The Mad Professah Lectures

The Last Emperox is the final entry in a space opera from John Scalzi, best known for his Hugo-award winning novel Redshirts and his excellent debut novel, Old Man's War as well as his large social media footprint and record-breaking, multi-million-dollar publishing contract. The Last Emperox completes the story began in The Collapsing Empire and continued in The Consuming Fire. 

A reviewer at Locus magazine mentioned that they noticed that the The Last Emperox is dedicated "to the women who are done with other people’s shit" and that this is apparent in the centrality of its three primary main characters who are all strong, decisive women. First among these is the last emperox herself, Cardenia Wu-Patrick ak.a. Emperox Grayland II. Cardenia has been pretty much the most central character in the first two books and this doesn't change in this final entry in the series. However, two other female characters, Nadashe Nohamapetan and Kiva Lagos are also central to the story.

To remind you The Interdependency is set in a Universe where interstellar travel occurs via something called The Flow. In the first book some dude, i.e. Lord Marce Claremont, discovered that The Flow was becoming unstable and was likely to stop "flowing" in the not-too-distant future, which would result in entire planets being cut off from the rest of humanity, and likely falling into chaos and starvation. The Interdepenency depends upon extensive trade between planets, using The Flow as a means to transport goods and services between the participating planet. This economic system depends on a near-feudal political system where Houses control various monopolies on certain commodities and supplies, and the most important monopoly is the one run by House Wu (which is the house the Emperox has always come from, for centuries). Thisis the monopoly for ships.

Basically, the entire series is a metaphor for our current world which is facing a cataclysmic future (due to climate change) and currently has economic-political system which is dominated by soulless, corrupt elites. However, being Scalzi, he takes these serious underpinnings and overlays it with profane humor and ridiculous situations. Oftentimes, this style doesn't work for me, but in each of the three books in The Interdependency I found that it was quite effective. The middle book was probably the most appealing of the three to me, but he does do a good job of wrapping up many of the primary conflicts and the plot takes some very surprising turns (including the death of one of the major characters I have mentioned earlier).

Overall, I would say that I enjoyed The Last Emperox more than the average Scalzi book I have read. And acknowledging the degree of difficulty of combining social commentary, space opera and readability, I believe the book (and the series as a whole) has to be considered a success.

Title: The Last Emperox (The Interdependency, #3)
Author: John Scalzi .
Pages: 308 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: April 14, 2020.
Date Read: August 27, 2020.

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

 

The Consuming Fire is the second book in John Scalzi’s The Interdependency space opera trilogy. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the first book in the series, The Collapsing Empire, but then again, I am generally ambivalent about Scalzi’s work. I do think Old Man’s War and Redshirts are his best books by far, and some of his other stuff is just not very good at all (looking at you, Lock In!)

With Scalzi's recent press tour surrounding the release of the third and final book in the trilogy, The Last Emperox, I was reminded of the books’ existence and happily, Kindle copies were readily available at one of my local libraries.

The good news is that the best parts of The Collapsing Empire, are in its sequel, namely lots of snarky commentary, snappy pacing and sympathetic characters (Emperox Grayland II, Lord Marce Claremont and Lady Kiva Lagos). There’s also a ridiculously convoluted plot with internecine palace intrigue taken to the extreme, but clearly points are being made about the nature of elites and concomitant corruption.

I appreciate the difficulty of what Scalzi is trying to do here. He is combining humor with social commentary in the context of a putative space opera about advanced human civilization with near-magical transport methods and an extremely mercantilist society.

I don’t know if I am just in a different place/mindset than I was when I read the first book, but I quite enjoyed the second book. I connected with Marce, Cardenia and Kiva in The Consuming Fire strongly enough that I was invested in what happened to them for the entirety of the book and I am also quite curious to find out what will happen to them next in The Last Emperox. That, at its most basic form, is a description of a successful book. Additionally, there are some interesting developments in The Consuming Fire about the existential threat to human society caused by the imminent collapse of The Flow, the multidimensional space through which most interplanetary travel occurs.

Overall, The Consuming Fire is a very strong sequel to The Collapsing Empire, and an excellent and amusing space opera book in it’s own right.

Title: The Consuming Fire.
Author: John Scalzi.
Paperback: 304 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: October 16, 2018.
Date Read: August 14, 2020.

