reading a bit of a struggle when all one wanted was simple enjoyment. So when books like The Interdependency trilogy came along that has interesting worldbuilding and great scifi concepts that are not difficult to understand, snarky humour and even political intrigue which did not bore me, I was so delighted that I ended up binging through all three books. And the entire trilogy ended up with solid 4-star ratings right across.

As usual, being a self-proclaimed nerd, the best part of the series for me was in relation to The Fold itself. A multi-dimensional cosmological occurrence that allows space travel to cut across distances of many light-years in a significantly shorter time. Essentially, it enables space travel between star systems where the human race have now inhabited which otherwise would have been impossible without faster-than-light technology. With that, The Interdependency was built around the structure of The Flow streams, with each star system being completely reliant on one another for resources. Resources which are monopolised by the noble house in each system, and right at the top of it all is the emperox as the ultimate ruler of The Interdependency. So just imagine when The Fold started to collapse and all these cosmic highways eventually disappearing. This formed the backdrop of the political drama that ensued as one of the pre-eminent houses used the opportunity it presented for a power grab.

I was slightly distracted by the political intrigue which continued to brew in this concluding volume. Perhaps it was the binge-fest that made me feel as if I’m being bombarded with the same old schemes again. It also didn’t help that the antagonist had her own POV chapters and being in her mind made me feel disgusted. I was especially reminded of how relevant such form of justifications and motivations exist in many of the people in power in our world right now.

Don’t get me wrong though as I really did enjoy reading The Last Emperox regardless of a minor stumble initially. The main characters remained consistent and have sufficient development to bring this story to its denouement; it turned out that reading about characters who were not confident nor certain about what they’re doing, but would try their very best because it’s worth fighting for could be quite endearing. The snark in kept the tone fairly light, while Marce’s work on The Flow continued to keep me engaged. As these are quick reads, there were no issues with pacing as far as I was concerned. A cool revelation towards the end of the book was also quite brilliantly utilised in the closing scenes. While I felt that there was adequate and satisfactory closure to the trilogy at this point, there is a potential for future books to be written.

In short, The Interdependency trilogy is great and accessible science fiction that is fun and highly enjoyable while maintaining the genre’s ability and propensity for social commentary. Recommended for all fans of science fiction, as well as those who are new to the genre.

You can purchase a copy from: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book Depository (Free shipping worldwide) | Bookshop.Org

The Last Emperox is a satisfying conclusion to one of the more entertaining and accessible space operas I've read.

Science fiction could be quite daunting sometimes, especially when authors are making an attempt at originality in worldbuilding. New terminologies and complexity of concepts could make reading a bit of a struggle when all one wanted was simple enjoyment. So when books like The Interdependency trilogy came along that has interesting worldbuilding and great scifi concepts that are not difficult to understand, snarky humour and even political intrigue which did not bore me, I was so delighted that I ended up binging through all three books. And the entire trilogy ended up with solid 4-star ratings right across.

As usual, being a self-proclaimed nerd, the best part of the series for me was in relation to The Fold itself. A multi-dimensional cosmological occurrence that allows space travel to cut across distances of many light-years in a significantly shorter time. Essentially, it enables space travel between star systems where the human race have now inhabited which otherwise would have been impossible without faster-than-light technology. With that, The Interdependency was built around the structure of The Flow streams, with each star system being completely reliant on one another for resources. Resources which are monopolised by the noble house in each system, and right at the top of it all is the Emperox as the ultimate ruler of The Interdependency. So just imagine when The Fold started to collapse and all these cosmic highways eventually disappearing. This formed the backdrop of the political drama that ensued as one of the pre-eminent houses used the opportunity it presented for a power grab.

I was slightly distracted with the political intrigue which continued to brew in this concluding volume. Perhaps it was the binge-fest that made me feel as if I'm being bombarded with the same old schemes again. It also didn't help that the antagonist had her own POV chapters and being in her mind made me feel disgusted. I was especially reminded of how relevant such form of justifications and motivations exist in many of the people in power in our world right now.

