The Last Emperox

John Scalzi
Completed 8/14/2021, Reviewed 8/14/2021
4 stars

This was a very satisfying ending to the Interdependency trilogy.  It’s a very exciting space opera, which for me is quite a compliment.  It follows the same basic format, with most of the chapters being of the voice of the three main characters, Cardenia, Marce, and Kiva.  The book has a lot more long explanations of what’s happening, but I found it reasonable and informative.  Some people might find it to be too much exposition, but it’s Scalzi, so even the exposition is filled with tongue-in-cheek dark humor.  I’ve become quite a fan of his over the years, and look forward to the other books I have of his in my TBR pile.  

The format is pretty much the same as in the previous two books, The Collapsing Empire and The Consuming Fire.  Cardenia, the emperox, is trying to save humanity from the collapsing interdependency, the massive hyperspace links between the worlds and space stations that humanity lives upon.  The problem is that only one of these worlds, known as End, can support human life without outside and artificial support.  The nobles believe in the collapse now that it has actually begun, but rather than saving humanity, they want to save themselves by getting to End and leaving the rest of humanity to die out.  Cardenia is focused on saving all humanity.  For this, she becomes the target of another assassination and coup plan.  Her constant nemesis, Nadashe is once again behind it all, but it looks like this time, she wants to claim the throne for herself.  Marce, who is now Cardenia’s lover, is trying to help her with the physics, and Kiva works with her to outsmart Nadashe.  In typical space opera style, nothing works out easily and the last third of the book is filled with crazy twists and turns.

The character development is all pretty solid at this point.  I was pretty invested in the heroic trio and was loving how much I hated Nadashe.  The world building is also pretty well set by this point too.  What really got me about the book was how well Scalzi was able to concoct yet another coup and assassination attempt.  At one point, I did think, “Hmmm, just another coup”, but I really enjoyed the plotting by the bad guys.  

Not much else to say about this book, because it would be filled with spoilers.  It concludes the series in very much the same style as the first two books, though maybe a little heavier on the exposition.  But as I said, I enjoyed the descriptions and the snark that Scalzi is so famous for.  I give this book and the series as a whole four stars out of five.