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

The Collapsing Empire is the first book in John Scalzi's The Interdependency series. It won the 2018 Locus Award for Best Novel and was nominated for the 2018 Hugo Award for best novel as well. (Scalzi has won the Best Novel Hugo award before, for Redshirts). The Collapsing Empire is definitely space opera and it is amusing and entertaining, up to a point. The main characters are Cardenia, the "emperox" of the Interdependency (the future form of human civilization), Lord Marce Claremont, a physicist who confirms a important development that will affect humanity's future survival) and Lady Kiva Lagos, a prominent member of a prominent family whose every other word appears to be an expletive. The plot involves various acts of betrayal and intrigue and there's also a fair amount of action and violence. I don't want to give away any aspects of the plot or include spoilers. However,. I must say that the  overall the effect of the book for me is far less memorable than one would expect from such a famous author like Scalzi and for a book which in the grand scheme of things is widely celebrated.  My reaction to Scalzi's work is often hit or miss. As most people would agree, his best book  is Old Man's War, which also happens to be his first published work. Some people would also say it has been downhill from there, in the relative quality of his books. There are multiple sequels to Old Man's War, with most recent entry in the series being The End of all Things (Book 6). I would have thought I would have a good reaction to his Lock In and Head On books, because they are genre-splitters (they are detective books set in a world where the main character has a condition that has him use technology to get over the fact that his body can not move under its own power). But I read about a chapter of Lock In and was just completely uninterested in what the story was about. Happily, The Collapsing Empire was definitely able to hold my attention for the entire book. But the primary feeling I typically have with reading Scalzi is "This is not as funny (or good) as the author thinks it is!" But clearly mine is not a majority view. Many, many people buy his books and they are often nominated for (and win) prestigious awards in the field. But I would say, YMMV (your mileage may vary) or caveat emptor. Title: The Collapsing Empire. Author: John Scalzi. Paperback: 336 pages. Publisher: Tor. Date Published: March 21, 2017. Date Read: July 1, 2017. GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0). OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.3/4.0). PLOT: B+. IMAGERY: A-. IMPACT: B+. WRITING: B.

The nominations for the 2018 Hugo Awards were announced on Saturday March 31. The picks for Best Novel is the category I really only follow and care about. The nominees are:

Best Novel

• The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi (Tor)

• New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)

• Provenance, by Ann Leckie (Orbit)

• Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)

• Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty (Orbit)

• The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

Trident's Forge is the second book in The Children of the Dead Earth series by Patrick S. Tomlinson. I really loved the first book in the series, The Ark, because it was a fast-paced, funny mash-up of mystery-thriller and post-apocalyptic science fiction. It's sequel is a very different book, but with several familiar characters from the first book returning: Bryan "The Zero Hero" Benson, his wife Teresa, their former nemesis Chao Feng, and Bryan's sidekick Pavel Korolev.

Trident's Forge is set three years after the events of The Ark and now the 30,000-member strong remnants of humanity are settling down and surviving on the planet Gaia. It is more than 250 years after a black hole destroyed Earth and forced humanity to abandon our home planet and seek another. The planet we found is inhabited by aliens the humans call Atlantians (and who call themselves the G'tel). I didn't get a good image of the G'tel in my mind's eye but one interesting move by the author is to give the reader point-of-view chapters from the perspective of one of the aliens. The alien in particular, named Kexx, is a "truth-digger" which is an important role in G'tel society (sort of a cross between a religious leader and academic/intellectual). Because the aliens have three genders (although this is not really fully explained that well), Kexx uses the pronouns ze and zer instead of she/he and his/her to describe zer fellow Atlantians. 

Tomlinson has a way of combining action scenes with comedic situations that remind me of John Scalzi (Redshirts) and Wesley Chu (The Rebirths of Tao). I don't know if this is a compliment or a dis (your mileage may vary) but I intend it as a positive recommendation.

The reason why I loved The Ark so much was that the stakes for the characters were so high ( all of humanity is on one ship and the villains want to blow it up with nukes!) and one problem I had with Trident's Forge is that level of tension is not repeated. Yes, Benson is put in one incredibly dangerous situation after the other (and is actually declared dead at one point when his heart stops) but I never believed for a second that the Zero Hero would bite the dust. Thus I think Tomlinson realized he needed to find dramatic tension in different ways and he tried to do so by complicating the political situation at Shambhala, the main colony city for the former Ark residents, with a surprising assassination. 

