Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

I am excited to finally get a chance to read this...I loved the first book, especially the foul-mothed Lady Kiva!

Who's joining in?

Who wrote it? Scalzi?

I just read this a few weeks ago. Awesome! Lady Kiva is back as loud and rude as ever. She was my favorite character!

This book is Scalzi at his best. I loved it. More of the nastily interesting political maneuvering of The Collapsing Empire, with some wonderful world-building of the pre-Interdependency days, which is fascinating.

TCF is a very good book indeed. Scalzi gives us an interesting story with lots of action, plot twists, interesting characters, and some humor.
Like some others in our group, my favorite character is the very profane and totally badass Kiva Lagos.

Got to love Kiva Lagos!

and I sure did--this was even better than the first one!

I am chiming in late, but read this entire trilogy this year. The first two were both rounded up to 4 stars for me.

I don't think we have a topic for the last book: The Last Emperox. It left me with a lot of questions, if anyone has read it:

(view spoiler)[
Grayland was made into an AI. In the book there are only two others besides her we are made aware of: Rachela and Cheynert. Scalzi glossed over how this was done. I guess we are to assume the machine that does so is in the Memory Room? Or that it's not much more complicated than a software upgrade to the implants already in Grayland's head?

Did Grayland actually need to die to accomplish her goals? Being made a martyr surely expedites the process, but I'm not convinced it was necessary. She could have done all the data dumping with Rachela's help, and surely there was enough dirt on Nadashe to persuade everyone she shouldn't be emperox.

I was a little disappointed by the lack of exploration of the pre-Interdependency data Marce received from Grayland. It was stated that this data was poorly used by their ancestors but with little details as to how, aside from the general Rupture/exodus from Earth.

In Chapter 13, Cardenia says to Rachela: "Once they [scientists] start working with the [pre-Interdependency Flow] data, they'll see the implications of it. Nothing stays a secret." What does she mean? The ability to manipulate Flows, which could cause a Rupture-like crisis?

In Chapter 24, the last chapter, Rachela asks Cardenia: "If I do decide to leave you one day, will you think of me?" How could she leave? And what precipitates this question?

What was the point of reuniting the Nohamapetan family? There doesn't seem to be any reason to put them all together. I guess they didn't want to just kill them and this was sort of a prison? It also felt like an awkward note to end on.

I wish the conclusion had been fleshed out more: I would have liked to have seen it furthered in an epilogue, in which Flow mechanics had been figured out to move habitats through. There's actually room for a whole 'nother book here.
(hide spoiler)]

Ryan wrote: "I don't think we have a topic for the last book: The Last Emperox. It left me with a lot of questions, if anyone has read it:
..."

Slightly spoilery perhaps so ...
(view spoiler)[I enjoyed The Last Emperox, but I thought it the weakest of the trilogy -- an honor usually bestowed on a middle book. It has the trademark snappy Scalzi dialog of course, and Kiva Lagos saves the book. But I was left with a lot of why, what, and how questions running in my head. (hide spoiler)]