I finished the new Scalzi, Collapsing Empire. It wasn't that great. I'm disappointed. It's the lead in book to a new universe, but I'm not entirely sure I care about the universe presented. The central conceit -- that the Flow, a series of connections in brane space is collapsing, dooming an intergalactic empire -- is interesting enough, but the society itself is pretty boring, as are most of the characters. There was no one here I really cared about, one way or the other. There are a couple of mildly entertaining assholes, but that's about it. The worst part is, though, that it really feels like a prologue. Unlike something like Ancillary Justice, which described a much different world than ours, but still managed to make the book a complete, coherent story, Scalzi is really just serving up a primer on his universe, in which very little happens.
So yeah, not that great.
I started New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson, which, even though it takes place on Earth, has a much more plausible and strange society in it's first dozen pages than Scalzi manages in the entire book. It's a great read so far, and very much a KSR novel. Big ideas, lots of people, amused, wry takes about how fucked we all are, etc.