The best part of Trident's Forge for me is in the interactions between Benson and the aliens as they uncover a sinister plot to exploit the planet Gaia and learn (grudgingly at times) to overcome their differences and suspicions in order to cooperate and survive against common enemies. 

I do love mash-ups, and Trident's Forge has a melange  of a plot combining alien first-contact, frontier intrigue, colony politics, fast-paced action, quirky and irreverent humor and some (minimal) mystery/thriller elements. I am definitely looking forward to the third book in the series, but I hope it is set far enough in the future that maybe Benson is no longer the main character. I also hope that we get a resolution about whether the black hole that destroyed the Earth was a deliberate act and if so, we get to meet those aliens. Now that would be raising the stakes!

Title: Trident's Forge.
Author: Patrick S. Tomlinson.
Paperback: 448 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: April 5, 2016.
Date Read: June 11, 2016.
GOODREADS RATING: ****. (4.25 STARS)

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: B+.

Claire North is the pseudonym of Catherine Webb, who although she is only 28 years old is already the author of sixteen(!) published novels, including two science fiction novels as Claire North: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August in 2014 and Touch in 2015. The former won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 2014, beating out other higher profile books such as The Martian by Andy Weir (probably the best-selling science fiction book of 2014 and soon to be a major motion picture starring Matt Damon), Lock In by John Scalzi, The Peripheral by William Gibson, Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (winner of the 2015 Nebula award) and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (winner of the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke award).

I can see why The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is considered one of the best works of speculative fiction published in 2014. The premise of the book is that when certain people die they live their life over again is a great one. In fact it is so good it has been used before, notably in Ken Grimwood's Replay (which won the 1988 World Fantasy Award.) I had forgotten about Replay but I do remember that although I loved the timeloop concept Grimwood's book seemed a bit dated. There's no question this would make a great movie. In Replay, the main character's time loop starts at age 18, and the loops get shorter and shorter as the story progresses. In Harry August, the time loops go back to birth, but awareness of all one's past lives does not occur until age 5 or 6.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August takes Grimwood's time loop premise and improves it in several, specific ways. First off, there is an organization of ouroborans (i.e. individuals like Harry who relive their lives after "dying" and are also known as kalachakras) called the Cronus Club whom Harry pretty quickly comes into contact with and serves as a support network for creatures like himself. Secondly, North introduces a thriller element to the story by including a megalomaniacal kalachakra who is apparently discovering the birth dates of fellow kalachakras and eliminating them before they can recover their memories or defend themselves. Unsurprisingly, most kalachakras tend to avoid others of their kind (and have low profiles in general), but Harry meets another kalachakra named Vincent Rankis who becomes a frenemy of sorts. The third aspect of the book which raises it to the upper echelon of speculative fiction is the way in which it deals with various aspects of time travel. Basically, kalachakra's repeatedly experience the same time period as they repeat their lives, so they have a limited foreknowledge of the future. By interacting with other kalachakras whose lifetime overlaps with theirs, but whose birth occurs later a kalachakra can obtain information about the far future. This is what happens when a very young girl comes to Harry towards the end of one of his lives and says "the world is ending." In fact, soon it becomes clear that the end of the world is coming about earlier in the future and as Harry continues to live his life (from about 1919 through to about 2010) he notices other changes, like technological advances starting to occur earlier and earlier.
He is pretty sure that Vincent Rankis is involved in making these changes because in addition to being a kalachakra, Rankis (like Harry) has an eidetic memory: he remembers everything that happens to him, in every life. The reader is faced with the question of what you would do if you discovered you were a kalachakra and could live your life over again and again knowing what events would be occurring

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August ends up being a power struggle between Victor and Harry; the reader is exposed to Harry's thoughts and feelings so we are predisposed to be on Harry's side. (He has a wry wit.) In addition, Victor turns out to have a complete disregard for life, both human and ouroboran alike. He creates a device which when applied to a kalachakra, wipes their memory so that even when they are reborn, they are no longer able to access their memories of their past lives, essentially killing them.

Overall, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is a compelling, well-written, very entertaining work of speculative fiction which packs an emotional wallop while it amuses, thrills and challenges the reader.