Don't get me wrong though as I really did enjoy reading The Last Emperox regardless of a minor stumble initially. The main characters remained consistent and have sufficient development to bring this story to its denouement; it turned out that reading about characters who were not confident nor certain about what they're doing, but would try their very best because it's worth fighting for could be quite endearing. The snark in kept the tone fairly light, while Marce's work on The Flow continued to keep me engaged. As these are quick reads, there were no issues with pacing as far as I was concerned. A cool revelation towards the end of the book was also quite brilliantly utilised in the closing scenes. While I felt that there was adequate and satisfactory closure to the trilogy at this point, there is a potential for future books to be written.

In short, The Interdependency trilogy is great and accessible science fiction that is fun and highly enjoyable while maintaining the genre's ability and propensity for social commentary. Recommended for all fans of science fiction, as well as those who are new to the genre.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a very good story that kept me interested and intrigued into what was going to happen.

I would recommend this book if you enjoy this kind of story. It was really good.

Last Emperox by John Scalzi

This was an enjoyable conclusion to an enjoyable trilogy. There were some twists and fakeouts, one of which I totally fell for, and I am very angry about the deaths of one of my favorite characters.

John Scalzi is an excellent author - he really has an ear for dialog and a flair for creating notable characters that feel real. Other than his Christmas themed short story collection, I have thoroughly enjoyed every book of his that he has ever published. He is on my short list of books I will happily reread and I’ve listened to Redshirts, Fuzzy Nation, and Agent to the Stars multiple times in audio.

I am also a regular reader of Mr. Scalzi’s longrunning blog, at whatever dot com, where he shares, among other things, details about his creative process. He has been quite forthcoming about the fact that he turned each book in this trilogy into his editors at the last possible minute, and book two he wrote in two weeks after 18 months of mentally plotting but procrastinating.

Sad to say, it shows when you read the trilogy. Don’t get me wrong! I love these books and will reread (or relisten) to them again. I like the characters and the overall story. But, even for a Scalzi book, it seems overly dialog heavy and light on the description. There is a very tight focus on the main characters, which is fun because they’re enjoyable to the extreme, but the promise of this entire universe created in the first book makes the narrowing of focus in this volume to feel unfulfilling.

Basically, my complaint boils down to: I want more. I would read an entire trilogy about the events on the planet End that paralleled this narrative and are given short shrift here. I would love a follow up to these character’s stories a few years on. The author indicated that, although the trilogy is done, he might revisit this world if he is inspired to one day. So I will reread and hope for more.

An excellent conclusion to The Interdependency Trilogy. There are so many twists and turns in this action packed, political intrigue, science fiction, space opera that you will never guess the ending. Even with sixty pages to go, I had no idea how this series was going to end by the end of the book.

This is the best series I have read in the last decade. There are only two minor points for the last book, first I would love to have seen a little more from Vrenna Claremont in the final book. Secondly, Kiva Lagos does like to use the F-word. You can find the non-official count of F-bombs here.
https://www.jonathancrowe.net/2020/04/john-scalzis-interdependency-novels-in-one-chart/

Originally reviewed on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3223513033?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

I can not say to much about this book since it is the final book in the series however I can say that this is a series worth reading! I have enjoyed each book more and more and this final book was great! I loved how everything wrapped up and I thought it was an excellent read!

The final installment in the Collapsing Empire trilogy. This story wraps up many of the loose ends from the first two books neatly.
Emperox Grayland II (Cardenia) has successfully put down the coup attempt by a large group of nobles that included silver in her own house. Marce is still working to figure out how to use the data he has gathered to find new ways to save the people of the Interdependency. However Nadashae escaped custody and still has her sights set on the throne. The Emperox will try save all of the people of the Interdependency before the Flow shuts down, and so the final installment begins. There is intrigue, danger, and romance before an ending so u expected that anyone who claims they saw coming is a filthy liar.
This book was very good and very difficult for me to put down. So why only 4 stars you might ask? Honestly... I wanted it to be longer. I wanted to find out more about what was happening on the End and in more detail (more Vrenna Claremont!). I wanted to see more of what happened after the wrap-up (so many spoiled additionrequests I typed then deleted). To include all the more I want, either the novel needed to double in size or become a series though. Scalzi said it was only to be a trilogy and so it ends. Enjoyable, but at the same time frustrating.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read a pre-release copy of this book.