The Last Emperox by John Scalzi

[lightreads]

The Last Emperox

3/5. Conclusion to this space opera trilogy about a far future space empire collapsing as its wormholes close.

This book operates at the stakes of billions of people starving to death, but tonally it's pitched more like oh no, what if Starbucks doesn't have the muffin I want. This is not a criticism. Fun, diverse, snarky, with no shame about skipping over five hundred pages of plot in a few pages of cheerful tell tell tell. Even the gut punch at the end is deliberately pulled so it's more of a hard shove. Sometimes that's all you want.

Content notes: Major character death, sort of.

Comments

[readerjane]

I like Scalzi's blogging and Twitter feed very much, so it took me several tries to admit to myself that his books just leave me... meh. You're right, he pulls his punches and that can be fine if one is in the right mood for it. Mostly it frustrates me. Because I keep having the feeling that he's capable of something a lot more powerful, but just doesn't feel like digging that deep.

[lightreads]

Yeah, the thing I thought about this whole series -- perhaps wrongly -- is how easy it must have been to write. Not just because it's short, but because it skips over a lot of the more complicated and nuanced stuff in favor of what, for me, is easier to write: snark and banter. Though really, I hear he makes quite a good living, so more power to him, I guess.