Title: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.
Author: Claire North.
Paperback: 416 pages.
Publisher: Redhook.
Date Published: April 8, 2014.
Date Read: April 30, 2015.
OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.583/4.0).

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: B.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

Peter F. Hamilton is one of my favorite expositors of modern "hard" science fiction, and he is widely regarded as one of the best (and best-selling) authors in this particular genre. Other names which you may be familiar with are Neal Asher, Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks and Richard K. Morgan. Bizarrely, all these authors are British!

The only American speculative fiction author I have read recently is John Scalzi, who is also well-known for his popular blog Whatever and for being the president of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), the people who put on the Hugo awards.

Hamilton is known for his dense intricate plots, often with a central mystery and a character who neither the audience or the other characters realizes is someone (or something) very different from what they appear to be. He also is known for his intense action scenes and extremely long and satisfying novels.

His most recent book is Great North Road, which is a stand-alone murder mystery cum alien hunt ç. The official synopsis of the book is:

When attending a Newcastle murder scene, Detective Sidney Hurst finds a dead North family clone. Yet none have been reported missing. And in 2122, twenty years ago, a North clone billionaire was horrifically murdered in the same manner on the tropical planet of St Libra. So, if the murderer is still at large, was Angela Tramelo wrongly convicted? She never wavered under interrogation, claiming she alone survived an alien attack. 

Investigating this potential alien threat now becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. St Libran bio-fuel is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. A vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and experts are dispatched to the planet – with Angela Tramelo, grudgingly released from prison. But the expedition is cut off deep within St Libra’s rainforests, and the murders begin. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t sure. Did she see an alien, or does she have other reasons for being on St Libra?

I still count science fiction as my favorite genre, with mystery a close second so I was very happy to hear that Hamilton was combining the two genres in Great North Road.

The results are pretty great, although as a mystery set in 2143, the best parts of the book for me were the science fiction aspects. One feature of Hamilton's writing is that he includes many of the "little" details in how regular people live in a technologically advanced future that we can barely imagine. This allows one to really get a sense of what life could be like in the far future and allows one to identify with the characters whose daily routines we learn the details of.

In Great North Road Hamilton focuses his attention on the familiar police procedures involved in solving a murder mystery when a dead body is found. It would seem this would be an easy task in an era where electronic surveillance is ubiquitous but what we discover is that some of the sensors have "malfunctioned" and the problem becomes one of data analysis. Hamilton is also a master at depicting the internecine politics of human organizations and he does so again here to great effect. Our character Sidney Hurst is a mid-level member of the police department and he is hoping to use his success in investigating this high profile murder case to get ahead professionally.

The other main character is Angela Tramelo, and her story plays out on the planet of St. Libra like something from Predator or Aliens. However, as the expedition proceeds dead bodies start appearing with increasing regularity and the suspense slowly starts to ratchet it up to intense levels, especially after an extensive flashback reveals a lot more about Angela's backstory.

The combination of the two stories (the thrilling alien adventure story and the futuristic police procedural) makes Great North Road a compelling read that will appeal to readers who love various genres.

Title: Great North Road.
Author: Peter F. Hamilton.
Paperback: 976 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: January 1, 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

In a not too surprising result, John Scalzi's comedic sci-fi novel Redshirts won the Award for Best Novel at the 2013 Hugo Awards at Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas this weekend. I had blogged about the nominations list when they were announced in April and lamented that his book was the only title I had even heard of. I didn't say then but I still think that James S.A. Corey's Caliban's War was the best science fiction book released in 2012. On the strength of the fact that all three of her books in her "Newsflesh" series have been nominated, I picked up Mira Grant's Feed and read it in electronic form. It was fine but I don't feel the desire to finish the series.

Anyway, Scalzi is very well-known in the sci-fi community and relatively prolific. He just finished serving a term as President of the Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA), which runs the Hugo's, so it is somewhat fitting that he won. As he points out in his very popular blog, Whatever, he was also entering Susan Lucci category because even though he had previously won 2 Hugo awards, he was already at 0 for 6 in nominations in the fiction categories. including 3 nominations for Best Novel (Old Man's War, The Last Colony, Zoe's War). Generally his work is a bit too "light" for my taste but Old Man's War is a brilliant concept, reasonably well-executed and his books do bring something rare to science fiction, which is humor. I may just check out Redshirts (in paperback) sometime soon.

The 2013 Hugo nominations (for books generally released in 2012) have been announced, and the nominations are:

Best Novel (1,113 ballots)2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
Blackout by Mira Grant (Orbit)
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor)
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (DAW)

Tor.com has been running a poll of the best science fiction/fantasy books published between 2000-2010 (not really a decade) and now the results of the Top 10 are out:

1. Old Man’s War by John Scalzi - 295 votes
2. American Gods by Neil Gaiman - 270 votes
3. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - 231 votes
4. Blindsight by Peter Watts - 221 votes
5. Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey - 194 votes
6. A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin - 179 votes
7. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke - 167 votes
8. Anathem by Neal Stephenson - 141 votes
9. Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson - 125 votes
10. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville - 124 votes

Of these Top 10, the only ones I have not read is #4, #5 and #9. I actually tried reading Blindsight but could not get past the first chapter or so. I've only recently heard of Mistborn and Kushiel's Dart. They are both high fantasy novels. Since I generally prefer science fiction, they will be lower on my list to be read in the future. Currently, I'm in the middle of reading the Saga of the Pliocene War series by Julian May and looking forward to reading The Wise Man's Fear by Rothfuss in the next few weeks.

You can click on the highlighted titles to see my reviews of those books; I am still working on reviews for American Gods and A Storm of Swords.

I am pleased to see that so many books that I have liked on this list but I strongly disagree with the Top choice (I would probably place Rothfuss' book there if I was restricted to this list of 10). I'm also very surprised not to see any books by Peter F. Hamilton or Alastair Reynolds.

The nominations for the 2009 Nebula Awards for best work in speculative fiction were announced on Friday.

The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Nightshade, Sep09)
The Love We Share Without Knowing, Christopher Barzak (Bantam, Nov08)
Flesh and Fire, Laura Anne Gilman (Pocket, Oct09)
The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey, May09)
Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor, Sep09)
Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland Press, Oct09)

The only one of these that I have even heard of is China Miéville's The City & The City, which I recently reviewed. Last year's winner was Ursula K. LeGuin's Powers (which I have also previously reviewed). The top awards in science fiction writing are the Hugo Awards (voted on by fans) and the Nebula Awards (voted on by authors).

A rare number of books have won both awards, and they are often some of my favorite reads.

Orson Scott Card, author of the multiple award-winning Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead among other acclaimed works of speculative fiction, has recently published an anti-gay diatribe in the Mormon Times which is getting noticed by an influential gay blog, AfterElton.com as well as on the popular Whatever blog by science fiction author John Scalzi. Scalzi says it best for many:

Speaking as one of the heterosexually-married people OSC clearly hopes will respond to this clarion call of his, I have to say to him: Dude, no. Just, no. On the list of government actions that have genuinely threatened the well-being of the United States over the years, same-sex marriage is probably about number 36,000, wedged between cashmere subsidies and funding for whatever set of still pictures Ken Burns is slow-panning across on PBS this next year. On the other hand, initiatives intended to cancel out existing marriages and deprive citizens of rights they already have under law jump up to near the top of the list of things I personally worry about tearing at the national fabric. Call it a difference in perspective.

However, the AfterElton staff is not as forgiving:

I’ve read almost all of Card’s books, some of which are excellent and a few of which even include somewhat sympathetic portrayals of gay people. But I’ll never give another cent to this paranoid, delusional man.

[...]

Card has been saying outrageous, openly bigoted things about gays for years. But he has received little mainstream criticism, and major media players such as Marvel Comics, Warner Brothers, and Card's publisher Tom Doherty Associates continue to work with him.

Earlier this year, Card was given the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award by the Young Adults Library Services Association for his contributions to young adult literature. As my author friend David Levithan argued at the time, would they have given the award to an author who is as openly racist or sexist as Card is homophobic? Would an author who advocates a return to South Africa's apartheid be welcome at an awards ceremony anywhere other than a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan?

Orson Scott Card is a hateful, dangerous man. It’s high time more people treat him as such.

And Paul Constant over at Slog in a piece entitled "Let’s Call a Jackass a Jackass" is trying to publicize "Orson Scott Card is a hateful homophobe." Mad Professah agrees.